2009, Project Bee

This is my 18-week thesis project for MA in product design. You can read the detailed report if you like, or visit the blog for this project.

Following is the concept demo of Project Bee:

Help without "Aid":

Lack of independent mobility is one of the most troubling issues that visually impaired people have to face. Existing electronic aids solved some of the problems technically, but are not widely adopted due to the high price, low availability and "exclusiveness".

In Project Bee, I try to design in a way that not only treat it as "navigation aids" for visually impaired people, but also intuitive navigation experience for everybody. It attempts to blur the border between electronic aids and consumer products, so that it could be more accessible to end users.

The Journey Starts Here:

I started the initial study in a very unfocused fashion, since I didn't have any knowledge nor contact with visually impaired people before. By browsing literature, academic papers, relevant projects and interviewing visually impaired people, I gradually got a more concrete image of their life. I can't claim it as a deep understanding, but by doing this I got a lot more knowledge than before, about what they care and what they need.

Notes & inspirations from initial research
4 visually impaired people were interviewed by telephone, aged from 25 to 52. Since it was the very initial interview, I just asked some very general questions such as occupation, hobbies, how they manage their daily life and so on.

Also my classmate Ceren and I got a chance to try those goggles that simulates different kinds of visual impairment, which gave me a peek into how visually impaired people see the world.

Listen & Observe:

By chance I met a man named Thomas in a movie screening event for visually impaired.(btw, Sweden is very good in my opinion, at treating people with special needs.) He later on offered me a lot of help by being my interviewee consultant. He is a sound engineer and has a lot of insights about life with impaired vision. He also had a girlfriend who unfortunately lost her sight completely about 2 years ago. With their permission I have conducted some interview and observation about their daily life.

A shopping errand

Video documented details of their daily life

Talk & Draw:

With a nice Fika (swedish verb/noun for drinking coffee and eating desserts) I gathered some fellow students here to help me brainstorm, with the topics about: 1, how to indicate On & Off, without visual, and 2, how to get directions ( this one is a bit vague and I further chaged it to " how you can be guided.")

The brainstorm gave me some initial ideas to develop, and I started sketching down the ideas. Later on after numerous discussions I narrowed down my ideas into one concept, which is a wrist band with tactile feedback and gestural interface, and can work together with mobile phones. There're many arguments behind the decision but I'm not gonna go into details here.

From Super Lo-Fi to Lo-Fi:

I used some super lo-fi prototypes to confirm my hypothesis about the design, due to the tight time frame. First I used 2 mobile phones to get vibration, but the lag was too long. So instead I use "human tapping". I tried some very basic functions, such as giving turning instructions and pointing where the destination was.

The test confirmed my first hypothesis, but carrying 2 separate device on each arm is not ideal. I had an idea of having the same function with only one device, which needs a more elaborate tactile feedback. That couldn't be done well with the super lo-fi method. So I started building a more sophisticated, but still lo-fi prototype.

Form Giving:

Then I started to design the physical aspect. I do quick sketches and sketch models, together with quick 3D models in Modo (because of its amazing speed).

Model & Rendering:

Last but not least:

This project couldn’t have been done with the help from so many people. I am especially grateful for the generous help from Elisabeth Nilsson, DHR Umeå, to help me get in touch with other interviewees, Evy Lindgren Henningstedt and Jenny Mozgovoy from Umeå Kommun to make this project happen. Also I want to thank Nils-Erik Pettersson from Polarprint, who has given me much information and knowledge about aiding products for visually impaired.

I have got a lot of input from Kristofer Vahlstrom and Kent Lindbergh during the project, which turn out to be very inspiring and helpful. Moreover, I also want to thank to all those people:

Examiners and tutors:
Pete Avondoglio, Thomas Degn
Processing coding and auduino setup:
Amid Moradganjeh


Video and animation support:
Yang-Chen Zhang


Interviewee:
Camilla Engström, Thomas Sandström, Fredrik Ahlqvist, Stig Hedlund

Photograph Model:
Yating Kuo

Workshop Support:
Camille Moussette, Karl-Gustav Bergstedt, Håkan Hansson