Task 5: Design Confusion

Life Pscycle-ology - The Secret Life of a Little Mobile Phone

This educational short film gives us a view on what we don’t normally see or take notice but is surely part of everyone’s everyday life. It follows the life of a mobile phone from being collected as from resources, manufactured, assembled, sold, bought, loved, used, replaced and forgotten.

Usually we use our phones for a year or two, maybe three if they’re lucky. But what happens to them after that? How many of us actually recycle or treat them properly after they are no longer in use? This creates an enormous amount of junk and wastes our resources as we leave them in the dumps. Only 1% of all the mobile phones are given new life through recycling. Products are often designed to last only for a short period of time before being replaced by faster and better ones. This makes consumers want to spend more money on replacements for the old products. Products like mobile phones and digital cameras should be designed so that they can be upgraded or easily disassembled after their lifetime so that materials and resources don’t get thrown away and wasted.

Mobile phones and electronic products such as digital cameras and memory sticks can be ‘designed for disassembly and longevity’. This enables re-usable components and materials such as; gold, palladium, nickel and silver, to be recovered and reused new products. Nowadays companies are starting to recognize the opportunity in transforming valuable pieces inside these used products into pieces for new products ready to be used again.

It is important when designing products to make sure there are designed for disassembly and longevity. Firstly if they last longer, then fewer replacements need to be bought and less waste is reacted. Secondly if products can be disassembled easily, they don’t need to be shredded in pieces just to recover the valuable resources and materials inside them.

Don Norman: Emotional Design

In this video, Don Norman discusses the concept of emotional design, the subject of his book, Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things.

One of things I learnt from this video is that everyday objects can easily affect us in an emotional way, consciously or not. They can do that in a variety of ways; the how they look, feel, function or the way they interact with us. For example, if a product functions perfectly well like a sharp pair of scissors but look horrendous or feel terrible in your hand then they’ll still create a negative emotion in your mind. But if an object functions perfectly well and looks and feels great then the chances are we’re going to like using this particular product.

Don Norman points out the fact that a well-designed product needs generate positive emotions in the consumer without having to over compensate in its functionality or appearance. The examples he used are the dashboards of several Mercedes-Benz and BMW vehicles. While attempting to gather more controls and combine them on an electrical screen, they leave drivers scratching their heads and fiddling with the computer screens.

“Take the front seats in my S550 test car, for example. You can easily spend 15 minutes fiddling with them before even putting the car in drive.”

As consumers wants more and more features in their cars, more buttons and controls need to be added to the cars. But it’s about how easy they are differentiated amongst each other or how easily they can be located and utilised. If there is a row of a dozen identical buttons with tiny symbols above each one, it is not going to be easy for the driver to find the right one while driving.

Norman points out that one of the challenges of our future is to successfully improve the functionality of products without making the process of using it much more complicated and time-consuming. This is what generates a positive emotional response in the consumer when using a product that not only functions well but is easy and fun to use.

Task 4 - Design Excellence

David Kelley: The Future of Design is Human-Centred

Early in David Kelley's monologue, he had suggested that the future approach to design was still in the product themselves but the focus of the products had been shifted to humans. Normal humans like you and I, the rich and the poor. 'Human-centred Design' integrates human behaviour and personality in to products.

The first example Kelley shows is a example of a Prada Store. A whole environment designed to improve the shopper's experience. Tags are located on every piece of clothing and the shopper her/himself, they can then be scanned and shown on a screen for a further introduction of the piece of clothing. Change rooms are equipped with scanners and screens also for further suggestions of how the garment can be worn. A camera that lets you view yourself in impossible angles. The use of liquid crystal in the window/door of the change rooms allows a quick on/off view from the outside which makes communication easier with fellow shoppers.

Another design redefined the standard 'office cubical' in offices where many slave away everyday. The cubical is made personal and pleasant by small interactive widgets that surround the work space. Flowers that collapse in sadness as you leave and erect as it welcomes you back. Fishtanks and punching bags that allows you to relieve stresses encountered everyday in the office. Human centred Designs like this focus on the human themselves and create a alternative and improved environment in which they spend a large fraction of their lives in.

Kelley then presents another video showing a four floors tall wall with a network of lines and words zooming around in a network. It is a newly installed wing of the London Science Museum. It is based on the London Subway system. As the lines reach a 'station' they are expanded in to words. Words written by visitors of the museum, showing us their feedback. This interactive wall not only allows visitors of the museum to express and share their comments with others but also allows us to see what others think.

Human-centred designs not only focuses on the products and environments but integrates the human element; behaviour and personality, in to the designs. This makes our lives easier, more efficient and ultimately happier. According to David Kelley, this is the future of Design.

a link to the video of Kelley's monologue is shown below:

Task 1 - Shape of a Scent

Mind map: mature, sophisticated, confident, bold, elegant...

End Design.

The Mysterious Fragrance Revealed:

Calvin Klein - 'ck one'