Description

Use the principles of steganography to encode a secret message that can be decoded. When I grew up as a child, my family had secret locations for storing and hiding certain objects. Specific positioning of these objects had meaning and signficance that only members of our family could understand. For example, when there was a yellow rubberduck inside the terracotta plant vase left to the door of our house, it meant that my mom wasn't at home and that the keys were hidden beneath the vase. This kind of culture also applied to my grandmother, who would hide her keys inside an old shoe box next to her garden so that any visiting family members could wait inside. I adapted this as my personal form of steganography, which is a way for me to recognize if anyone came into my room when I wasn't present. More specifically, if my cat had come in and taken anything away from my desk. I usually organize objects on my desk in a linear manner and everything has its own unique spot where it belongs to. When I see that something is out of line, I can guess that my family members or my cat (most likely) was using my desk and if anything is missing, I know where I should go to find it.

Design Process

I tried to portray my desk and how I organize my belongings. Everything on the desk lined up, with the exception of the pencil at an odd angle. This would make me wonder if anyone was in my room looking for something or if my cat jumped on my desk and messed up the orientation of things. I tried to demonstrate my thought process on the computer screen. When you hover on top of the pencil, the screen saver disappears and question marks appear on the screen. When you click on the pencil, the pencil goes back to a horizontal position which is how I would re-organize it, and the computer screen reveals that a cat entered the room. In terms of coding, although there weren't many places that I could utilize loops, I incorporated them when creating multiple copies of the same form, such as the grid pattern on the wall paper, the drawers and the drawer handles.

Reflection

I used to frequently use this form of personal steganography when I was young in order to immediately recognize if my brother took any of my favorite stationary or books without permission. It now resides in my memory as a playful experience, so I tried approaching the execution in a joyful way. For example, the illustrations are colorful and the cat that supposedly entered the room appears as a surprise on the picture frame when the pencil is pressed. Although others may be unable to notice anything odd, to me the positioning of objects is a direct signal that can communicate something different and unusual. As a result, this is an intimate code and is mostly relatable to myself, and perhaps my family members as well because they have also experienced it with me.