Weekly assessment

There are 27 posts filed in Weekly assessment ( this is page 4 of 6).

The Importance of Shadowing

Michael Flomen - Littoral Zone 11

At the end of March I made a survey where I asked several questions about environment, social networks and phone cases. One of my last question was:

Do you consider your phone case as:
a way to express your style?
a way to protect your smartphone?

I was surprised by the answer. 99% of the 80 people who took the survey answered that it was mostly a tool to protect their smartphone. Before, I really thought that it was a way to protect the smartphone but also a way to express our personality (colors, shapes, excentric cases). This made me think of considering the phone case I wanted to create as useful object to protect both the smartphone and the environment.

Recently I decided to pay more attention to the way people use their smartphones in the daily life: at home, in the street, while driving, in the subway, at work. My main motivation was that since I wanted to use the back of the smarthpone I needed to see if it was oftenly covered or hidden.

How are their hands placed arround the phone when they text of when they call someone.
How is their smartphone placed on the table ? Face down or up ?
What part is mostly hidden ?

I will try to briefly explain my reasearches.

First, a lot of people are playing with their smartphone when they have it in their hands. I mean, they are are not playing videogames on it, they are just playing with the real object. Sometimes it falls, sometimes it breaks. When they got a call, 50% to 65% of the back of the smartphone it covered by the hand. When they place their smartphone on the table, it’s usualy for two reasons. The first one is that they don’t want to damage the screen, which seems to be more important than the back. The second one [thanks Jonathan] is that they usually want to check on their notifications while chatting or working. These are constant reminders of their connected life. So they want to be able to tap on the screen, check briefly the title of the notification and go back to their activity if it’s not important.

I think that it would have been kind of a mistake to use the back of the smartphone. I was thinking that it was the most visible part, but I was wrong. Paying attention to people and the object they use everyday helped me to make really important choices for my project. I also found great opportunities ! It gave me the idea to focus on the screen and the phonecase covering the screen. Because this is the most fragile part of the phone for the users. If everything takes place here, then I don’t need to have a connected objects on the back using energy and think hardware. It could be very discrete and less intrusive, and it could just use some battery of the phone by displaying minimalistic informations. Another opportunity is that, by covering the screen or a part of it, I could prevent people from checking on their notifications. Maybe this little friction would make them to constantly be tempted to use their social networks at every time during the day.

Meeting with the WOMA Fablab

I met Guillaume, of the WOMA. It was a one hour meeting. We talked about my concept and the different prototypes I thought of. He was enthusiastic towards my idea. He told me I really need to have a less condescending speech to avoid sounding like someone criticizing people for the way they behave [and, of course, it’s not my intention].

I told him about the 3 prototypes I had in mind:

  • Animatronics phone case [back of the phone]
  • Phone case with LEDs [back of the phone]
  • Something like the HTC Dot Case [protecting the screen]

He was skeptical concerning the prototypes on the back of the phone because as I knew it would be thick and large. And the more I want think technologies and components, the more expansive it is. Even if he liked the idea of the muscle wire to animate the phone case, he told me that it was difficult to make an easy industrialized production and I was aware of the fact that it still needed energy and it couldn’t be thin. Concerning the proposition with LEDs, making it look like growing vines is cool but risk could be it to be considered as a vivid-colored computer or car [tuning]. Fact is, in both cases [pun not intended] it would require an arduino board with a bluetooth shield and a battery. It would be something like 500 to 600€ to prototype it [considering the fact that they would need to help me a lot because I think I wouldn’t be able to work a lot on the hardware and code].

On the contrary I explained him what I had in mind with this dotted case. We both agreed on the fact that it was better and it could really sell my idea and my serve my speech. With a simple thin piece of wood and an app, it’s possible to build a system to help people optimize their daily use of their devices and of social networks ! It doesn’t use a lot of energy, it can be discrete, it can be customizable and unique, and easy to produce.

I sent my presentation by mail to his colleagues and I need to give him news next week with a brief of the first prototype I would like to present.

Paradoxes

With my meeting at La Paillasse, discussions with professors, colleagues and random people, I start to think that there are more and more people who are not confortable with the idea that my object uses energy. Despite the fact that I explain that it can be optimized at its maximum, that it updates just once or twice a day with a low signal, that it can uses solar panels, it’s still too much. I thought that it could help me explaining that my project doesn’t criticize the use of energy but it’s more about the efficiency, but I think it doesn’t work. It’s paradoxal. Or it will use complex technologies. And people want simplicity. I started to believe that they were right and I, too, thought that it wasn’t helping me at all, to have this complex machine plugged to a smartphone. Will it be heavy ? Will it use a lot of energy ? Is it fragile ? Because it’s a phone case so I need to avoid to create a phone case that also needs a protection.


I think that I need to ideate about the form and focus on the real meaning of this object. I need something that helps me explaining my concept, helps me explaining the concept of energy efficiency, helps me creating the reflex to optimize the use of our smartphones and social networks.

Working on our efficiency index

I called Frederic Bordage on skype to tell him about my modular installation. He gave me a good feedback but a phrase caught my attention. In fact, when an object like a smartphone is produced, the biggest part of it’s energy is already consumed. The use of natural ressource is the real problem: when you buy a product, the consumption already happened. The user can still have a positive impact on the environment! Now, his role is to optimize the use of the device. It means that he can optimize the time spent on social networks, the way he charges his battery, the level of luminosity on the screen. It’s possible to calculate an efficiency index. It doesn’t mean that someone needs to change brutally his use of his everyday services and objects, but need to make the best of it.

img-lampAt the moment I’m visually prototyping a connected lamp which has the apparence of a plant. The plant is useful because it can emit light, as a lamp. The more your efficiency index is positive, the more the plant will evolve and emit light. On the contrary if the index is negative (not efficient) the plant will emit less light [lose it’s main utility] and fade.

So I need to avoid to think in terms of “energy” and “electricity”. I dont set standards and default parameters people need to follow but I should give advices and educate people to explain them how to make better use of the devices and services they have. It’s a direct answer to the danger of greenwashing and brands giving abstract numbers people can’t understand like the 0.02gr of CO2 of a tweet.

pic-lamp-connected

img-sketch-data

Mapping the targets

My dissertation helped me to define targets. But Jonathan Munn [my dissertation supervisor] & Nicolas Baumgartner [interaction design department director] both asked me to be more precise. They were right. Now I have a sharpened vision and 4 targets. It helps me to make design choices but also to know who are the main users I’m designing for, or how I need to design for them.

Process:

  1. Using sticky notes on the whiteboard to determine groups of people I want to target
  2. Sorting them on the board
  3. Using a matrix to map them and observe patterns
  4. Giving names to the groups
  5. Make a clean version on illustrator

It became clear to me that my project, even if it’s not a service, won’t address “people”. It will address defined individuals or groups inside this global notion of “people”. I think that I can also address the professional field: services or startups who wants to be greener and to express their will of eco-responsability. I can also target eco-consulting companies and help them to visually or physically express their assessment to their clients. It gives me leads to think with a wider ranger of users. I also think that they may be not targeted directly, meaning I will address them with external parts of my projects (making of, informations, website).

mapping_2_Cibles_1.1-02

Two groups

 

Four groups

Four groups