The coffee table was designed with a touch screen built in the middle of the table. It allows a patron to invite other customs to play online games in the coffee shop. The table can serve as an “ice breaker” for strangers to talk with each other and therefore reduce the loneliness of people in public places.

 

I did field studies and interviews to understand the potential users. I found that coffee shop customers played games such as chess and scrabble in the traditional way. It implied their need to entertain themsevles with games in a cafe. So I designed the prototype of a game-embedded coffee table. The prototype was designed using Autodesk Maya and Adobe Photoshop. 

 

I have also worked on a research paper on how games help with relationship building in public spaces which was inspired by the design the coffee table.