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Mid-Terms Submission

Home entertainment system design to improve interpersonal communication: AV product as a design case


Chapter 1.

Introduction:


In the past, communication was carried out through expressing and exchanging emotions mostly by conversation. Furthermore, the form of communication had been abundantly developed using newly created various physical tools and devices.
However, since digital technology has been rapidly advanced and internet environment has been provided to more households, the less family face-to-face communication by verbal conversation has been carried out. The living area is turning into the area where individuals enjoy music, computer games and watch TV. Due to less communication among family, emotional sharing within family is decreased. In order to enhance family communication, products should not just be focused on a core subject but become a catalyst in human communication.


Chapter 2.

Interpersonal communication and development of home entertainment products:


1. Interpersonal communication and product design


a. Interpersonal communication and its types

The concept of interpersonal communication is opposite to Mass communication.
It refers to person to person communication. The ways of describing them are
1) couple communication, or two people speaking, the smallest unit of person to person
communication,
2) person to person communication mediated by a third party.
3) Private communication, public communication and so on.













b. Classification of interpersonal communication from product design aspect

Communication in product design can be classified in to following three categories:
PTP (person to person), PTO (person to object), OTP (object to person).




















2. Interpersonal communication in modern society and its controversial points


a. Efforts to mend family communication

-Interpersonal communication and home entertainment devices

Since TV and radio widespread among the general public, they have been a central tool to bring people to watch or listen the program together. But as time goes by, those devices become a tool interfering interpersonal communication.










New way of the video game "Nintendo wii "




-Interpersonal communication and space design

The architectural space has been developed as a space where families can spend more time. Architects are striving to provide functions which can stimulate family conversation.













-Interpersonal communication analyzed by European living area trend

According to ReD association, Europeans want to be perceived as spending their free time reading books and listening to music, even though they also watch television and play video games. They desire to have these latter products integrated into interior design in order to be seen to concentrate on family communication.













b. People research

Interview about Communication area at home, Personal interpersonal communication method, Indirect communication method etc...










3. Interpersonal communication in the past

In the past, there were more objects as media for interpersonal communication. There were more respects and consideration to human communication. For instance tea ceremony, Korean traditional space design, firepot, carpet, bath culture …












Chapter 3.


Conclusion:

This thesis is to analyze how objects can play important role for interpersonal communication through historical research and modern social issue analysis. Furthermore it is to propose new design of electronic product which can catalyze interpersonal communication.
As a proposal of new product design to improve interpersonal communication, an audio device will be designed. The design is based on the qualities which traditional objects we used to have. I would like to propose a design which can provide interpersonal communication environment through integrating forgotten traditional design methods with modern technology.




Visual time line:







Bibliography:

K.Mannhcim, Essays on the sociology of knowledge, (Lodon: Roulledg & Kegan Paul, Fourth Impression,1968) pp.293~294.

Cradle to cradle: William Mcdonough and Michael pagg 28~30 : question design.

LEAVING THE NEST 2004: Tony Humphreys page 217 korean edition translate하게 표현하고 진심을 귀울여라

Trading up : Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske 2003 214~215

Design of Everyday Things : Donald A. Norman user centered design 1988

Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen and Erkenntnis. 박희준, 선과 깨달음 고려원 1988 pp 56-57

Ching-Yu Chang [Japanese Spatial conception] JA 8405 p68

wolf von eckardt,[the just so of the Swerve and Line], time, 1983.8 1st) p 49-50

Choi unsick, Korean folklore consideration, seoul : 민속원, 1996.

Lim dongkwon, Korean folkways 1999.

End of term

Reserch question :

In this thesis I would like to propose a design that can contribute to promote family communication by creating simple products that can be fit into any living environment and used for long time satisfying users.

Abstract:

B&o BeoMaster series in 1960s shows respect to users. Inside the product, there are repair manual easily written down so that anyone can understand and a little space where the users can place a chip to upgrade to stereo in case the stereo is developed[1].
But in these days in which the technology is rapidly developing, B&o’s consideration to customers has been minimized. Companies like Apple, who proudly shows their highest revenue above all, charges you more price than new product when you request repayment.

Due to acceleration of digitalization, the home entertainment environment is also being changed. That means ‘the living room’ which used to be a space where a family communicate through conversation is being changed too by various products that we place.

This thesis is focused on two main category analyses.

