Product Name
Glare
The Product
Product Design
My role
Product Designer;
Experience Designer;
User Researcher;
UX Tester;
Brand and Graphic Designer.
Project Duration
2016 - 2017
Problem Statement
Using smartphones and smartphone dependency affect relationships among lovers who are living in big cities like Milan. Especially in the lovely —which is the only moment that young couples spend together—smartphone interruptions negatively impacted interactions with their romantic partners.
Project Overview
We determined the factors that we envisioned to change in a hyper city in the future. In a hyper city, there will be connections everywhere—connections between people, between objects and people, and there will be communications of products.
Technology will play a big role in this scenario and it will be more natural for us to live almost virtually. Since our environment will change, everything will become impersonal, but some other things will still be important for us as a human being who enjoys happiness and companionship.
The Challenge
To create a non-obtrusive product, that is to say a silent communicator between a couple.
Project Goals
To encourage young couples to disconnect from virtuality and focus on their partner.
Design Process
Design Thinking
Empathize
Key Focus Area
Define
Secondary Research (Quantitative Research)
Survey
Over 100 answersWe were looking for activities that people enjoy during their free time. After our observations, interviews, and surveys, we decided to focus on food, for it is the most common and popular activity for which people gather. As we digged deeper in this topic, we found more opportunities to improve the times that people spend together. We learnt from our observation and empathy that people disconnected from each other by using their smartphones. Conversations were interrupted and people were ignored.
Key Result
User Observation
The second observation took place in the city centre restaurants and bars to identify the natural behaviour of people when they use their smartphones in order to use it for our product design.
Key Result
A cluster of people's positions while holding their smartphone is defined.
User Interview 1#
Tell me about the last time that you or people around you were using your smartphone while eating beside others. Why did you do that?
Greta: ‘My boyfriend always doing it. I feel alone when my boyfriend uses his smartphone.’
Paolo: ‘Last Saturday when I had aperitivo with my friends. It is bad because I do not remember what and how much I ate.’
How much is it important for you to be virtually available?
Luca: ' I feel uncomfortable without my smartphone.'
Luca: ‘When you are eating, you should not use your smartphone.’
What do you think about people who use their smartphone on the table? Do you find it impolite?
Rosa: ‘If you are using your smartphone, you have nothing to say.’
User Interview 2#
Some interviews were taking place in Milan city center. Restaurants and bars staffs were our target to understand the situation better.Restaurants chiefs and owners also gave us some suggestion.Moreover, a few phone calls interview with specialist and marketing managers gave a wider view about the customers behaviours and pros and cons of smartphone addiction. Majestic Restaurant, Milan
- Do you have any bad experience with customers who use their smartphones in the restaurant?
- How often you see customers using smartphones while eating?
Kin Kub Tan Marketing Manager
Positive and negative aspects of smartphone addiction?In 10 years of experience he can understand the difference between now and the past:- Now clients are spending 15-20 minutes more time at the table. As consequence, they should order more because the staffs go to the table and suggest more.
- Clients focused less on food.
- Waiters have some issue with serving plates when smartphones are on the table.
- Reduce the time between one plate and the next one.
- Create a lighting atmosphere, with lighting centrepieces.
- Create spectacular composition in the dish.
- Surprize clients.
User Persona
From our interviews and researches, We were able to identify key users groups and personas. These were a great way to help us to put ourselves in the shoes of the user for the next design steps.
User Storyboards
The scenario describes the situation that we mainly envisioned for our product.
Market Analysis
Competitors
The competitor analysis helped to discover current products about smartphone addiction and also to set the product distant from other brands with a similar approach.
IKEA Taiwan phone-less table
Encourage the customers to focus on their meal. The table is designed to use the customer’s phone as a part of the heating system to cook their food. Every time you remove a phone, the power goes down, so anyone who takes their phone back jeopardizes the meal.
Rituals Smartphone Candle
During Christmas campaign #phonedown-christmas, Rituals gave a small candle to their customers to encourage people to put their phone down during Christmas in order to help to focus on their loved ones.
Benchmark Opportunities
We want our product to be an encouragement towards respect for the other person around the table.
Target
Our next observation was to define our targets.
Young Couples
The main target is young couples aged 25 to 35, who live together, have no children and work out of the house and spend time together only in the evening.
Restaurants and bars
In the second place, we target restaurants and bars where their focus is on the relationship between people and atmosphere, as our users.
Ideate
Product visual Definition
As there is usually not much space on the table, people tend to put it on their right-hand side next to the cutlery or in the middle of the table. These are the places that are the best for our product since it only uses space that is free. It was figured out that a longer shape is better, for it fits on the side as well as in the middle of the table.
Moodboard
Low-Fidelity Prototype
After user interviews, observations, surveys, and personas we started to sketch our first ideas. We wanted to brainstorm about a product that helps people to concentrate on their conversation with other people.
We agreed that our final product should be a table lamp because a candle on the table is the symbol of romance, which creates a unique atmosphere.
High-Fidelity Prototype
Technical Test
Several technology have been tested.
Force Sensitive Resistor
Piezo Buzzer
NFC
Open Button
Force Sensitive Resistor
FSRs are sensors detect physical pressure, squeezing and weight.
This approach doesn’t work because the phone’s weight is evenly distributed over its entire surface and the pressure applied is not big enough to be detected.
Piezo Buzzer
A sensor can detect vibrations coming from the phone. This solution allows the product to react every time one of the users receive a notification, but it can’t detect a regular use. Also, vibration detection is affected by many factors, especially by the table cloth material.
NFC
The NFC reader detects the two NFC tags closer than 3-4 cm. It doesn’t work with NFC embodied inside the phone and the system should need two readers. And the reader doesn’t detect the iPhone because the NFC is not active inside the phone. It needs an application to activate it.
Open Button
This system works when the two buttons are pushed together, they could be pressed with the weight of the phone.
Technical Test
Only one of the test works.
Photocell Sensor
Photocell Sensor
The cd cells are little light sensors. As the squiggly face is exposed to more light, the resistance goes down. When it is light, the resistance is about 5-10KΩ, when dark it goes up to 200KΩ.
The sensor detects when the phone is positioned on it because it doesn’t reach the light. This system works also with two smartphones, it only needs two sensors.
We switched the function of the sensor to generate an action if two detectors detect darkness.
So we were able to make the first mock-ups with an Arduino and the photosensors.
Branding
Logo
The name Glare signifies bright shine. Glare also is a look at another person, so it is a name describing the content in one word.
The GLARE’s logo its name within a circle that represents the round light.
Colour and Pattern
The earthy tone is inspired by the wood and the copper. It represents the non-technological, calm aspect of the product.
It is used together with white, for no other shade represents light as much as perfect white.
The pattern is inspired by the shape of both the product and smartphone.
Packaging
Materials
Final Test
Studio Photography
Road Map
Influencers
Learnings
Our goal was to encourage young couples to place their phone on the table lamp in order to let the light come up.
Our biggest challenge was to find a way that the light comes up when both phones are placed on the surface. In the beginning, it seemed that it was not possible, but we did not stop and decided to try all technology. We tried all the sensors such as light sensors and weight sensors and finally, we succeeded to reach our goal by changing the program of the light sensor and making a sensor that is sensitive to darkness.
