ADROIT
Intelligence meets Experience
Project Duration: 4 months
Role: UX designer
Team: Aditya Ratnaparkhi, Ishita Sarkar and Sarbani Mookherjee
BRIEF
To observe and understand life, psychology and problems faced by people in their daily lives and the psychology set patterns and behaviours for products used in daily life especially considering the context of COVID in current times. After the same, identify an existing product with a history of innovation over years in a particular domain and bring in design intervention in the same with a depth of understanding using design thinking methods and methods of innovation for its usage in the future.
PURPOSE & OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this process is to understand how people use multiple products in different spheres of their lives throughout their day and how different users perceive them differently depending on multiple aspects and contexts including culture, psychology etc. To understand how different stakeholders deal with their everyday life and how life has changed for them due to COVID.
Inclusive design is designing to be inclusive of as many users as possible, considering all aspects of diversity in users. The main objective is to understand the importance of different products and the multiple factors that have changed the context of usage due to the new normal and how here any design intervention can be made while considering the essence of the product, the experience and the gaps our design intervention solves so that the stakeholders can function efficiently.
PROCESS
SCENARIOS
SECONDARY RESEARCH
PRIMARY RESEARCH ANALYSIS
Audience
As we started defining our stakeholders, we realized that the best option would be to define in such a way that there is a clear division between key stakeholders and the general audience which can be mapped across age and profession. The target audience set started from the early 20s to about 40-year-olds. We then interviewed about 12 individuals over 7 days to understand how life has changed for them and is created daily without any bias in professions. The interviews were conducted keeping in mind the current Covid situation and taking proper precautions where in-person physical interviews were taken. A table is given below specifying the characteristics of people interviewed with a column for each attribute and the questionnaire format.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH (12 people in-depth interview)
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH (76 respondents to questionnaire)
AFFINITY MAPPING
KEY INSIGHT
After interpreting the statements made by our interviewees for the qualitative research and the responses received from the survey that we did for the quantitative research during the User-Study, we drew insights that were used to create a design brief. We understood that:
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Due to the multifunctional aspect of life, one barely has time to invest with oneself regularly.
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Being in one's own company is essential to de-stress.
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Due to the COVID situation, the work-life balance has completely been disrupted.
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People struggle to keep their personal life and space maintained without the work intruding it.
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For the same purpose, to immerse oneself in activities that they are fond of or that helps in rejuvenating oneself is felt vital more than ever.
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People have to make an intentional choice to cater to their personal life but have the continuous fear that they will end up losing out on critical messages and information from the work frontier.
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Being in control of one's daily activities is felt essential, which gives one a sense of satisfaction and boosts self-esteem.
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Even before COVID, people used to think before investing in any technological products but now they make more conscious choices before investing in devices.
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Technology as a medium to be more aware and to be up to date as an individual feels crucial.
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Investment in devices which provide a sense of comfort and are easy to use and easily sync with one’s daily life is a deal-breaker.
DESIGN PROBLEM DEFINITION
To understand how to enhance the user experience of audiophiles and VUI enthusiasts with improved hardware and wireless technology by creating a next-level product for the target segment where the current user needs of better usability and accessibility can be catered to through the wireless and sharing experience. For the same, creating a supremely balanced ambience - neither too low nor too overbearing in context of the ‘new normal’ where users find it extremely difficult to disconnect from prolonged screen time, by curating an experiential product for individual and group usage for multiple levels of interaction and purposes depending on the context from spending time with exclusive time with oneself to enjoying the companion of other people to give a wholesome ambience experience.
EXPECTATIONS OF OUTCOME
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Assistance and influence that can help people disconnect from prolonged usage of screen
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Intervention to do tasks without having to use phone or computer
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Ease in interaction with device through multimodality by creating of a system which caters to the limitations of smart speakers with better accessibility & experience
INTRODUCTION
Screen time of every human has increased exponentially for a decade. With the COVID 19 situation since March, from kids to senior citizens, everyone is dependent on screens and the internet all day. Excessive screen time can impair brain structure and function; it can cause obesity, insomnia, mood swings and less efficient information processing. How might we reduce the screen time yet stay connected to the internet and let ourselves unwind to keep our physical & mental health in check? There are numerous apps introduced to cater to this issue, yet on average we end up spending more than 8 hours each day in front of our screens. Introducing Adroit: A truly wireless stereo inbuilt gadget which uses natural language processing and is capable of voice interaction, updating you about newly received emails, can help in receiving calls, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports, and other real-time information along with CBT based app functionalities integrated. It has a screen on top for visual navigation as well and can be detached into 2 individual stereo speakers which convert electromagnetic pulses into vibrations and spreads the sound directly across any surface, transforming it into a powerful sound source. It is as tiny as a badge and can turn any surface into a 360° speaker with resonance technology. You can now take a break from screen time yet not miss out on work and updates on your phone.
