Lecture 03 - Concept presentation

Mind Maps

Before starting the design and development stage, we wanted to really understand how our concept would work.

Here are two mind maps we worked together (me and Foteini) to help us organize our thoughts.

Lecture 02 - Creative Identity

After our second lecture, this time with our Unit Leader Jared Taylor, opened our eyes into different view of Identity, beyond the technology, this one being the Creative Identity.

As Creative individuals, we all have started by validating our hand made drawing with the object we used as a model. The second stage is usually copying the style of other individuals, artist we admire. The third stage is the most significant one, as a new Identity has been created, now with its own individual style and technique.

This type of Identity made us focus our idea/concept in a new way, no longer we wanted to promote the individual in a general way, but in a very specific and creative way.

The "Tamagotchi" idea, was to be a handheld digital portfolio, where its creature would feed on his creativity.

How would that work? Let me explain in a very simple way.

Being a portfolio = creature, the more work you have uploaded, the more "food" your creature would have to eat, and therefore, the stronger and healthier creature would be.

These are our initial thoughts.

Tamagotchi Concept

This is how it all started. The idea of designing a device together with a service which would promote ones Identity in a network environment.

In our day-to-day, is extremely hard to come up with a complete new idea for a product or device which not only is useful and practical, but has that craze effect that would make each one of us buy one!

Walkman, Gameboy, Tamagotchi, iPod are all good examples.

The Tamagotchi was a very successful product, and it wasn't more than a handheld digital pet (created by Aki Maita and sold by Bandai).

This was basically a digital pet which one had to feed, play and clean to make sure the Tamagotchi would grow strong and healthy. One would have 3 buttons to control which activity one wants to perform:

- feeding

- playing

- cleaning (tamagotchi's digital waste)

- checking its age, discipline, hunger, happiness and other stats

- connecting with other friends

It became such a craze that more than 70 million Tamagotchis have been sold as of 2008.

But now, with devices such as mobile phones, which already have games pre-installed, high resolution screens, powerful processors, good graphics cards and a wide range of applications, like:

- phone

- organizer (calendar, clock, alarm, etc)

- games

- apps (word processor, etc)

- camera (photo and video)

- music player

is very little room to develop a brand new product, specially since mobile phones have came to reduce the number of devices one has to carry.

phone + mp3 player + camera + computer (apps/games) = mobile phone

So, the idea was to create a "Tamagotchi" look alike to promote your Identity. Where one would carry with them and could also synchronize with their mobile phone or computer.

Identity

It was asked from us, to create a device/product and a service which would enable the user to promote his identity, bearing in mind all security issues in relation to his personal information.

First step on this project is to find out what is "Identity"?

Identity

1.the fact of being who or what a person or thing is: she knew the identity of the bomber

2.a close similarity or feeling of understanding.

(Oxford English Dictionary)

People are the best example for an identity portrait, from their personal details, name, age, gender, finger print, etc, to physical appearance, what we wear, what we carry with us (mobile, laptop, mp3 player, books, toiletries, etc), this is all that defines our identity.

But there is another level of Identity, it is our behaviour, how we communicate, how we act and react to the people and world around us.

Now, in our digital era, there are a lot of online applications which allow us not only to share, but to promote our own Idenity, like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Hi5, etc. All these web applications allow us to share our personal information on a secure way. You are first asked to register for the service and then, set your security details. Once you register and start using the app you are able to decide how much information you actually want to share with the people who are on your network and other which are not, this is called privacy preferences.