Four-pleasure analysis

Name: Miko Chan
Age: 21 years old
Occupation: Student







Profile
Miko Chan stays with her family in an estate at Bukit Timah area. Being the only child, her parents dote on her and try their best to fulfill her material wants and needs. Always having the latest electronic gadgets and branded goods, Miko is often envied by her peers.

She is bubbly and chats freely about any thing under the sun. Her sociable and friendly nature makes her popular among her friends, and this explains why she has so many social gatherings to attend. She enjoys cheese cakes and coffee, hence she will not miss going to TCC and Secret Recipe.

As a final year business student in a local university, she believes that having the right image leaves a lasting good first impression. A self-proclaimed fashion whore, she loves dressing up and likes experimenting with fashion trends and colours. To keep herself up to date, she buys magazines such as Style and Cleo. Miko likes to go shopping every weekend at Orchard Road. She has a fetish for shoes and she can’t walk by a shoe shop without looking in. To her, every girl needs to have shoes of different colours to match the clothes.

Despite being a mature lady on the outside, she is still like a little girl at heart. Apart from shopping, she also loves singing and listening to English, Chinese and Japanese songs. During her journey to school, she will be seen listening to her MP3 player. Miko will always be the one organising a KTV outing to sing her heart out with her friends. She is also a fan of Taiwanese idol drama. Gone were the days of F4, she is now crazy over a Taiwan boyband Fahrenheit. To keep herself in shape, she will go for a swim at least twice a week. Miko also has her quiet side. During her free time, she loves reading novels and non-fiction books to keep her occupied, excluding those boring, big and bulky textbooks.

Her old loves
Her current "squeezes"

A young and confident lady won't have lack of suitors. However, she has yet to find a guy that she really fancies. Although she is on a "look-out", she constantly reminds herself that choosing a boyfriend is just like choosing a job. Not to be blinded by the "appearance", there must be "prospects" too!

“Work hard, play hard” is Miko’s motto. She will put in her effort for the last semester and hopes to get a job in an investment bank after she graduates.

Four-pleasure framework
Physio-pleasure
She likes to swim to maintain her slim figure. --> need
As she places importance in image, she will change her hairstyle once in a while to look different. --> appreciation

Socio-pleasure
She loves meeting up with friends to keep in touch with them. Her sociable nature often makes her the centre of attention. --> appreciation
She is trendy and loves dolling up herself to look good. By doing so it gives her self-confidence. --> need

Psycho-pleasure
Stress if part and parcel of a student. Thus she need to balance her life with her hobbies such as shopping, swimming, singing, watching TV and reading, etc. --> need

Ideo-pleasure
Miko is someone who dares to try out new things and experiment with fashion to make something that is of her unique style. --> appreciation
She likes bright and warm colours to represent her bubbly personality.
As an aspiring successful career woman, she believes that hard work pays off. --> need
Miko is a free-thinker. She holds her own set of beliefs, which is that females should depend on themselves to carve out a bright future. --> need
She has a dream, which is to be her own boss in future. --> appreciation

Physio: Maintaining figure; relaxation.
Socio: Companionship; socialise with friends; self-confidence.
Psycho: Stres-relief.
Ideo: Daring; independent; knows what she wants.

Product benefits specification

Phone must be aesthetically pleasing, with unusual colours to and unique stylish design. It can act as a fashion accesory for Miko.

Sleek and light weight, so that it can be cradled nicely on the palm.

Personalisation must be one of the features, so that Miko can change the ringtone, message tone, wallpaper and handphone accessories

In-built camera for her to take pictures during social gatherings.

Mp3 and FM, so that she can listen to her favourite songs while on the go.

Bluetooth and infra-red for sending and receiving songs.

Long battery life to enable Miko to chat with her friends.

The perfect phone for Miko will be...

Samsung SGH-E500

This phone is specially designed for the new-age ladies. A clamshell phone with unique colours such as shades of mocha, dark beige, sandy gold-brown and white. Such cool colours will be what Miko is looking for, a functional phone and a splendid fashion icon.

The outside screen acts as a personal compact mirror for quick lipstick check-ups. This is most suitable for Miko as she is very image-conscious.

The phone also has a 1.3 Megapixel Camera (Flash, 4x Digital Zoom) and Music Player: MP3/AAC/AAC+, thus fulfilling Miko's love for music and taking pictures.