First, According to a research organization, since internet is widely spread, the conversation between people is carried out in the cyber space and the living room is becoming a place where you watch TV or enjoy music. Consequently, face to face privet conversation is limited to families and even the frequency of conversation within family is getting decreasing and it seems emotion sharing is decreasing too.
I’m going to focus on family communication improvement through electronic goods by statistic analysis of living environment change using data from research organization and architectural living environmental change and interviews regarding family communication.

Second, since audios and video are widely spread to households, standardization has been carried out which divide products into two standards; 430mm or 360mm. The low priced lines are formed and home entertainment devices became simpler.
However, accordantly product lifespan is getting shorter and shorter and users are purchasing new products just to upgrade small functions.
Companies like Apple, who proudly present their high revenue and good design, charges you more price than new product when you request repayment so people tend to buy new ones rather than fixing old ones.
I’m going to review literatures about sustainability and human and object interface and carry out people interview and home visiting in order to analyze problems of electronic devices such as remote control. I’m going to focus on simplification of electronic products in living environment.


I would like to propose a design that can provide true value to customers through simplification of devices.

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[1] In 1960s, there were stereo system is not developed yet.

Mind map:

Literature review:


A picture of dumped mobile phone:

This is a picture of a mobile phone.
Mobile phones became another kind of fashion products which are used not only as for calling function. In these days the mobile phone is not the only case of short life cycle. It is applied to AV and to the other electronic devices.
If products can be updated just like pasta sauce or detergent bottles which can refill, we can reduce the electronic wastes.

Cradle to cradle:

Michael and William[1], who emphasize on happy use and happy dumping, criticized about cradle to grave. “Imagine what you would come upon today a typical landfill: old furniture, upholstery, carpets TV, clothing, shoes, telephone, computer and plastic packing as well as organic materials like diapers, paper, wood and food wastes.

As they pointed out, the situation in manufacturing companies are not so different. Companies, who are producing electronic goods, sat up standards for only ABS and aluminum used for plastic packages in order to pass the industrial regulation.
In fact, new products are constantly coming out on the market every 6 months and companies consider the standards that they sat up for the industrial regulation as an indulgence.

At this point, customization must be considered once again. This can be started with basic stage, the color and materials. If a product is not only a fashion item but also is a customized item for home environment, the notion of product cycle can be more close to the notion of cradle to cradle which Michael and William are talking about.




Leaving in the nest :

The book[2] tells a message that people can be happier when they get to know each other more through conversation. It defines the obligation and responsibility of a family to share the agony, sadness and happiness within the family. And it deals with family communication giving tips to have more intimate conversation and to exchange feelings.

Communication through conversation is mostly carried out in the public space for a family such as ‘living room’. Now days the living room became a place where you spend more time for movies, TVs than conversation.
What if there is a design which can provide a momentum for a family to have gentle conversation and spent time for each other?

Click:

From a product designer’s view point, Adam Sandler, who is a father of two kids, stumbles with many remote controls and gets a master remote control which can control the world. In the beginning of the movie, there is a scene that Adam presses wrong button for five times when he tries to switch the TV channel for his kids.
This shows that main devices can be distinguished by it look but still there are too many remote controls.
But the living room in the movie embodies the modern interior space which seems that can motivate the family to have more conversation.




Trading up:

“I had a target and my life time dream has come true. My goal is to provide high quality and fun products by popularization of design. That is, I’m not interested in enhancing the level of design or perusing luxury, but I want to spread the design more wide and provide people happiness. I wish everyone can enjoy the best. The essential quality of luxury in modern times is popularity. Person who has design talent has obligation to provide good designs more to more people.”[3]


Philip stark’s interview in trading up can raise numerous questions by people who concern sustainability.

Cafe coste Chair that reduced manufacturing cost from 550 dollars to 29 dollars is deserve to be praised, but his mouse made me curious what Philip stark was thinking, because there are still lots of people who are suffering from tunnel syndrome. And mouse is strongly related with usability and interface.







Design of Everyday Things :

I don’t like the expression, ‘user friendly’. I like the expression, ‘user respect’. I think the great design is respecting users, rather than caring usability.“Users, Do not blame yourselves.” said Don Norman. He is telling us not to blame ourselves if we hit on the door when you use them. And if we cannot find where the switches are in the lamp or the garden chair is not well assembled, we should blame designers. When a product doesn’t work properly, then it means the designer is stupid not the users.[4]

If some products make users uncomfortable, that can be considered as designers fault and lack of respect.
User unfriendly designs cannot deliver good products.

