Tales of Badges

Connecting people at conventions through the love of cosplay

What is cosplay?

Cosplay is the art of becoming of one’s favorite character from anime, television, and comic books, and other pop culture icons. Cosplayers gather (5.5 million in the United States alone) at conventions across the world to share their passion with the world and find other people who share their love.

Cosplay in action – Britain and USA from Axis Powers Hetalia (from Genericon 2010).

And what problem does this design solve?

“While I love to cosplay, I want people to engage with me and the love of my character, but I am often uncomfortable in front of other people while in character.”

This quote from one of my interviews gave me the insight to create something that would allow him (and others) to be comfortable in character (and have more fun, too).

What drives this human interaction?

I started by attempting to understand what makes people interact with cosplayers by performing the following research:

Observing and learning from observers of cosplayers

Watching people interact with a life-size cardboard cutout of a cosplayer

Watching how people talk about cosplayers

Leading a focus group on observers and cosplay

I staged two “encounters” for observers to interact with cosplayers to see how they react to them. I supplemented this experiment by conducting a focus group of individuals who go to specific events (called conventions) where they have interacted with cosplayers firsthand.

I learned the following from this research:

1. Observers would only interact with cosplays that were familiar or piqued their interest
2. Observers who thought the quality of the costume was exceptional would also create an opportunity to interact with the cosplayer

Conducting interviews with cosplayers

During this time, I also conducted interviews of five cosplayers to understand their motivations for cosplay, why they enjoy this activity, and what causes them to interact with others while in character.

“Everyone has a reason to cosplay – whether it’s to fit in or it’s to break out of their introversion. When I wear a costume, I am much more social and people just come to me. It’s a confidence booster that makes me stay physically fit.”

This quote from one of my interviews gave me an insight I had not seen yet. I then decided to try cosplaying myself to learn more and become inspired about creating potential solutions.

Trying out cosplay for myself

I learned how to sew from my friends and put together my own costume.

It was much more difficult than I had anticipated, but I was able to assemble all of the pieces of my character and travel to a convention to try out cosplay and see what I could learn from the experience firsthand.

I spent one day at a convention to play the role of “observer”

I spent one day at a convention to play the role of “cosplayer”

I was also fortunate to speak to other cosplayers at a panel

By attending a convention, what I had learned from my interviews, experiments, and focus group was confirmed. I also saw an opportunity for a design solution, as observers would take pictures of well-done costumes (whether familiar to them or not) and interact with each other as if they were close friends.

Sketching ways to solve the problem

With this information I had learned from my user research and firsthand exposure to the problem space, I began sketching ways to solve the problem.

A smartphone app could recognize a costume. When a picture is taken, the observer can get an opportunity to learn about the character and cosplay.

While this wasn’t the only concept I had made, it seemed like the most logical and natural solution because it provided an opportunity for people to interact with the unknown in a new, almost magical way, that didn’t take away from the experience of going to a convention.

How the experience would work

This design may seem rather simple, but the design would actually be doing the following on behalf of the observer:

1. The design would use image recognition on the costume to find the character and cosplayer
2. The design would also look up information about the character and the cosplayer in real-time to support and continue the interaction between observer and cosplayer

Prototyping the experience on paper

To validate my assumptions about the design approach, I made a paper prototype of the experience to see if the solution would match the needs of observers.

I had participants select a cosplayer

Participants would pull up their phone and take a picture

And I would play the computer to show the participant a snapshot of the experience

After multiple rounds of testing, I learned the following:

1. The core experience worked well and was fun for the observer
2. Each observer had different needs to learn about the character (some wanted a full description, some wanted to know about the cosplayer, and others wanted the universe they were from and the character
3. Observers wanted to leave feedback and appreciation for a job well done

Testing a more refined experience

In addition to testing the experience on paper, I invited four additional participants to test the experience. I asked them to take a photo and leave a comment of each cosplayer. You can try the experience, too.

Cosplayer 1
Cosplayer 2
Cosplayer 3

And what did participants think?

1. “The design made me more confident and adds more emphasis to the cosplay. It’s more exciting for the person who is cosplaying – that’s the big thing.”

2. “It would be handy to have this at a con because I don’t know them all. If you can use an iPhone, you can use this.”

Participants were also excited to have a means to learn about the people around them at the convention, learn about new characters, and make new friends.