Design Process

This part will focus on the process involved from start to finish of how I individually and the team develop our ideas as the semester went. Including the relevant problem space my team and I decided to tackle, the intended or ideal form and experience that my prototype wants to bring to users as well as the crucial steps and milestones that I took to finish the project throughout the semester.

Problem being addressed

From the team’s perspective, our problem space focuses on study stress for university students in general and different ways to relieve stress. The thought originated from the half of other team before half of my original team merged with them due to the need to forming new teams during week 4 and 5 of this 15-week semester.

From the individual perspective, since our team decided to try to tackle the same problem space of the same target audience with different approaches, or context of use, my final decision on my problem space to focus on is how to sustain one’s productivity by taking small chunks of breaks throughout the working hours as a means to reduce stress. (details on the concept of development will be included in the later parts of this page)

Intended form & experience

To reiterate the design of the concept here, this part will introduce the ‘ideal’ form and experience of what Breakbox wants to offer regardless of technical, resource, time limitations etc… presenting the project on a conceptual level with the help of pictures and diagrams.

In a nutshell

The concept is “a square shaped device that keeps track on the time the user spent working and based on that, advices the user when it is appropriate to take breaks.”

Form

In attempt to make the device portable and not limited only at home, the form of this design is a box that is size of about a person’s palm. The ideal is to allow user to easily move the cube everywhere they want.

One specific aspect should be pointed out is that the sound of beeping could be irritating if this device is used in places like café or library or other public areas, to resolve this user can mute the sound and leave only the light function on which is why an LED strip is implemented for in case the beeping is muted.

Usage wise it is designed for a single user as a personal device instead of something that could be shared across multiple users during the time when using, which has always been the direction for this individual project but more details on decision making throughout the semester will be discussed in the bottom part of this page.