Concealed-Message Card with Removable Covering for Emotional Surprise
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional message-delivery mediums, such as cards and gifts, lack the ability to create unexpected emotional surprises or contrasts for the receiver, failing to effectively promote personal relationships and emotional connections between the sender and receiver.
Innovation Solution
A message-delivery medium with concealed information that includes a message carrier with both visible and hidden message elements, where a removable non-transparent covering element conceals the hidden message, allowing the receiver to experience planned emotional reactions upon revealing it, and a message-informing device provides insight into the concealed message for consumer awareness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If all messages are directly presented on the surface of the card, then the receiver can directly read all messages, but the receiver cannot experience unexpected surprises
Solution Approach 1:
The message is segmented into visible and concealed portions. The card surface is divided into areas with different transparency levels, allowing the receiver to read some messages directly while keeping other messages hidden until a specific action (removing the covering element) is performed.
Solution Approach 2:
A removable covering element with selective transparency is introduced as an intermediary between the receiver and the concealed message. This mediator controls the flow of information by being removable, allowing the receiver to choose when and what to reveal.
2Loss of information
If conventional scratch cards use concealed-message design, then prizes or confidential data are concealed, but personal connection and emotional interaction are not promoted
Solution Approach 1:
The concealed-message design is adapted from commercial use (scratch cards for prizes) to personal use (emotional connection). The same technical mechanism serves multiple functions: concealing information and fostering personal interaction through controlled revelation.
Solution Approach 2:
The transparency parameter of the covering element is changed from opaque (concealing) to transparent (revealing) through removal. This parameter change controls the emotional experience by timing the revelation of messages.
3Loss of information
If a removable covering element is used to conceal messages, then emotional surprises are created, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The covering element is extracted as a separate, removable component from the card structure. This allows the concealment function to be added without fundamentally redesigning the entire card, maintaining simplicity while enabling emotional surprises.
Data Source
AI summary
A message-delivery medium with concealed information functions as a tool to promote personal relationships and connections between a sender and receiver, and comprises a message carrier and removable covering element. The message carrier carries an integrated message, which is known and designed/planned beforehand by the sender, and which contains a multiple of interrelated message elements having relativity and connectivity with each other. The message elements include at least one visible message and at least one concealed message that is hidden, yet known to the sender, such as a key message and/or an answer. The removable covering element is integrated with the surface of the message carrier, and hides the concealed message that is intentionally chosen to be hidden, thus preventing the receiver to see the concealed message. The receiver experiences feelings and/or emotional reactions planned, designed or expected by the sender, before, during and after removing the covering element.