Week 8 - Further Concept Direction Development and Consideration

This weeks tutorial saw the group look towards further developing our concept direction. 

As last week was spent at the LifeTec expedition we didnt have the chance to sit down and fully discuss our research from the week before. However with the beauty of technology and social media we were able to roughly voice our findings or concerns ahead of todays tutorial, and luckily we did. 

As a group we all came to essentailly the same conclusion in one way or another, through either a lack of motivation or inspiration for the current chosen direction of 'Music Event News', or whether it was from our research finding the vast number of existing products and methods currently used and practiced around Brisbane and for that matter the rest of the world. after discussing the future of this idea, and realising the majority of our designs would lead to either an Application design for a smart phone, or if we managed to design a hand held device etc, then it would just become a pain in the arse for the user to carry around and use, when in fact they'd spend a lot of the time wondering why said device wasn't just implemented into their smart phones - thus hitting a dead end.

So, in light of the matter and the discussions, we all agreed it was in our best interests to scrap that idea and progress onto something potentially more realistic and more possible to carry out under the requirements of the semesters project. 

To get the ball rolling again we went back to the drawing board and brainstorming to find some inspiration and potential context or direction... instead of running around in circles around the whole 'News' thing, even though it was the brief, we decided to go back to design basics and look at Daily Activities and the different personas that carry out those activities and how they differ. We selected four main personas for this consideration, and they consisted of

A tradesman (tradie)

A school child

A Uni student

An elderly person

We then assigned these persona's to each member in the group and went away planing out 'A typical life in the day of ...", I was tasked with looking into a typical school child's day, while Steve looked at typical day of a tradesman, Joey the Uni student, and Hannah looked at the elderly person. 

So I set about brainstorming on what I interpreted as a typical school child's day. The child was around 12 years old and had to commute to school daily without his parents via public transport. He had many friends and enjoyed hanging out and mucking around after school with them a lot. His parents worked during the day, but his mother was only part time and was home early afternoon to prepare dinner etc for the family. He had 2 older siblings, a brother and a sister who were aged 15 and 17.

Below shows an image taken of my initial brainstorming of the child's typical day;

After we brought forward our brainstorming activities to the rest of the group members it was clear to notice the similarities amongst our 'day in the life of' and they were the details surrounding leaving home and coming home. From here we decided to focus on the concept of 'Arriving home' and then tried to apply potential devices and concepts to this scenario still focusing on our assigned user.

I decided to look at a potential device that could notify their parents, or anyone at home of the child's location, and then their eagerness to return home - helping to show emotion to the parents awaiting their arrival;

Below are some images showing further brainstorming around potential devices a school child could utilize and apply to the scenario of 'Arriving Home';

Looking at who is notified by the device, how it might convey emotion, the input requirements and possibilities

Further consideration of suiting the users wishes - potential embarrassment attached to using the device, potential to convey messages within the home too - location pin point, updates automatic for safety and potential input changes of gestures or emoticons

From these progressive brainstorming sessions I then began to roughly sketch and consider some concepts for application, aiming mainly to see how realistic my specifications were, and also to get a sense of the potential form and shape this device would take - helping to determine if it was realistic and practical for application. 

Below are some images taken of my roughly drawn concept considerations;

Device attaches to the child's backpack and notifies the parents of their location - air travels through an opening communicating the speed of their movements - to show their eagerness to return home and potential emotion attached

Alternatively the device could measure shakes or movements to measure the child's increase movement/activity

Bracelet/Belt with predetermined emotive icons (emoticons) and a green/red light - child presses symbol related to their mood and its communicated to a device in the household - when the message is received acknowledge then the green light lights up to show the child they're being heard

Below are some images from the other group members showing their concepts for their user as a result of their brainstorming;

Hannah - elderly person;

Visitors and how they may communicate their arrival - motion sensor for waving = 'Hello' - colours associated with members of the family flash

Steve - tradesman; 

Glove to be worn when driving - measures pressure exerted on the steering wheel to communicate to the other person of their location - gripping strengths communicate emotion as well - strong = angry/anxious

Instead of a glove the steering wheel could be covered in a cover providing the same purpose and containing the same technology and intentions as the glove concept

After the sharing of our concepts as a group we then reassess our direction and current project concept of 'Arriving home'. Unfortunately it was again agreed that this direction might not have enough depth for us to explore successfully for the next 6-8 weeks and develop into a final project and concept. We did however take the idea of the journey and leaving place A to go to place B and the potential of following this notion. 

As a result we decided that we will stick on the path of conveying emotionally the 'Arriving home/announcing arrival' theme and concept.

Hopefully next week we will have more definitive direction and definition into this notion and we aim to bring further concept consideration and proposals for the chosen theme/direction.