Overview
For our Interaction Design Practice course, we were given a hypothetical situation in which Google and Crate & Barrel were looking to form a partnership for a yet-to-be-announced digital division of Crate & Barrel. The design was wide open for interpretation but we were asked to seriously look at next-generation GPS technology. For the design, we were given the Weasley Clock (from Harry Potter) as inspiration.
Design Process
For our design, we started out doing some basic research on GPS devices, next-generation technology, Google Labs, and Crate & Barrel. About 4 days after the project started our class was given a curveball in which the teams were switched up at random (by the professor). From this point forward our team decided to drive up to a Crate & Barrel store to better understand their clientele and product line. We conducted and quick ethnographic study and interviewed a couple of salespersons.
Once our team learned more about the potential users of our design we started ideation and sketching. Meanwhile, we narrowed our target audience and created some personas to help us through our design. After several sketching and brainstorming sessions, we found a concept that worked well for our audience. We began prototyping our design in order to conduct a usability study of its use.
Our usability study, along with some expert reviews from colleagues, provided us with valuable information for which to iterate on our design. After re-design and more prototyping, we further tested our design and came away with satisfactory results.
Final Concept
Our final design was a mirror that turned into a map, thus the name Mirror Map. This mirror would show the location of family members (via GPS technology in mobile phones) on a map. Users would interact with the design from a distance using large hand gestures, which we extensively tested. Users could pull up additional information about family members, their locations, location history, as well as pertinent information about the local currently being viewed.