Concept Development
When the ideation phase was completed, it was time to start with the development of several concepts.
List of Requirements
A list of requirements was made in order to state down which elements are necessary in the product.
The product shall...
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add aid the participant’s ability to give presentations as well as day-to-day conversations
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not overly convey the message that the user is struggling with problems
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be intuitively designed to understand the use
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be possible to set up with only limited software knowledge
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not enforce limits on the user’s movement
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include a mechanism to prevent false triggers
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not inflict harm to the user in any possible way
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feature compatibility with products that the user currently owns
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empower and encourage the user to perform the desired speech
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Match the user’s personal style
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Have at least one relaxing function to help with speech
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Be easily cleanable
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Be easily removable.
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Be easily locatable and accesiable after being used
Stakeholder map
In order to analyze who is involved with the use of our product, we have created a stakeholder map. The stakeholder map shows the respective influence and interest that various subgroups have on the final product.
The concept board shows all of the detailed concepts that were generated during the design process. Each concept will have a more detailed description and will be later be evaluated with the use of our participant and the list of requirements.
Concept board
About the Concepts
The Sensory Bracelet
The concept ‘sensory reaction bracelet’ stems from the idea that we wanted the product to help our participant but be a bit discrete about the fact that our participant needs help. Also, the fact that our participant will be using the product in a public speaking setting, the product is designed to not distract the audiences’ attention from the speaker. The bracelet could also work as a housing for a stress- ball that can be used to calm and relaxes the user. The main factor for the bracelet is to help remind the participant by giving a vibration (sensory reaction) once the product deviates over a certain distance from the table. By using sensory reaction, you can keep the product relaying feedback to our user without it being too noticeable-enough to distract the audience.
The Color Concept
The concept consists of two parts, the lights, and the sensor. The sensor detects if the hands of the user become too far away from the table. The sensor will also have a ‘safe area’ where if it is out of the safe area for too long, then the lights will flash red. The different colors of the lights will relay back to the user that his hands are out of position and the severity of the displacement.
The Joystick Concept
The joystick concept was different compared to the stressball idea because it is at a set place, so the hands have no possibility of holding it and moving up at the same time which has the advantage that there is no possibility of having your hands in front of your face, but it gives less freedom. It was also a nice place to put the button and test how big the area of the button needed to be. How precise our participant could click. It turned out our participant's coordination is good, and he was able to easily press the button and he liked the concept of it. The button would activate a sound, whether that would be a message or music was still to be decided.
The Massage Band Concept
The ‘massage band’ concept was based on the idea that some sort of device stimulating the sense of touch could be a subtle way to provide a relaxing signal, without the intensity or sound of vibration. Visually, the bracelet is reminiscent of a blood pressure monitor, this was also the inspiration for the design, however, in practice the design would have to squeeze in a far more subtle way than an actual blood pressure monitor. Because of the resemblance between the two, using an actual blood pressure monitor was considered to test this concept, however, this concept was not tested with the participant as a result of time constraints.
The Stressball Concept
The Ideation for this concept was already quite accurate to the finished concept. So, the idea stays the same, we will have a soft ball to keep his hands busy attached to a retractable string.
The Scent Band Concept
This sketch shows the participant wearing a small bracelet. This bracelet has sensors, that measure the movement of the arms due to spasms (when the participant is excited or stressed). When the sensors senses a lot of movement, it will release a nice smell. The purpose of the smell is to calm the participant down.
The Ball Concept
This sketch shows two objects on the desk of the wheelchair of the participant. The shape looks a bit like a cone and a ball combined. The cones are attached firmly to the desk, and the balls are made of a soft material so that the participant can grab these as 'stress balls'. There is also a button on the cone. The participant can press the button, and then the speaker on the product will produce some music, in order to calm the participant down even more.
The Wristband Concept
This sketch shows four variations of wristband ideas. The main idea is that the participant wears a wristband with a sensor in it. When the participant has a lot of spasms in his arms due to excitement or stress, the sensor senses this and will send a signal to the speaker that is implemented in the wristband. The speaker will then play a calming voice message, in order to calm the participant down and hopefully lessen the arm spasms.