MUJI :

Samsung economic research institute Japan. 2000

The secret of success is ‘NO Brand Good Quality’ strategy. The notion of ‘No brand Good Quality’ is “to impress customers without decoration” in the middle of luxury design trends. After second oil shock in 70s, The Company, Saiu had a deep thought about what customers really need and anchored a PB not another new brand. "Encouraging overspending by luxury design is not a right thing to do. We should show the originality of everyday goods and make customers enjoy them unpretentiously" said Kiuchi Masao, the CEO of MUJI. In order to promote the muji brand and logo, the company didn’t invest money to the commercials but to the material improvement and original functions to emphasize superiority and usability of their products. When they choose materials, quality and environmental friendly aspects are considered first. So recycled materials are used first and avoided to use whitening agents. They even recycled resources that the other companies thrown away. After all, their natural and sophisticated products could attract customers. The second secret of their success is ‘clear design identity’. Based on their product concept, ‘simplicity’, customers can use muji product what and where ever they want and they actually fit to everywhere. Moreover, Japanese simple design met advanced market trend, therefore it is often evaluated as design inspiration to designers. The simplicity is applied not only to the design but also to the contents of the products. The color and shapes of materials are preserved as much as they can be and artificial manipulation is avoided. For instance, their potato chips don’t have identical shape like other companies’ but they stays as they were. Because of this reason, customers can distinguish muji products from other products.
The approach that muji has been taken is one of the example that I’m pursuing this time. The design I am pursuing is to reduce the changes of usages before and after the purchase because of environmental factors and to create home entertainment system which can fits to any living room environments.

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[1] Cradle to cradle: William Mcdonough and Michael pagg 28~30 : question design.
[2] LEAVING THE NEST 2004: Tony Humphreys page 217 korean edition translate (솔직 하게 표현하고 진심을 귀울여라 )
[3] Trading up : Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske 2003 214~215

[4] Design of Everyday Things : Donald A. Norman user centered design 1988

People research :

People research is carried out mainly by face to face interview, survey and extra telephone interview. The main ideas of questions are

1.how people relax or take a rest in cyber space and everyday lives.

2.what is the meaning of electronic goods to them .

Questions:

Where do you usually relax in your free time?

When you have relaxing, what do you do?

When you are happy or elated, how do you share this feeling?

When you are sad how do you share your feeling?

What is upsets you when you are relaxing in your free time?

Have you ever experienced side effect when during relaxation?

Have you ever experienced total satisfaction when taking relaxation?






Solvej Lee: 33 ( female )Denmark marketing manager

Solvej is a working woman in charge of marketing and single. She lives in Copenhagen.
She rarely watches TV and spend her free time reading books and listening to music with new B&o which she bought recently. She sold the old one on internet.
Her parents are in USA, so she shares happiness and sadness with her friends.
She prefers ASMALLWORLD rather than facebook because the facebook is too opened. In SMALLWORLD, only close friends can meet each other. It is more privet.

She thinks the telephone ring disturbs her relaxation. She enjoys being alone and have rest.




Alex Chen: 34 (Male) LA a Product designer

Alex spends his free time in living room with his wife who is a pianist.
Because of his 3 year-old daughter, he spends more on the floor than sofa. Mostly listen to classical music and doesn’t watch TV even it is turned on. He rather enjoys reading magazines and playing domino games with his daughter.
He often uses home theater to watch movie and sometime falls in sleep on the carpet with his wife and a daughter.

Never shared his feeling on-line. Mostly prefers face to face conversation.

Telephone calls from work place give him stress and sometimes too much movie watching makes blue Monday..

Since he installed a home theater in his living room, it never been moved. Many electronic device wires are disorganized but prefers to relax rather than cleaning them.


Stella Lee: 40 (female) Milano a Jewelry designer

She spends most of her free time in the living room watching TV. When she reads often the music is accompanied. When she sits on sofa after few minutes she goes down to the floor unconsciously.

She shares happiness with parents but doesn’t share sadness. She enjoys chatting with friends and travel.
Movies make her sad feeling decreased.
She is not really interested in electronic devices but has a lot of them. So there are unorganized cables with dusts.
She hates telephone rings and only uses e-mail for on-line communication.

She prefers off-line conversation and on-line conversation seems fake to her.


Seiko ito : 30 ( Female) tokyo product planner

Seiko is in charge of product strategy planning. She relaxes in bathtub doing aroma therapy or spends time in sofa or bed reading books or listening to music
.
She spends the time with other people drinking or watching TV together.
She shares her feelings by cell phone text message. For off-line sharing, she must have alcohols.
For sadness or agony, she doesn’t prefer to share with others. She rather drinks and tries to forget them. But she shares light problems with family or close friends.
She shares happiness off-line and shares sadness on-line by putting the glimpse of story on her blog.
She thinks the noise from outside disturbs her relaxation and when hates arguments.


