The Spark Umbrella
Design For Mundane Moment
The Team:
Haili Wu
Eilidh Young
The Project Outline:
In this project, my teammate and I explored how to add value to a mundane by using the concept of 'Responding Design'. We choose commuting with an umbrella as our starting point.
Design Process
Research & Oberservation
We started this project by observing and researching how our users interact with their umbrellas and understand their days in life.
Design Concept
After we knew about our users and know about the design opportunities, we started to create design concepts by using storyboards, because it can help us to visualise the experience concept. During this process, we also looked at the different experience that can make people feels relaxed, and analyses them, see if we can learn from it.
Develop and Testing
The project continues by we started to create a physical product that can maximize the experience we designed. We were inspired by the traditional Chinese umbrella, and we use sketches and prototypes to help us improve our idea.
Outcome
When users open this umbrella in the rain, the sensor on top will light up when it feels raindrop, so when multiple users are using it together, they can see the light from each other, which the light makes them feel relaxed. Meanwhile, there are sounds produced by the umbrella when sensor feel raindrop, and Bluetooth transfers the sounds to the users. The second layer of the umbrella can create a shadow for the user (to cover their face), so no one will know who the user is. Allow the user to stay in their personal space, watch and listen to the outside world. Such experience creates a satisfaction of self-isolate and safe feeling in the public area.
