This academic year some of our final year students worked in collaboration with John Lewis and Partners to develop concepts that provide feedback to users without the use of digital screens. The aim of this project is to inspire designers to use technology in more integrated ways that feel more intuitive than typical screen based activity. Here is a selection of John Lewis and Partners favourite concepts:
Olivia Latham / WE+ / John Lewis and Partners Collaborative Project
WE + / / The journey of trying to conceive a baby can often feel forced, unnatural and stressful. Added pressure from society and family can emphasise the perceived need to conceive a baby quickly. Having a baby is a journey couples should experience together, however the partner not carrying the baby can often feel like an accessory.
WE + aims to make the journey of conceiving a baby a collaborative experience. The interactive, multi-sensory product caters to relieving stress throughout each month when trying to conceive. By tapping the button on top, the couple can track the woman’s menstrual cycle, informing the device of her fertile periods of time. After learning this, it will then alert the couple to fertile moments using aromatherapy. Using scents that can act as an aphrodisiac or relaxant, the aroma filling the room eradicates the need to have a conversation about being intimate, enabling it to be a much more natural and seamless experience. During non-fertile times of the month, the button can be used with a long press to activate an upward pulsing motion providing a meditative guide to breathing.
Niall Cullen / KARMA / John Lewis and Partners Collaborative Project
KARMA / / The Covid-19 Pandemic has altered our lives profoundly in relation to health and wellbeing. Gym closures around the world have meant that home workouts have become common place in people’s efforts to maintain a healthy lifestyle. With this change in workout trends, people have turned to fitness apps to help manage their schedules. The majority of these fitness apps have reported use of one to two months before being abandoned, with the key criticism being that they do not seamlessly integrate into everyday life and so are easy to resist.
Karma takes an alternative approach to displaying a fitness calendar. A wall mounted projector doubles as a clip to hang an exercise mat. When your next workout is due, a vertical projection of a symbol is displayed on the mat, giving a gentle prompt for the user to exercise. After the workout is completed, and the mat is replaced, the symbol will fade. As well as acting as a reminder to exercise, Karma creates a sense of atmosphere to help people get ‘in the zone’.
Jess Lee / HUI / John Lewis and Partners Collaborative Project
HUI / / Understanding surf conditions is not easy, especially for beginners. Off-shore winds are preferable to on-shore winds for good quality waves. Swell size and orientation can impact the consistency of waves, with a different range of conditions playing to different abilities. Long swell periods are preferable to short swell periods as they produce better sized waves, and finally, you have to know the beach you are surfing on and its sub-structure to understand whether it is preferable for low or high tide.
This type of information is complex, and to communicate this on a screen can result in an overwhelming digital display of multiple graphs and charts. Hui is a desktop product that communicates this vast amount of information in a much more intuitive way. By connecting to the internet to determine surf conditions, Hui can literally simulate the wave through a flexible membrane. This sensory experience is enhanced further by the sound of waves and a calming blue light. Through setting preferences on a connected smart phone app, you can ensure that you never miss an opportunity to ride the waves.
Hannah Tomlinson / CARBON COUNTERS / John Lewis Collaborative Project
CARBON COUNTERS / / The information communication and technology industry; which delivers internet, video, voice and other cloud services; produces more than eight hundred and thirty million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Every time we send an email or stream a movie, fossil fuels are burned. Whilst awareness of human's environmental impact is growing, digital pollution remains mostly out of mind.
Carbon Counters creates a tangible link between data usage and carbon dioxide production. Various objects pair with ‘data using’ electronic devices in the home, and require physical interaction to assign an allowance of carbon production for the electronic device. The object then acts as a counter, providing a glanceable indicator as to how much carbon is being produced whilst the electronic device is used. When the objects counter has run out, more physical interaction is required to continue using the electronic device. This system serves as a reminder that intangible ‘data using’ processes employed by our electronic devices, still have a physical impact on our world.
Frankie Hildrick / RUMBLE / john Lewis Collaborative Project
RUMBLE / / Something as simple as a digital alarm for medication can be vital to our health and well-being. However, people often reject technology that substitutes, rather than augments, our natural human responses. Rumble uses the action of shaking a pill box to augment a digital reminder for medication in a more intuitive way.
Rumble works with smart pills that contain ingestible sensors. These sensors inform the device when a user has taken their medication. When Rumble is shaken, linear resonant actuators create haptic feedback to provide a highly accurate simulation of pills inside a bottle, letting users get a sense of the doses they still have to take. A sequence of LEDs subtlety reinforces this message for more accurate feedback, and a gentle, yet playful, aesthetic helps Rumble to blend into everyday life. Suitable for the home, or on-the-go, Rumble provides reassurance that you are up to date with your medication in an unintrusive way.
Eduardo Davila / TOUCH / John Lewis Collaborative Project
TOUCH / / With the prevalence of smartphones, text messaging has become the norm for communicating with friends. Text messaging removes many layers to communication such as tone of voice, volume, pacing and so on. As a result, they are easily misinterpreted and can feel like a less genuine form of communication. Features such as emojis have also begun to replace alternative forms of self-expression in communication that can connect friends in more meaningful ways.
Touch is a product that brings back tangible elements to everyday interactions with friends. Two connected devices each incorporate a ball of light on a stand that can be used to send seven different colours, in endless combinations of sequences, to one another. The ball of light is lifted when a sequence has been sent, notifying the user that their friend has been in touch. Pushing the ball of light down will trigger the sequence. Friends can assign different meanings to colours, and colour sequences, developing their own secret language. Through touch, you can inject an element of fun to your friendship, and connect with someone in an alternative, and consequently more meaningful, way. Touch is also perfect in a scenario when a child is too young for a smartphone, but their parents want to encourage them to develop friendships.
Adam Kendall / BAOBAB / John Lewis Collaborative Project
BAOBAB / / There is a growing concern for our children’s safety, with the NSPCC reporting that twenty eight percent of girls aged fourteen to twenty-one feel less safe going out in public than they did before lock-down. One approach that parents have taken to monitoring the whereabouts of their children is mobile phone tracking with the use of an app. Although this has had some benefit to people’s lives, it has also been found to feel invasive to teenagers and fuel obsessive behaviour in parents.
Baobab tackles this issue by using a less invasive means to keep track. A hub sits in the hallway that remotely connects to family member’s smart device. Using data through the connected internet of things, Baobab can detect how far someone is from home and if they are in a typical location or not. Feedback is delivered through strips of light that fill differently depending on someone’s proximity to home, and have different hues to represent different locations. This feedback is activated through touch and can indicate things such as if a child is travelling home, or is safe at a location such as school. Fitting in the natural environment of the home, Baobab can give a parent reassurance without fuelling the anxiety that a screen-based apps are conducive to.