Design brief：
To design and prototype a lamp for a friend or family.
My target user:
Identify my target user：
I am going to design a lamp for my niece who likes cute toys, elephant and rabbit and drawing.
The current lamp in her bedroom is boring. The lamp is too bright, which affects her sleep.
The main reason why I want to design a lamp for children is that children’s products are becoming more and more popular. Nowadays, most families only have one child, and parents will pay more and more attention to the growth of their children. So, family consumption shows a child-centred trend. I think there is a big market for children’s products.
Interview my target user：
Qiqi is a six-year-old girl. Through the interview, I found she has just moved to her new house and there is no night light in her room.
The lamp in her room is ordinary and too bright. The bright light makes her hard to fall sleep. She always forgets to turn off the light when she sleeps. Besides, she is really afraid of darkness. Thus, she needs a small lamp that she can carry with her at night and help her to overcome the fear of darkness. She hopes that the lamp can be cute. It needn’t has many complicated functions.
Highlight interesting findings：
After I visited Qiqi 's room, I found that her bed is far away from the light switch. Qiqi always sleeps with a night light because she is afraid of darkness. But the problem is that she always forgets to turn off the light when she sleeps. Actually, it not only reduced sleep quality, but it also would increase their power bills. Sometimes Qiqi likes to sleep on the top of her bunk bed. So, it's difficult to find the ladder of the bed when she turns off the light. Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and feels hard to sleep because the light is too bright. Also, I found out that there is no power at her bedside. What's more, Qiqi 's room is very humdrum. There are only one bed and one wardrobe in her room.
My design statement：
Goals and wishes:
In order to save a certain amount of cost, many parents will not consider a lot for the design of children’ s rooms in the renovation of the new home. Some children’s rooms may occur some unreasonable problems, such as there is no place for the installation of small night lights, no light switch near the bed, and the brightness of light in the room is not adjustable and so on.
At the same time, many children are afraid of the darkness. When they sleep alone, they will feel very insecure due to less of the parent's company. This will make them really hard to fall asleep and have a good quality of sleep. Therefore, to a certain extent, the small light source can make them feel relaxed and comfortable and they can fall asleep faster.
In my design of the night lamp, I mainly need to solve two problems, which are the children’s fear of darkness and the potential crisis when they are walking in the dark. So, the lamp should be different from the traditional plug-in lamp, the lamp should be portable charging so that the child can walk around the house with this lamp. I also need to solve the problem that the lights in the children’s rooms are too boring. Therefore, I should increase the interest of the lamp and optimize the appearance of the lamp. This can also make bedtime more relax.
Insights:
Children have less manipulative ability and understanding than adults. As a designer, I think we should design a special kind of product for kids. We need to ensure that most of the kids can learn how to use it. The theory of design should be simple. Design products for kids needn’t be complicated. Therefore, the night light needs no complex functions. It should be convenient to use.
Besides, the appreciation of kids is different from adults 'appreciation. Kids are more focused on the appearance of products instead of function and practicability. Thus, the appearance of the products should be beautiful and cute. In this way, it can attract Children 's interest.
In my opinion, by ages three, kids have a high sensitivity to the colour. Besides, children will have their own aesthetic manner to colour. Therefore, in this stage, parents should make kids feel the variations in hue through light and another way. It can help to improve the recognition ability of kids.
Visualisation prototype：
Sketches:
Multiple Views:
Different light:
The two colours of the lamp:
Final product：
Specification prototype:
Operation of the lamp:
Annotated:
Exploded view:
3D print-ready model:
Circuit emulation：
Design Summary:
Challenges:
In the process of designing the lamp, there are two challenges. Firstly, I have never used software for making 3D models. Therefore, it is difficult for me to master a brand new software in a short period. Secondly, it is about making an analogue circuit diagram. As I have never taken any course of circuit making and I perform poorly in physical electricity, I sought help from my friend who taught me to make the analogue circuit.
Strengths：
From my perspective, my lamp has some advantages. First of all, the lamp can meet the need of users. The lamp provides the function of lighting for children in the dark. Secondly, children will have a good experience to use the product due to its simple functions. In other words, children can easily know how to use the night lamp. Moreover, this is a rechargeable product, and hence children are able to walk around at night with the lamp. Thirdly, this product is valuable. Currently, consumption for children has turned into one of the largest expenditures of household consumption. Many household consumptions show a children-oriented expenditure. Therefore, children product is potential in business opportunities. My product has a great market. Finally, this lamp can be produced because it is technically achievable.
Improvements needed：
However, some affairs require further improvement. Exemplified by the visual prototype, only a few details of the lamp have been displayed because of a simple lamp shape, which hence offers a feeling of incompleteness.
Comments