Shigari Mitchiro : 40 (male) tokyo a product designer

He spends most of his free time in the living room with his wife and two kids. Because his second child is only 2 years old, he mostly spends the time on the carpet. He is a movie mania so he has many speakers and amps. He enjoys comparing the sound quality of current device he has with new products on the market. And Often purchases new products to upgrade the sound.
He has more than 3000 CDs and DVDs. He feels happy when he shares them with his wife. He shares happiness with others but prefer not to share the sadness with others. He rather drinks alcohols and smoke cigarettes or watching movies.
He doesn’t watch TV often. But TV is often being turned on for his kids.
He feels the telephone ring ruins his relaxation. Sometimes his first child unplugs electronic devices while he is enjoying the music.

Ursula : 33 (female) a Collage professor Milan.

She recently started to teach students in university. The free time has been decreased due to lecture preparation.
She turns on plays music almost all the time in her free time. She does yoga so spends much time on the floor
.
She enjoys bath and sauna.
Emotion sharing is very important for her so it is carried out on/off line. But she shares sadness mostly on-line. She doesn’t watch TV often and prefers to read listening to music.
She thinks the telephone ring is the disturbing factor. Sometimes she feels stupid when she cannot handle electronic devices. She loves to spend time on the floor reading and listening to music.


Mariastella : 36(female) Rome Works in Travel agency

Her life is strongly depended on her work so she takes little breaks during her work. She loves drinking coffee in the middle of work and that makes her relax. When she has vacation, she always travels. She distinguishes privet life and public life strictly.
She has more than 5 blogs and they play very important roles in her life.
She thinks lack of time to enjoy her coffee break makes her upset. The best time for her is leaving all her works and travel.


Paolo : 44 (male) Milan architect

Paolo is an architect. He spends his free time mostly with his family watching TV or movies. He always tries to share his emotion with family .
He enjoys taking pictures but he has hard time to organize all the digital pictures he has been taken. He feels finding pictures from his computer disturb his relaxation.

Pitt : 34 (male) Utrecht architect

He is an architect and spends his free time mostly in the living room listening to the music and reading books or watching TV. He sometimes watches movie with friends but sometimes finds difficult to handle DVD remote control and PVR which he bought recently.

Inspirations

Physical and Cyber area analysis

Non-verbal communication

FEED BACK SPACE

Coop Himmelb(l) au

Astroballoon1969 revisited
The recovered feedback-installation of 1969.
The heartbeat of the visitors is measured and transformed on two membranes. Based on the idea of the “ feedback-circuit program” from 1971 which would be called network today, the non-verbal communication ( network) of the physicalness should be seen as module of the development of the city.
Enter into the giant, inflatable and transparent ”brain” ,grab hold of the handles, and see you own heartbeat come into view on giant screens above your head, while your blood pressure swirls on LED screens. The amplified sound that seems to emanate from your body fills the space around you. If you concentrate hard enough, you can change these rhythms and perhaps entertain the biology of the spectator around you. Based on an experiment Coop Himmelb(l) au imagine in 1970 but was unable to realize with then available technology, the “Feedback Space” is meant as a prototype for a room that has no clear boundaries, and in which technology allows us to change our environment. The architectural object becomes away of communicating directly fro body to body. In the end, as the architects say,” the city beats like a heart” “our architecture has no physical ground plan, but a psychic one, ”they continue;" walls no longer exist. Our spaces are pulsating balloons. Our heartbeat becomes space, our face is the façade.”

Share the communication

Uploadcity

Saskia van stein

At the heart of the Italian Pavilion, upload city shows a selection of videos downloaded from the WWW. Videos ranging from experimental collages created out of digital building blocks, to how the physical city and its architecture used by a generation of freestylers seemingly not bound by gravity.
The Internet has evolved from a search engine to a meeting place where virtually anything can happen a finding machine and a platform giving production space.
A performative space where armature, commercial, non-profit, governmental, educational and activist expressions coexist.
A renewed space with spectacular potential, given one has access to the technology, where we can shape the world around us. Moreover upload city is a wandering through a variety of grids wherein architecture is experienced, used and shown. Showcasing the city, entering the virtual domain of architecture, a public domain is formed where we all could become meaningful participants in the culture around us.

