Assignment 2 - Pleasure with products (Handphones)

Behavioral

Behavioral: Compact, comfortable to hold and use, has all the basic features easily accessible, easy to navigate menus, user-friendly, practical.

Reflective: Not a show phone.

Visceral: Not very exciting

Nokia 1100

Visceral

Behavioral: Not a great performer (lack of wireless connectivity, infrared and Bluetooth), only 20MB of memory with no expansion slots, unfriendly text messaging user interface; sluggish photo and video performance; average sound quality.

Reflective: Not something which has great show off value, for Mickey Mouse fans with extra cash to spare.

Visceral: Disney-themed design, lots of Disney animation and graphics, virtually pleasing

Dmobo M900

Reflective

Behavioral: Not a great performer (lack of wireless connectivity, infrared and Bluetooth), lack of features (camera, FM radio, MP3 player), no expandable memory.

Reflective: status symbol, self-image, show off.

Visceral: Attractive, sleek, visually pleasing and expensive lookng.

Vertu Ascent Ferrari 60 Limited Edition

Bad Design

Below are some pictures of the new nokia bus taken on bus route 151. The design of the bus may look very cool and refreshing the first time one gets on the bus, but once the freshness wears off, problems with the design of the bus starts to surface.

picture (C) Copyright Nokia.com.sg (view at the back)

Notice the corner seats with the metal bars right in front of the seats?

Only very skinny passengers are able to squeeze into those seats. Bigger size passengers can only stand and stare at the empty seat right in front of them and yet be unable to sit down.

picture (C) Copyright Nokia.com.sg (Special Chairs)

Very nice looking chairs, which does not offer passengers any grip. Passengers can be seen to almost fall off the chair when the bus brakes suddenly.

Passengers realised the problem with the chairs soon and will try to change to the sofa chair.

picture (C) Copyright Nokia.com.sg (view from front to back)

Notice that the nice long metal bars along the long aisle do not have the bell button? There is no bell buttons along the window frame too! The only bell buttons are found at the metal bars right beside the doors.

Therefore any passengers who are sitting at the ends of the bus will have to walk to the door long before he reaches his stop, just to press the bell to signal that he wants to alight. It is even more fustrating when the bus is fully packed, and the passenger has to elbow his way through the crowd on a moving bus just to press a bell.

Most of the space is wasted on the sofa, causing the aisle to be very narrow. Therefore passengers can only stand in one single file. On the whole, the bus has a much lower capacity for carrying passengers than normal SBS Transit single deck bus. This problem of lower carrying capacity is amplified even more during the peak hour where most of the passengers cannot even get to board the bus.

Overall, passengers have much dissent towards the nokia bus. Many passengers cannot get on the bus during peak hours, and even if they do, most of the passengers have to stand. Passengers who are sitting down are not comfortable in their seats, and have to risk the chance of falling down just to walk to press the alight bell. With so many problems, passengers have a poor impression of the bus. It is a bus that is good to look at but not very practical.

Reflections

I think it is very important to design a bus for its usability rather than the looks. Although the nokia bus made its point of being a bus that brings you to fun through all the nice looking chairs and sofas, in the eyes of the passengers, all the design flaws will over ride the notion of "fun" with fustrated feelings, spoiling the initial intended wonderful experience the passengers should get.

It will be good if alight bells can be installed on all the metal bars. The nice looking bar chairs can also be changed to the sofa chairs to increase seats that are not dangerous for passengers use. As the bus capacity is very small, it will be better to not use the bus during the peak hour so as not to add on to the peak hour burden.