Context

As my final major project I wanted to explore the question ‘how far can Human Centred Design go?’ Can design do more than improve user’s short term experiences of and interactions with objects, can it be used to truly enrich their lives in the long run?

Strategy

In Bonnie Ware’s book ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departed’ she details the most common regrets people share on their deathbeds. I sought to develop products that would be used everyday and could over time shift people’s perspectives and behaviours to pre-emptively resolve these regrets.

Scope

Product Design
Human Centred Design

Nine to Five Pen

“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

Inspired initially by myself and colleagues working long hours in our studio, I began to recognise that breaking the daily momentum of work would be key to encouraging people to slow down and re-prioritise.

The nib on this pen is timed, requiring the user to determine their working hours at the start of the day and then hold them to that selection (be it taking regular breaks or avoiding working overtime). At the end of the timer the nib retracts, forcing the user to be accountable to themselves and to consider the value of working more.

Time is Now Watch

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself”

Whilst this seemed a dauntingly abstract subject I felt it should be possible to distill this into a single action/object that could catalyse the user into living for themselves.

As part of my broad and varied explorations I came to learn about time orientation (how different cultures percieve and prioritise time). I recognised that cultures that perceive time as cyclical (Indo-Chinese/Pacific) and as present centric (Southern Europe, Arabia, Pacific Islands) live more honestly and more hedonistically respectively. Could an object be designed to challenge a person’s engrained cultural perception and catalyse a change towards these more honest & hedonistic orientations?

This timepiece retains its traditional timekeeping functionality but relogates this to a secondary function, instead focusing the user’s attention on passing moments by inflating the visual value of the second hand. This is paired with a continuous sweep mechanism that ensures the watch is always moving, presenting time as an ever-present cycle.

Golden Friendships Bracelet

“I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”

The friendship bracelet is a time honoured symbol and harkens back to the bonds we form in childhood. This design elevates the concept to fit the adult world, whilst retaining & expanding its core meaning. The bracelet takes the 5 most important friendships (as defined by Robin Dunbar) and represents them as unfinished brass links on a black chain.

Over the course of months & years the uncoated brass tarnishes towards the same black as the other ‘generic’ links in the bracelet. Capturing the wearers attention in the need to maintain the piece, and in doing so re-orientating their attention towards the fading relationships.