MOOD BOARD
DESIGN EXPLORATIONS
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
APPLICATIONS OF MULTIMODALITY IN INTERACTIONS
With the current scenario and needs in mind, a wholesome system has to be designed that has maximum accessibility in any condition. With introduction of multimodal interactions of voice, touch & gesture, the limitations of currently used smart speakers can be mitigated. Introduction of gesture based interaction to operate the speaker will address accessibility issues when voice based command or touch isn’t possible due to environmental restrictions (for example: while travelling on a crowded bus, it is difficult to take out any device and operate with touch or voice commands. With gesture, our users can play, pause or change tracks without taking the device out of pocket or bag)
ANTICIPATE: HOW DOES YOUR DESIGN ANTICIPATE THE USER EXPERIENCE AND ULTIMATELY BENEFIT SOCIETY
Our design concept is a truly wireless stereo device which enables to turn any surface the user desires to turn into a powerful sound source and also act as a voice assistant to keep the user at the top of his game in every sphere while decreasing his screen time by creating electromagnetic pulses into vibrations to transform into sound. The device is designed to be used in various ways- as a powerful stereo device, separating into two to create a complete ambience of a space and also to use as an individual sound device used as a badge.
INNOVATE: HOW IS YOUR DESIGN ORIGINAL AND INNOVATIVE
Through our secondary research, we found that researchers and designers all over the world have been working on truly wireless devices but they lacked in many spheres like user freedom to use according to their preferences and the lack of accessibility. Our device transforms into truly innovative wireless, a water-proof stereo that can be used as a home assisting device to transform the ambience for an individual or space with just the freedom of separating or joining the device as they would like. The user can interact using simple finger interactions on its digital screen and voice, creating greater accessibility.
CAPTIVATE: HOW DOES YOUR DESIGN CAPTIVATE PEOPLE
Our device is designed to give greater accessibility with simple human-computer interaction from voice interactive, simple swipe like motion detection to interact with the device to enable to act as a voice assistant by bringing users important notifications, emails, messages, calls to just simply listening music, this device brings the user the world without screen time interaction- on a larger context decreasing the cognitive overload on the user. As it’s lightweight and waterproof, the device can be carried anywhere and can be used for individual purposes to just enjoy me-time to being the creator of ambiences.
ADROIT 3D PROTOTYPE
ILLUSTRATED SCENARIO WITH ADROIT
HOW ABOUT GESTURE CONTROL?
ECOSYSTEM MAPPING
ECOSYSTEM MAPPING
LIMITATIONS OF THE PROJECT
Since the whole project was made during the pandemic, the team collaborated and post research built the whole concept virtually. There was no access to the laboratory to build a working prototype which could have been tested with the users.
WHAT WE LEARNED (KEY TAKEAWAYS)
In a world where technology revolves around us in every sphere of life, it is essential to choose the type of devices and the quality of impact that they have upon us very carefully. This project on a larger context helped us in understanding how even the smallest and the simplest of things like sound which we usually don’t think about much can have a serious impact on us and the significance of audiovisual devices in the ever-changing world, especially taking into consideration the current context of COVID.
We understand that people at large, especially the working-class population of the world have severely been impacted due to the work from the environment and they suffer from anxiety and stress on their eyes due to prolonged exposure to digital screens. Thus to cater to such a target segment with these set needs, we found the opportunity to bring innovation in the simplest of forms to create a life-altering impact in their daily lives with ADROIT- a gesture-based, stereo device with premium quality ambience creating innovation. The process of this whole innovation gave us in-depth insights from our user interviews and helped us learn how crucial sound is in the life of a human and how it can have an impact on their psychology and their productivity and also has the power to connect them to everything and everyone around them.