The first phase of this Final Project ideation session was an empathy workshop. This is a very interesting workshop that challenges our ability to empathize with each other. We had to do is to have one student explaining to another student how to build a complex structure of lego blocks, but with our eyes folded.
It is hard to say that I and my partner did the session very successfully. In general, our outcome structure was pretty messy. However, we did learn a lot about communicating with each other during the process. I feel that the essence is to synchronize each other’s mindset and reach a consensus on how to convey our ideas. For instance, after breaking our structure once, we discussed how to name each block and depict their characteristics.
After the empathy workshop, we proceed to a final project ideation session. The main focus my partner had for me was about how to make the project applicable for more use cases and user groups. My project, a pen with a timing functionality, starts as a personal project. However, it is true that it could be better if I can give more functions to it.
The first idea for extending the using scenario for my project was to make it usable for people who read and write digitally. The first use case would be an iPad pen. Through research, we find that there are many products that make a pen both writable on a paper, and on a digital device such as an iPad. Moreover, we can build a stand or a clip with the pen so that it can be attached to an electronic device as a timer. For example, when attached on a laptop, it will start timing once we turn on our laptop.
A second concern we thought of is how the pen will be charged. The ideas we thought of include, a pluggable pen, a charging stand, and a pen powered by solar energy. Personally, I think that a pen powered by solar energy sounds like an interesting idea since that would keep it natural to use the pen. Meanwhile, I think to build a small charging stand is also a possible idea, as when we put the pen on the charging stand, it would still be a useful timer.
The third interesting idea we came across was to build software around it so that it will become a more commercial product. For instance, we can use an app to keep track of the tasks the user has done with the pen and give a various status of his or her pen usage such as writing/resting ratio or the longest continuous working time, etc.
I think all above are very interesting ideas, so addition to building a prototype that has all the basic functions that I originally planned, I will also show some of these functions as a part of the design in the video demo.