Hide

Life dress

Life dress is a means of creating instant privacy in crowds. The wearer activates air cartridges to inflate the skirt, turning it into a human-sized bubble.

Smart way of combine

Revision of research question and abstract

Research question

How can design support people to live in virtual and physical world simaltaneously?


Virtual world Abstract :

A few weeks ago, a famous Korean actress, who had mental depression due to nasty rumors and gossip written on the internet, committed suicide.
But the irony was that her website was full of writings and pictures that only show her as happy.
Which was her real life?

We are living in a world that is supported by numerous information technologies.
Computers are filled with so many digital pictures, and pictures with memories are stored online on websites and blogs, with the e-mail addresses of friends whom we haven’t met for ages…Where is my own place in this? Who can I trust and who shouldn’t I? What has true value?

I believe that I evaluate myself against standards and criteria determined by society.
How many networked ‘Things’ for example computers, digital cameras, mp3 players, phones etc… play a part in your everyday life. And also how many people buy new same function products for entertainment. On the pretext of being busy, we distort and exaggerate ourselves in the virtual world in order to create relationships with others.
However, what is the real ‘me’?

Now we doubt that e-mail addresses are current and we worry about losing images and data from our computers. We no longer trust those smiley icons used everywhere online.
People who think the cyber world is not the real world can create rumors which kill in the real world. Is this akin to terrorism? On the other hand, there are people who refuse to have a relationship with the cyber world and subsequently lose their place in the social fabric it creates.

This research is to find out what is the true ‘I’ and ‘them’ in a world where everyday life and virtual life co-exist, as a reality held together by mass media and technology.




Physical world Abstract :


By what course of manner we can design simple products to actualize user friendly AV environment?

Due to digital acceleration, entertainment environment is changing in various ways.
Based on TV, substantial number of products such as dvd, blu-ray, amp and various mobile devices are introduced. The shorter the life cycle of products become the more new products are introduced and consumers are willing to open their wallets to have more controllable products.
Entertainment devices and technologies for living room environment are rapidly evolving whenever new entertainment sources (HD, blu-ray, dolby surround, dolby digital, dvd) are developed.
The strategy of product grouping for living room environment, mainly sound systems have been changed into market driven strategy furthermore, product groups with similar functions are continuously generated and increased in their numbers.
However, because of improper grouping of product properties and rapid product cycle change, products purchased before are moved to the rooms. There are tendency of purchasing same products from old to new.
In order to make products look simple, manufacturers trying to apply minimal design to the products and it is main trend in these days. Installing main control board on the remote control is one of the efforts to make product look simple. But there are critical demerits of remote controls.
The rapid change of living room environment has been started when HD broadcasting service was set to start. AV environment is combined with network. Many network and entertainment combined products are introduced to the market and it makes more change on living room environment.

Now there are more needs of product simplification, since HD broadcasting is spreading more to the world.
At this transitional stage ahead to home automation, I propose a design which can simplify devices and its environment, and actualize true values for consumers through user oriented research and analysis.



Research Plan

1) Field of Experts

Physical world (and Virtual world) :

a. Samsung design in Europe research team.(London)
-There are professional product analysts and planners.
b. Philips product marketing manager. (Amsterdam)
-There are professional product marketing managers.

Discuss for “Sharing relaxation” and relaxation (entertainment) product plan.

Virtual world:

a. Around 30 years old career professional
- Face-book users
- Electronic equipment user for relaxation.

b. Blog and Skype Strong users.



3) Methods

Inerview:

a.Question ( both) :

Where do you usually relax in your free time?

When you have relaxing, what do you do?

a. Relax by yourself
b. Relax with some one

When you are happy or elated, how do you share this feeling?

c. On-line
d. Off-line

When you are sad how do you share your feeling?

e. On-line
f. Off-line

Which do you prefer on-line or off-line?

What is upsets you when you are relaxing in your free time?

g. On-line
h. Off-line

Have you ever experienced side effect when during relaxation?

i. On-line
j. Off-line

Have you ever experienced total satisfaction when taking relaxation?
k. On-line
l. Off-line

b.Question ( Facebook ( blog) users only) :

How many blogs do you have?

When do you usually log –in to your facebook?

How many facebook friends do you have?

How much time you spend on facebook ?

What are your feelings when you spend time on face book? and why?

When you are happy or elated, how can you share these feelings on facebook?

When you are sad how can you share your emotion on face book?

Have you ever experienced total satisfaction on facebook?

Have you ever experienced side effect due to face book?

What can upset you when you are using face book ?