Week 3 Inspiration and research

I wish to narrow down my focus and identify a topic I believe I may find a problem, a need, or an area where there room for improvement, to focus the topic of my design on.

I watched several interviews with professor Marc Hassenzahl attempting to explain Experience Design
http://interaction-design.org/

From this I learnt:
I want to not only focus on usability in the design, but the experience, as the user makes and stores a mental representation of the experience, a story, in their mind. I would rather have the my object almost disappear, so that the user focuses on the emotions instead. One example (used in this interview) of an object that does this is the Wake-up light, by Phillips, an alarm-clock that allows the user to wake up through gradual increase in sunlight accompanied by bird song or similar.  The 'experience'-focused angle to design focuses even more on the user and the psychology of the user. Focus less on 'the aesthetics of the interaction (as Marc Hassenzahl describes it) and more on the interaction as a story/stories. He claims it is a more post-materialistic approach, you still have a product, ut you care more about the experience it provides.

Important questions that arise:

• How does it feel?
•  How does it fit?
•  What is important in this story?
• All they all very personal, or can we share?  
• Will you understand my story and vice versa?
• How can we put these stories in to products?

The design part is then retelling a story through a product -> as mentioned the Wake-up light by Phillips does this, we can see the story through the product. They asked 'how would you like to wake up?'. SURROGAT EXPERIENCE, more meaningful to us than a loud ringing alarm-clock.
Focus on memories of the experiences!

Focus and consider these elements:
Think about the WHY of product use
- E.g. what other requirements for closeness do you have, looking at the actual needs to people. They don't have the need to make a telephone call, they have the need to feel close to someone, be popular, help one another etc.
Both universal needs and individual needs must be considered, there are commonalities that should be considered
Design positive, especially WORTHWHILE experiences. E.g. a roller coaster isn't all pleasant, but you have a story to tell after the experience.
Make technology more humain

IDEAS for DESIGNS:
- focus on bringing closeness to friends or couples, add deeper meaning, bridge existing gap, through a touch-focused device. Could focus as a web-cam that you plug in through USB, but has a mold that shapes after the counter-users face, heats up and similar.
- with the mood-ring reflecting the users mood through temperature and colored light, add meaning through signalling to people that are close to the user what mood he or she is in..

Must do til next week

- Look up in my psychology book 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs', refresh my memory

- Look up communication and interaction in Psychology book from last semester

- Look up cognition chapter summaries from last year
Should look up as these resources as they lay foundation experience as story:
Patrick Jordan's 'Designing pleasurable products' (about the new human factors, there's more to it than usability!)
John McCarthy and Peter Wright 'Technology as experience'