Workshop Prototyping

During the week the girls from our group managed to get some prototyping done in the workshop producing a number of our considered shapes and forms.

When prototyping these designs it was brought to our attention that there were  a number of design flaws that would not cater to our requirements per the user needs.

The C clap concept for attachment of the wristband to the wrist was deemed too flimsy and easily removed when moving through a large crowd.

This final image is the best looking form and design from those that were prototyped and we will aim to improve and develop this shape and form further in group discussions and meetings. 

Steve drew up the above image later on expressing a form of 'securing' idea he had for the wristband, one that he was influenced by through the design and functionality of cable ties. this initiative and application of an existing system referred to as 'linear ratchet systems' could be the solving of our difficulty in providing a wristband that can be secured and loosened over the course of a festival and its harsh conditions. Good Job Steven ;) !

Cashless Festival support?

As a group we were discussing possible features to add to our concept outside the OBS project requirements to make the product more appealing to the users and also the festival organizers alike.

I remembers a few years ago seeing a program about 'Cashless Events' and how there was technology coming into place that would allow the printing of microchips onto wristbands and allow users to store cash on those chips and then use the wristband at events to pay for food and beverages etc, eliminating the risk of theft or loss of wallets, but also providing faster services with eliminating the need to receive change every purchase.

The wristband payment method works much in the same way as modern day 'swipe and pay' with debit and visa cards around Australia work now. The user simply swipes his wristband over the stalls receiver and the device removes the amount electronically.

Through some brief time between completing my other projects due this week I managed to do a little research and find some websites with information regarding the technology.

RFID Wristbands is a company in the UK that produces and maintains these devices for large scale events and festivals - exactly what we'd be after. 

An article  written on the wristbands and their potential impacts and benefits.

Below are some images of current wristbands boasting the technolgy;

As you can tell the bands are still aesthetically pleasing to the eye and by no means seem too bulky or uncomfortable in comparison to current bland basic festival and event wristbands.

Ive already mentioned this idea to the group and everyone seems pretty keen with the concept so I think we will include this added feature and functionality into our design for the final presentation.

Project Update

As the end of the semester draws closer we are unfortunately all swamped by the workloads of 2 other group projects and the additional minor. with deadlines almost every week for major percentage assignments its made it really hard to do any extra research into our concept direction and consideration. having said that though I did manage to do some exploration into potential methods to join the wristband/have it be able to tighten and loosen.

Below are some images I obtained off the internet exploring various wristband attachment methods;

Survey

As mentioned last week here is a copy of the survey we discussed to get a better understanding of how our display and interactive aspects of our band could be interpreted by a user related to our context. 

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Q1–Please select which action that you associate with the differing lights:

Slow flashing lights, fast flashing lights

Dancing, sitting down, relaxing,movement.

Q2-Please select which colours you associate with close proximity, medium proximity and long distance:

 
Q3- Would it bother you to be wearing a wrist band for the full festival duration (1-4 days potentially) without removal?

Yes/No

Q4- After the festival would you keep the band for sentimental reasons?

Yes/No

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After asking a number of friends of mine that have been to festivals before, and then discussing with the group about their results, we decided that there were a few issues with the display, particularly the vast option for colours relating to proximity. Other interesting results coming from the other group members serveys was that the individuals they asked said they would prefer to remove a wristband during the duration of a festival, whereas the individuals I asked said that it hadnt really occurred to them and that it didnt matter to them either way. This is an interesting point to consider because as we are designing to please users, we have to consider the way the product may not please someones needs.

Week 12 - Defining the product and its application to the context and a concept

This week we spent discussing and developing the aesthetics related to the box, or area in which the individuals would create their team or group of members. As we had done some independently consideration of this before we met this week we produced our designs and opening discussed the features we liked or didn't like.

Below are some conceptual pages showing the considerations of the box done by the group members;

Steve:

I didnt bring any drawings of the box to the meeting this week but i didnt bring some concepts for the wristband;

We discussed our developments with Leo when he came around to see us in class. He helped clarify some aspects and design features that we should consider from this week onwards, and they included defining our storyboard a bit better to highlight the interactivness required by this product more and how they may be different between user to device, user to user or device to user.

so as a group we started to storyboard further looking into the sequence of use for our product and identifying key needs, features and properties for the device.

these properties included the band being weather/water resistant, recyclable and cheap to manufacture/run, comfortable for the user to interact with and wear constantly and the durability of the band to account for the context and nature of the users.

it was also noted that the wristband should be secure to the wrist, but easy to remove if need be, but not so easy to be removed in a busy group of people like a mosh-pit. 

As a result of these developments and the presentation deadline drawing near we set some deliverables for next weeks meeting. This included consideration into how the band will be fastened to the user and the filling out of the survey we designed to gain feedback regarding our proposed interface display, helping to make it as simplistic as possible to understand.  

PS today was my Birthday - YAY!!

Week 11; Independant Research + meeting with group and Further Development

Today I started some independantly research into the potential context for our newly chosen concept direction - festivals. Having been to a number of festivals in my lifetime I can relate on a personal level the potential this conceptual direction has for being successful, as too can the other group members as they too have been to a number of festivals themselves.

Below are a list of a few of the major festivals in Australia and their respective logos;

Splendour in the Grass;

Parklife;

Sterosonic;

Soundwave;

Big Day Out;

Falls Festival;

A number of the festivals use connection and relation with nature in their logos and advertising posters, this is possibly related to the fact that these festivals are held in areas as such, like Falls Festival is held out the back of Lorne, Victoria in bushland. Splendour in the Grass is held in the fields of Woodford and Byron.

