Hello, I’m a student at the Andes university in Bogota, Colombia and i am doing this as a design research exercise.
I will tell you an idea, which i am developing for a project, and i hope and you to tell me what you think. i would really appreciate it
This information will be only used as an educational resource.
The project is called Time out!
It is a device which you can either hang or place at your desk. This device uses light in order to communicate your availability in a office scenario. It looks like a plastic clock which lights up either green or red depending on your availability status. When it is green, the clock displays the current time, whenever you want to work, you switch to the non-available mode, by clicking a simple, easy-to-use button placed on top of the device. The light would then turn red, so that your co-workers notice your status. The clock display will turn into a timer which you can graduate in order to administrate your working time. As soon as the time is out, the device will automaticaly turn green again, displaying the current time again.
I will post sketches on this work as soon as possible, unfortunately the teachers have given us very little time to develop this product, so i sincerely ask you to help me with your opinions.
Instead of showing sketches, why not show us your research?
Office is a complicated environment. You have to consider the relationship and interactions between individual employees, between employees and their managers, between managers, and as a whole, the general office atmosphere. So, I am trying to imagine what it will be like to see a sea of cubicals with red and green lights beaming around. How I will feel about the green lights? How will I feel about the red lights? How will I feel about the person who’s on green and vice versa.
Also, will the green mean that the company is wasting money on me because I am not in full working mode? Will red mean that I am anti-social and don’t want to be disturbed?
Anytime you introduce an identifier into a community, you are literally asking people to put tags on themselves.
Afterall, how do you think this is going to help improve the employee’s productivity?
why not just use a door knob tag like those in hotels?
If it’s a design research project, the the research is the goal, the product isn’t. Therefore if I were you, I will remind myself that the research result can be anything but what I have anticipated.
In this case, let the research determine your design, not the other way around.
i couldn’t have said it better myself about letting the research determine you design…atleast in this case.
you need to have a story to wrap the idea around. otherwise it becomes a meaningless object. research will help you create the story, and the final solution will help to tell the story.
with that, there should be a clearly defined problem or area of innovation. good design starts with identifying the problem, and then innovating to find the solution.
