Reverse Market Analysis for target user of: Designer Hand Bag

Perhaps out of the many other fashion items, women hand bags reflect directly the kind of status and personality of the carrier. The expensive price tags of some of the designer hand bags are a sign of achievement, especially amongst high profile career women who always strive for better success. The following description exemplifies such a profile:

Alice, a 26 years old sales executive living in Singapore.

She has been working in a relatively successful Software house for the past three years; first real job since leaving university, where she obtained credit pass degree in Business Information Systems.

She is very hard working and wants to earn as much money as soon as possible. As a Business graduate in a software company, she lacks the technical knowledge to promote the features of the products; however her strong work ethics, her charm and hospitality has brought her many favors from her employer as well as potential clients.

She is very fashion conscious, not only because it makes her feel confident, but her job requires her to be presentable when offering deals to potential clients. She is attractive and she takes care of her diet well to avoid unhealthy lifestyle, however she does not have time to exercise.

Alice is currently single, having just broken up with her university sweetheart. Alice is an independent girl who does not like the feeling of clinging to a particular person during most of her free time. Alice spends most weekends with her girlfriends for coffee and at night, she goes clubbing/ partying with her friends. She is a relatively introvert girl who would not start a conversation unless initiated by someone showing interest in her, but once start talking she couldn’t seem to stop. She also likes to go shopping and hunt for bargains, and she always look for the cheapest deal available. However, she is not shy to spend lavishly on items which she felt can help her exert her confidence and esteem.

Alice lives alone in her studio condominium and she keeps a lot of pets. She has a hamster and a puppy whom she enjoys taking care of. Her parents live overseas due to work commitments and her siblings are still studying at local universities. She calls her siblings once a week and assists them in whatever way they need. She also helps her parents to support her siblings’ tuition fees.

Alice is quite religious and never fails to attend her weekly religious service. She is also involved in her weekly religious community activities, where she enjoys sharing her personal thoughts and reflections.

Four-pleasure analysis

1.Physio- pleasure

• Her job requires her to be presentable so she needs to keep in shape – need pleasure
• Keeping a healthy diet keeps her fit – Need pleasure
• When she goes out for coffee, she often indulges herself with cakes and ice creams – Appreciation pleasure

2.Socio-pleasure

• To fill in the void of having broken up with her boyfriend, Alice enjoys spending time with her friends/ religious group – need pleasure
• Alice prefers to have people approaching her so she effectively uses her charm and classy appeals to attract people's attention– appreciation pleasure

3.Psycho – pleasure

• Perhaps due to her financial needs, she enjoys the feeling of getting the best savings out of the best deals- need pleasure
• She likes nurturing and takes care of her pets well – appreciation pleasure

4.Ideo-pleasure

• She likes her freedom in order to be actively involved in group activities– need pleasure
  
• She is a very filial daughter and takes pride in helping her parents pay her sibling’s tuition – appreciation pleasure

Physio	Socio	Psycho	Ideo
Keeping fit and attractive	Attention from people	Financial relief	Independent
Healthy Eating	Friendship with a lot of people	Nurturing	Family Responsibility
Indulgence

Product benefit specifications

• Fashionable design to exert independence, high self esteem and taste (Ideo- Independence, and Socio- Need for attention)
  
• Personal organizer which includes food diary, complete with calorie monitoring system(Physio- need to keep fit) and also financial organizer to keep track of personal savings (Psycho - financial relief)
• Automated Contact List sorter based on person most contacted or special people. (Socio - pleasure for friendship)
• Snap-a-Contact: Special camera mode to take photo of a newly acquired contact and associate it/ prompt to enter a contact number (Socio - pleasure for friendship)
• A pet-nurturing interactive mini game for quick entertainment (Psycho - pleasure for nurturing)

Reference Design:

More iPod docks : Visceral, Behavioral, Reflective?

Apple's Official iPod Hi-fi

I would say this one falls under the Reflective design, since it is faithful to the iPod look and feel. Personally I am not very excited with the design, in fact it looks like my Canon Bubble jet printer.

Product Page

Stereo Dock for iPod® with Bath Tissue Holder with Built-in rechargeable battery
Wow, this might be useful! Maybe NUS should start installing this in our toilets, starting with the Arts and Social Science faculty...
So next time you wanna do your business, bring your iPods, but don't forget to wash your hand before touching it again!

