Sunday, February 3, 2008

Assignment 3: Four pleasure analysis

Name: Tricia

Age: 28

Occupation: Banker

Background: Tricia is from a well-to-do family and had received high standards of education since young. She holds a MBA (Masters of Business Administration) from Stanford University and is now the senior financial manager of a well known bank.

To Tricia, it is either the best, or nothing. Therefore, she is willing to put in lots of hard work to get to the top of the corporate ladder. As the senior financial manager, she is very conscious of her image in front of her clients and subordinates. Being an efficient worker, clean cut is the style for her.

Although Tricia works very hard to climb the corporate ladder, she also knows that a healthy body is important to enjoy the fruits of work. Every week, she will make time to indulge in her favourite sport – tennis. While keeping fit, she also takes the opportunity to keep in touch with her family, friends and boyfriend.

Tricia is dating Norman, a 31 year-old trader. They are both very fond of each other, but have put off marriage to pursue greater heights in their career. Both of them love to chill out in places with nice and quiet ambient over the weekends to take stress off their work.

Physio-Pleasure: Being a person who is very conscious about her image, Tricia does workouts at the gym in her fitness club weekly, on top of her tennis games. (Need pleasure)
Sometimes, she likes to spoil herself by going on luxurious spa treatment, or just an expensive pedicure where she can just relax. (Appreciation pleasure)

Socio-Pleasure: As a senior financial office, clients take up a lot of her time. So Tricia will try to meet her friends whenever she has the time. Her friends are envious of her glamorous lifestyle, and Tricia takes a secret pleasure in it. (Appreciation pleasure)
Although Tricia leads a glamorous life, she is a little woman at heart and needs to feel that she is being loved. Therefore her relations with parents and Norman are very important. (Need pleasure)

Psycho-Pleasure: She needs to feel that she is in control of her life and be updated with the latest news. She prides herself for being the most updated person by using the latest technologies. She also needs to show that she is a unique person of a different caliber from the others. Therefore she will only wear the most fashionable designer items. (Need pleasure)

Ideo-pleasure: Tricia aspires to be seen as a capable successful young woman. She aspires to achieve even more career success. (Appreciation pleasure)
Due to her constant need to maintain the image of a successful career woman, she enjoys using the latest technologies that are not only of the best quality, but also exude a sense of class. (Need pleasure)

Product benefits specifications:
The phone has to be sturdy so that it can take the strains of her gym exercise. It will be a plus if the phone has MP3 player so that she can listen to music while running on the treadmill or waiting for her freshly painted nails to dry.
The phone has to be efficient to match Tricia’s speed.
It has to look expensive, unique and classy to prove her sense of style, and at the same time, feminine to suit her little woman character.
The phone has to allow her to do web surfing and email checking at all times so that she can be the most up to date with her work. It will be a plus if she can use the phone as an organizer at the same time, so that she can carry as little gadgets around as possible.
The phone has to look professional enough for a successful career woman to carry it around.




A possible match: BlackBerry Pearl 8110
The phone allows constant access to e-mail wherever you are, has a high quality QWERTY keyboard for easy typing of emails. The phone also allows Tricia to access her vital corporate databases and applications from anywhere. Therefore Tricia does not have to worry about missing new emails when she is on the move.
It has the basic function for calling, SMS and MMS, and on top of that, allows Tricia to navigate and browse websites with a roll and click of the trackball so that she can stay up to date will all the world’s financial news.
It can also allow Tricia to organize her daily plans with the organizer.
BlackBerry Maps is an added feature on the phone, which allows Tricia to get directions and view maps while on the road to meet her clients.
The phone also comes with a media player, which Tricia can use to listen music while working out.
The 2.0 Megapixels camera with built-in zoom and flash also allows Tricia to capture happy moments when she is out celebrating with her friends.
Most importantly, the pink phone looks stylish and classy and feminine all at the same time. Perfect for Tricia!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

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

Monday, January 21, 2008

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.