These potential environments and elements they have to offer may need to be considered late on when designing our chosen product.

Through my brief research looking into the context of our product I thought of a number of inclusions we could incorporate for our product;

Considerations we already have;
locating friends at the festival
finding friends that are dancing

Considerations I looked at;
locating friends on the way to the festival - ensuring everyone arrives together and enters the venue together
providing information or news - weather? bands? (unlikely due to the restriction of not being able to include interactive screens on the product)

When I meet with the group again I will bring forward these thoughts and hopefully we will start getting somewhere with the design of the product.

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Today was a productive day as we really began to understand the products purpose and offerings for the user. We narrowed down its features and functionality to;

Expressing a dancing individual through colour variation of the LEDs
Expressing a static individual through colour variation of the LEDs
Expressing directional location of an individual
Expressing the distance of an invdividual through changing the intensity of the LEDs relating to proximity

Another output consideration was vibration, but that was quickly scrapped due to the nature of the environment (loud music = vibrations) so it would be too confusing for a user to gauge whether the device was communicating with them or whether it was just their surroundings.

From here we started to mock up some concepts for shape and form as well as display ideas. Yasu came around just as we started to conceptually design our intentions and luckily he did because he pointed out a number of factors that we overlooked. One of the issues he picked up on was the use of flashing LEDs to translate proximity, stating (obvious now you think of it) that it would be difficult to gauge the communication of the device and the LED intensity in an outdoor setting.

Yasu didnt only point out our flaws, he also approved some of the other design considerations we had as a group, like the use of a docking station in which the individuals would allign or sync their devices to form their group. He explained that the technology behind this process would be to assign each device a unique ID code related to that group, so whether it was 3 devices or 50 devices in a group, the technology could support our design intention. YAY!!!

After we cleared those things up we decided to fix the issues he pointed out, so back to the drawing board it was (even though we didnt really get a chance pre Yasu's arrival haha). We looked at coming up with alternative ways to expressing proximity of another user to an individual. 

Below are some images of group discussion conceptual workings and Hannahs and Steves individual ideas;

This first image shows the groups decision of having proximity expressed through colour variation instead of light intensity. A wise altercation I think.

Group influenced consideration of proximity display for location on the device

Hannahs conceptual shape considerations for the wristband

Group in a messy pile working hard to develop our concept - Good job team!

Steves conceptual design for the display and what it is it would be communicating

As a group we then began to look at the storyboard for the 'life' of our product, how it would get into the users hands and how it would be used throughout the day and other possible design inclusions or features we may see relevant along the way. 

below is an image drawn by Hannah as the group openly discussed; how the user obtains our product, how they might interact with it, what they do when they dont want it or have no use for it anymore and the potential different scenarios of use.

Hannahs lovely scribing abilities

Storyboard

Week 11; Tutorial - Return from Break; New Path and New Direction; Festivals

From today's tutorial we met together as a group once more and brought forward our thoughts regarding our at home research and conceptual design into the topic, and as a group, decided that we needed to get away from the intended direction of 'Arriving Home'. 

Personally I'm happy we did, as based on what I could come up with my own methods of research and concept developing/inspiration, it just wasn't there, I think as a group we weren't understanding the direction as best as we needed too, and therefore we just weren't motivated enough. I know I wasn't. 

So having that in mind and getting it off all our chests we then took a couple of minutes to look at what concepts we did come up with and how they could be used differently in context and application. 

Joeys concept of a wristband had the most potential to be applied in other scenarios outside our original context of 'Arriving Home' so as a group we decided to brainstorm the possibilities of different applications and potential for 'Sensing the News'.

Going off this we looked into Joeys concept of the wristband and her context application of a concert. He concept was that the wristband would communicate to her friend who she was listening to - picking up the sounds of the band playing. This was a great place to start as the context of a festival or concert has so much potential with communicating news.

We decided to quickly brainstorm for 15minutes where we saw the newly proposed concept and context application going. So, stemming off my ideas from the previous concept consideration, I decided to explore the option of a device in a festival senario that communicates location between two users. However, it was quickly brought to my attention by the group that that communication is just a GPS, and it doesnt really address the OBS of the project; fair enough.

I then decided, still taking influences from my older ideas that these devices at a festival could communicate the speed in which someone is trying to find someone else - this lead to the development of the function not being speed but potentially another form of movement that would communicate news between individuals.

We again discussed these options and somehow, through verbal brainstorming, landed on a functionality of letting users know who is dancing. From here we considered the purpose of communicating this news between individuals and seeked to see if it had any real relevance in context; we thought it did.

Our reasoning was that when at a festival, if you get separated from a friend or choose to go see another band etc, then it would be useful and relevant information to know if your friend is dancing or having fun. The only issue with this is not being able to find them...

Re-enter the GPS feature; by showing individuals where a friend is located and how they are dancing could be seen as useful information. The only issue at this point is how to make the communication of this information seamless and use gestures as possible methods of interaction.

As we continued to brainstorm various ideas and context implications we were running out of time in the tutor; we decided to go away and do some research ourselves into festivals for context and the potential user group we would aim to target, and then we would meet up again next week to discuss our findings and communicate any developments we may have designed.