Understanding and researching people’s future needs
Providing people with the products they will need in the coming years and to meet their desired quality of life requires an understanding of the complex and fragmented world in which we live, today and in the future. Philips Design has a dedicated team of researchers who explore in detail three distinct areas, which together contribute to product design and development.
- Foresight – analyzes global and regional socio-cultural changes that are catalyzing a shift in the values, needs and behavior of people. Globalization and the “knowledge age” means that the lifestyle dominated mindset of the ‘80s is giving way to an economy where the focus of value creation will be the development of human potential and creativity, and delivery of meaningful experiences.
- People Research – investigates how people make meaning of their lives, what their needs are, and how they see themselves moving towards their future. With input and involvement from real people it examines their interaction with their home environment, and the meaning of technology in their lives. This builds insight into how people define a good quality of life, and is used to build ‘Personas’ which helps Philips design and produce concepts and products for ‘real’ people.
- Trend Research – provides global and regional forecasts of the most important cultural trends for the next two to three years. By identifying the trends that are already changing the cultural landscape, Philips can anticipate what will have an impact on the consumer, the competition and the industry. Findings include developments in art, fashion, interior design, automotive design, architecture, cinema, communication, new media, pop music and food; as well as on project-specific application areas such as sport, gaming, well-being and personal health. It enables Philips to understand trend directions in cultures, aesthetics and experiences, and use these as inspiration to create new concepts and designs.
Challenges to a healthy lifestyle
Health is the most desired possession in the world, according to research undertaken by Philips. Yet the research also shows it is one of the least understood. A shared definition of a healthy lifestyle exists across different regions – perceived as comprising mental and physical well-being.
In spite of the agreement on its meaning there is a worldwide increase in obesity, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, sleep and eating disorders. Genetic heritage aside, 75 percent of the factors that control how an individual will fare in later life is determined by lifestyle factors: you are what you eat, what you drink, what you do daily in life. According the findings from Philips that means that living a long and productive life is within most people’s grasp, if they take responsibility of their own lifestyle.
Also according to Philips’ research, governments recognize that they can no longer afford rising healthcare expenses, so they have begun to push more responsibility onto individuals and employers. Science will focus on DNA and gene therapy. Employers will establish employee programs for nutrition and health, disease prevention, monitoring, and lifestyle management. Insurance companies will force people to comply with new conditions, policies and reward programs.
As the individual becomes responsible for his or her own health, they will become more dependent on other parties for information and on companies like Philips for products and services to provide this and to help them with choices that influence how they take care of themselves.
Armed with this knowledge, Philips is exploring ideas to encourage a healthy lifestyle through enjoyable and stimulating ways. The challenge is how to create inspirational propositions that not only address healthy life patterns, but also make life more pleasurable and even fun.
From early ideas to final scenarios
Following the completion of the research, Philips developed ideas to meet the needs identified. As many as 500 ideas generated by the research phase were refined and short listed to approximately 20 scenarios across the five healthy lifestyle themes – Listen to your body; Care for your body; Move your body; Relax your mind; and Share experiences.
Simplicity-led design
The first step in the simplicity-led design process consisted of identifying solutions that are meaningful and relevant for the consumer. This was important because good designs succeed according to how well they solve an existing and particular need, value, or desire.
The next challenge for each idea was to define the product experience, by defining what the product should do or not do, and how simple and pleasurable the interaction should be between the product and the user. Since gestures are a more direct and memorable way for people to interact with products, Philips focused on physical interaction, for instance: pointing, touching, squeezing, shaking, tapping, stroking, waving, twisting, pressing, turning, pushing and pulling. A deliberate effort was made to attach the appropriate gesture to each product concept.
What influences people most about a product is their first encounter with it – what they first see, hear or touch – as it affects their views and expectations about the quality of the experience. So the final step was to create a “look and feel” that built upon the interaction qualities, through a genuine expression of simplicity.
Designing for real people
Throughout the design process, Philips focused on developing scenarios that meet the needs of real people. Using the insights from its research, the company developed ‘Personas’ – individual people with particular needs and characteristics – to help think about the creation of appropriate solutions. Philips uses ‘Personas’ not only as input to the concept creation process, but also as a communication tool to better contextualize solutions to the various audiences at the Simplicity Event.
The Philips 2007 Simplicity Event used 14 ‘Personas’, whosevalues and needs addressed the five themes. They ranged in age from 4 - 65 and had needs and concerns that represented perspectives from all around the world.
Next to presenters explaining the background of each concept, the ‘Personas’ were physically represented by actors contributing to ‘real-life’ staged experiences. They demonstrated the concepts in home-like environments,where visitors viewed the benefits that the solutions provided and how people would interact with them in their daily lives.
The Simplicity Event allowed visitors to experience innovative concepts and provide feedback on them that will be used to generate dialog and debate. This will be used to help make improvements and move the concepts toward real products in the next three to five years.
The Philips Simplicity Event is being hosted at Hong Kong’s AsiaWorld-Expo exhibition center from 13-16 March.
For more information, please visit: www.philips.com/newscenter
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