Choosing a final concept direction
After thoroughly discussing these different concept, and carefullly evaluating each one, some conclusions could be drawn. Also, the list of requirements was being used and the concepts were also discussed with our participant. As a result, we have decided that our final concept should be a combination of two concepts, namely the stressball concept and the joystick concept. More reasoning for this choice will be explained below.
The joystick concept and stressball concept
As mentioned before under "Concept development' there were two concepts chosen. These two concepts combined form a basis for the final concept. In order to get an understand of what the final concept will look like, the two concepts will be explained once more:
The stressball concept:
The idea behind this concept is that there are two stressballs attahed to a string, which is attached to the desk of the electronic wheelchair that the participant uses. The participant can grab these balls when feeling stressed, anxious or too excited.
The Joystick concept:
The Idea is that there is joystick that stands on the desk of the wheelchair of the participant. There is a button on the joystick that the participant can push when he is feeling stressed, anxious, or too excited. The earpiece that the participant is wearing will then play a calming voice memo that will tell the participant to calm down.
The participant has indicated that talking is often more difficult when he is stressed or too excited.
The joystick concept and the stressball concept focuss on calming the participant down such that he can focus on his speech so that talking gets easier.
Why we chose these concepts:
We have discussed all of our concept with our participant. He has indicated that he liked these two concept the most. Furthermore, we used the the list of requirements, and we also discussed it furthermore as a group and we used the help of our tutor.
Style Collage
The style collage was made as an inspiration for the final design. We asked our participant whether he wants his wheelchair to match with the final product, and he indicated that he liked that idea. Therefore we chose the wheelchair that our participant is using as an inspiration for the final design, so that the design would match with the style of the wheelchair. This makes the final product more personal. You can see that the main colors of the style collage are red and black.
Handle Variations
While the stressballs proved to be a useful tool for the participant, their shape did not seem to be the most suited to the human hand. For this reason, further development was needed in order to create a shape that would be more appropriate. Below, a number of reference images and sketches are shown which were used to further develop the squeezable handheld element of the product.
Several variations on handles were made in the workshop. These handles were also tested with the participant. The participant's reaction can be seen in the videos below.
We also made several holders for the handle, in order to see what would be the most effective shape.
Since our participant does not speak English, the videos are in Dutch. Furthermore, the videos display the reaction our particpant to the shapes and forms.
Our participant decided that the smallest design was too small to hold. He indicated that the other designs were sometimes difficult to hold.
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Testing a wide, flat base for the grip
Comparing two different bases for grips, as well as testing varying orientations for the grips
Testing a smaller, rounder grip, which was designed to be reminiscent of the stress balls used in earlier development
Testing the suitability of finger grooves in different models
Concept improvements
After choosing the concepts that we wanted to base our final design on, we started to sketch a rough concept for the grip element of our final concept.
Further Handle Variations
After having decided on a rough sketch of the handle/grip part of the final design, some improvements still had to be implemented in order to achieve the most comfortable design possible.
In order to better visualise this design for the participant, a number of renders were created based on 3D models of the handle. Shown left are these renders in red and black, alongside earlier 3D models of grips with dedicated finger grooves.
It should be noted that finger grooves were later abandoned as the participant's hands did not reliably grip the handles in a consistent way, making grooves an unnecessary or even distracting feature, as a result, these were not included for the prototype.
Testing the button
The joystick concept features a button on the joystick that would allow the user to trigger audio feedback or some other signal independently. However, the continued use of a separate grip made of a foam-like material meant that it would be difficult to integrate a button in the same way as on a rigid joystick. For this reason, a separate button was considered to be the most suitable method to allow the user to trigger an audio signal on demand. The video below shows the participant using a button as part of a test to evaluate the ease of use of such a button. Based on the result of this assessment, the button was included in the plans for the final concept.