Product Page

The iPod dock for value-driven consumers

I'm sorry, this is a joke actually.

Source

Behavioral design: iHome iH5 Docking Stereo Clock Radio

A new and unknown brand- iHome came up with an attractively designed combination of charging iPod dock, speaker system, and AM/FM clock radio. The first of its kind, it offers great functionality at a reasonable price of USD$100.

Behavioral aspect

• Charges your iPod, also works as a speaker system, AM/FM radio and clock, all under the same hood.
• Wakes you up with tunes from your iPod!
• Sound quality is surprisingly good.
• Works with all kinds of iPods- adapter provided
  
• Overall great value and performance

Visceral aspect:

• Again, not very exciting, very simplistic design, a bit cheap plastic looking built
  

Reflective aspect:

• Pretty much in tune with the iPod look and fell, but without the Brand recognition and unexciting design, this is definitely not a show off

Links:
Product Page
Review

Reflective design: Bose SoundDock Digital Music System

Bose is another player to jump into the portable music accessories craze by coming up with this slick iPod Dock. If you have an iPod and are willing to dish out another $299 USD, then this might be something for you:

Reflective aspect:

• Bose is already well known for their high end audio system, and combine it with the cool factor of iPod makes this the ultimate gadget that one would love to put in their living room or office.
• Symbol of hip, cool, urban, modern, artistic.

Behavioral aspect

• Sound quality is acclaimed to be superior (haven’t really heard it myself, but the brand has a good track record of sound quality)
• Basic functionalities, standard remote controls, no other added special features.
  

Visceral aspect:

• Not very exciting, very simplistic design, but neat and has a clean feel.
• Soothing, attractive.

Links:

Bose product Info

Review

Visceral design: R2-D2 iPod Dock

Just how crazy of a Star War Fans are you? How about getting a full blown R2-D2 dock for your iPod? For around USD$2500, you can finally get yourself a Droid!


Visceral aspect:

• A faithful and detailed replica of one of our favorite Star War characters, you can’t go wrong with this design!
• All the functionalities integrated well in the design, e.g, the eye works as the projector, just like in the films!

Behavioral aspect

• It’s not just a dumb model of R2-DR, it is actually a full blown home entertainment system, packing in a projector, DVD player, iPod connection and wireless FM transmission.
• Various input for Audio video components, USB flash memory for pictures etc.
• It moves around! Radio controlled interface for all the functionalities and movements!
• But I'm not so sure how easy it is to use. The radio control panel seems a bit intimidating. Perhaps if in the future, the designers can put some Artificial Intelligence and make R2-D2 respond to voice commands?
  

Reflective aspect:

• Show off!
• If someone own one, it means he/she is a true hard-core fan of a particular form of popular culture and would go all the way to collect all sorts of memorabilia. I would probably respect this person for the kind of devotion he/she has for the particular passion.
• Yet I’d probably still put that person on my list of people whom I consider a “geek” and who needs to get a life.

Links:
Youtube Video
Product Page
Review

Bad Design #1: Try open this...

What on earth was Marigold thinking with the following Design?


By molding the cap together with the whole body, doesn't it look like there is NO WAY one could ever open this juice container?
But oh wait, there's this thin layer of plastic ring which looks like it could be pulled up and somehow magically open the container.
Naturally people would just pull it as hard as possible, looking at how tightly the cap is molded.


Use your strength and open the damn thing...Arrgh! It broke!
So first time it happened, I used a knife to rip the whole top portion open.

Lesson learnt: Just because there's something you can pull, doesn't mean you need to pull like mad.

Now let's step back and reflect. Is there really no way to open this thing?
Apparently it is supposed to be quite intuitive, and it only takes a small amount of force to open it. This is how you're supposed to do it : Insert your finger into the ring and apply pressure on the middle part of the cap. Then GENTLY, pull your finger behind and peel the cap up like you would on a tuna container.
(I've already broken the one I used for this post, but it's still possible to open if you already know the trick)

Actually at one point, Marigold seemed to have received a lot of feedbacks regarding the design and in response, a small piece of paper was attached near the lid , a sort of "how to open " guide.
I've seen one before, but if you go to the supermarket nowadays, you won't find the attachment anymore though..
So if you missed the guide, well, tough luck!

Genesis

This is the first post for NM4210-User Experience Design.

The quest for the perfect user experience design starts right here, right now.