What is most interesting is that the phone has femme-based applications. There are beauty tools (including Makeover Kit and Kid Predictor), and Woman’s Life (Fragrance Type, Bio-Rhythm, Height & Weight Ratio, Calories, Pink Schedule and Shopping Life) for all the checks and balances that keep mind, body and soul intact.

Not to mention that the phone has 6 hours talktime for her to chat as long as she wish.

Other specifications
• Tri-band (900/1800/1900 MHz)
• GPRS Class 10 / EDGE
• Main screen: 262144 Color TFT Screen(176x220)
• Sub screen: 65536 Color OLED Screen (80x64)
• Video Recording(5x Zoom) / Messaging
• User Memory : 80MB
• Bluetooth support
• 64 Poly Ringtones
• Speaker Phone

Emotion and design

The theme that I had selected is telephone. Telephone has an amazing history from the day it was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1875, and we can see its evolution in design and functions. Moreover, it is a necessity in our daily lives.

1. Vintage phone


According to the Internet, this French style phone was made in 1978 with heavy metal and brass coloured finish.

Visceral design
It gives an overall exotic feel due to its unique design.

Behavioral design
Beautiful design, looks like a piece of art.

As it is made of metal, the user needs to clean the phone often to keep the shine. Apart from that, the rotary dial plate may make it inconvenient for users as making a call will take a much longer time as compared to normal phone. Imagine dialing 1800-XXXXXXX.

Reflective design
It could probably be something that portrays self-image. The phone will only look good if it complements the decoration of the house, otherwise, it will appear very much like a mismatch.

2. Novelty phone


Visceral design
It is attractive and appealing to Mickey Mouse’s fans. A great collectors' items choice.

Behavioral design
Apart from its cute appearance, it is also a cordless phone. Hence it will be more convenient to use since users can move around. More privacy, so to speak. The only thing is that cordless phones need to be re-charged after 2 to 3 hours of continuous usage.

Reflective design
Users’ priority would probably be the appearance. It is a timeless piece of item, and a reminiscent of those childhood days.

3. IP video phone


Visceral design
It has a high tech feel, with a stylish and sleek exterior design.

Behavioral design
Has rich functionality such as 3-way conference, able to zoom, capture, save and send the image and many more.

It may post difficulty for users at first, especially for those who had not used such phones before.

Reflective design
The user is probably someone who likes to be in the forefront of technology advancement.

Maybe users will only adopt some of the features, as the other party needs to have a phone with such features to enable images to be transmitted. Otherwise, I think buying a normal phone at a cheaper price will be a better choice.

Bad design

Bad designs...are everywhere, that is only if we observe our surroundings carefully.

If anyone of you care to recall the mental map on how you'll attend Reddy's NM4210 lecture every Tuesday. It will probably be walk/ run to the seminar room, push the handle down to open the door, look for an empty seat and settle down. All these seems like a breeze, but what if simple jobs such as opening the door is made a challenge?

You got me. It is right here in NUS, the world-class invention of the amazing doorknob. Here's presenting a very short video clip to effectively explain what I meant by the the usual and unusual way of opening a door.



Here are some pictures to illustrate my point in case the video takes eons to stream or it fails to work.


The above picture shows the usual way of opening a door. Everyone knows that.


Opps! By doing the same action the door can't be opened.


That's right. The door will only be opened if you simply push it.

It is our reflex to push down the handle to open the door. However, this particular handle does not allow us to do so. By doing the same action, we will be locking ourselves out of the room. Chanting "open sesame" will not do the magic. It will only be opened if we lift up the handle and push the door. I really wonder why is the doorknob invented like this? If we speculate that it is to lock the door, it wouldn't be the case, since there is a keyhole for security guards to lock it from outside.

I asked SL's reaction on this product, and this is what she said about her feelings towards this invention,

"Why do they design it this way when it defeats the conventional way of thinking...and it has sort of become a reflex to push the door knob downwards... "

How about the lesson learnt from this?

"It's better to stick to conventions sometimes while creating things in an innovative manner, else it might backfire. The person who designed this had too much free time I think. Unless it's meant to have added security, it is a bad invention. "

Impression of this product?

"Why go to such lengths to create such a product that is not user-friendly? "

Exactly. User-friendly is the key to every product. I had personally seen many students having problems opening the door due to the weird design. Such doors are available at the seminar rooms in Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences AS4 and AS1. The fact that several classmates shared same sentiments as me could verify that this invention is really problematic.

I feel that a user-friendly product is more important than the design. Otherwise it will just be a white elephant. Afterall, designing is all about how it works...