Design :: Ideation

The Form

To come up with the actual form of our product, our team needed to consider all of the information we had encountered up until this point. We started thinking about the most important concepts that we had validated. We threw out ideas such as a set of picture frames that made a player system allowing for music sharing with others. However, during concept validation we had determined that sharing wasn't a key concept for them. We also considered a robotic pet, sort of as a companion, seeing as music was so integral in their lives as background to everything that they did. However, this concept seemed a bit strange considering they had negated the idea of the music system sensing or understanding their emotions and activities. Essentially, this idea seemed a bit creepy.

Looking back on our validated concepts, it seemed very important that their music be on display, because it represented their music knowledge that they had collected up until then. It was also important for them to be able to take their music between rooms in some way, without it seeming "creepy". It was becoming apparent that we needed two separate parts to our system, a base that accomplished the first need of displaying their music collection, and a second piece that acted as speakers or in some way identified their location to be able to play the music wherever they were and for whatever activity they were doing. So after several design ideation meetings, our team considered the idea of book ends that would hold their CD collection, and a remote of sorts that would control the play of the music.

Below is a high fidelity sketch of the second portion of our design, the remote.

Process Sections