Recently, while undertaking a retrospective on my design work, I picked up my old portfolio, an A2 zip-up physical beast, with hand drawn images and actual printed sheets. A relic from a time before social media, Behance, Dribble and even the acceptance of a PDF deck as standard.
Within the pocketed plastic pages there was a sketch that caught my eye. Something from the distant days of second year Product Design at Salford University. It was from a project that was designed to develop our skills in research, encouraging us to look for potential new products through behaviours we’d observed.
I remember the brief fairly well, we were to document someone’s life for 24 hours, taking photos, making notes, analysing behaviour, trying to find needs that even the users themselves weren’t aware of. The brief was so open that we were encouraged to create products that might not even be feasible yet, to look for needs that emerging technology might fulfil or future advances could solve.
It would seem 22 year old me didn’t relish the opportunity for some deep research as much as the full grown me would now. Through a diary of notes, photos and observations I set about documenting and subsequently analysing myself and a friend spending a weekend in various pubs and clubs.
It was 2005, the first iPhone was still 2 years away and although the camera phone was beginning to mature, the photos still left a lot to be desired, especially in poor light. As a result, one of our group always brought a small digital camera to nights out, playing their role as the paparazzi. Back in the studio, it was this behaviour that started to draw my attention. I started to focus my analysis less on the content of the images I’d gathered, but more the act of recording.
In my efforts to document our weekend, I’d drawn my own attention to the fact that we were already attempting to record each other’s days, and perhaps there was something here to be investigated. Taking photos was nothing new, but the reasoning and behaviour behind it was intriguing. Why do we love a photo so much? What are we trying to capture anyway and for who? And was taking a valuable camera onto the dance floor of the local Flares nightclub(!) really the best solution?
It’s obvious that the purpose of our photography was to capture a moment, but just what elements combine to make a moment? There’s more than just an image, there’s sound and movement too. Videos were possible back then of course, but felt more intrusive in their nature, I was starting to conceive of something more instant, instinctive, combining the key recordable elements of a memory.
My concept ‘Moment snap’ materialised as a handheld camera, made more compact by the inevitable progress of technology. You clipped it to your belt on stretchy elastic. It wasn’t designed for composing masterpieces, so there wasn’t a viewfinder. You pulled it out, and squeezed the object, taking a ‘moving photo’ and recording a couple of seconds audio along with it. The 2005 equivalent of Apple’s Live Photo, or the Instagram story.
In designing a product to capture a moment as more than just a static, orchestrated image, my concepts were striving to develop a tool that assisted the behaviour I’d observed. The idea that we were attempting to capture something more natural, a whole memory as opposed to a single frame.
Of course almost all of us have this power now, over 18 years later. In an instant we can capture videos, sounds and photos in incredible quality, from one device. We can even broadcast live to an audience from wherever we are. While my concept wasn’t the fully fledged features we have on our phones today, the research had enabled me to glimpse into the future, identifying a desire to record and share more, something that would eventually be satisfied by the invent of today's social media platforms. I'd designed a seed of a product that with the benefit of new platforms could have grown into something much bigger.
This is the power of research. Looking deeper and always asking ‘why’? It’s indispensable on all projects. Analyse the brief and always question it, do your own additional research and never assume. Write a new brief if necessary.
No matter how familiar you are with something, your own brand, product or even weekend routine, getting fresh eyes to challenge assumptions and enable discovery will identify real needs and solve real problems. Perhaps finding solutions you didn't even know you needed, or maybe, hit on the next big thing.
