Shopping Experiment - Osama and Alex

As part of the designing process of the e-trolley we went to Sainburry's to do a shop and document the shopping process. A map of the store was kindly given to us and we started our shopping. Our shopping list was as follows:

Meat

• Mince

• Chicken breast

• Whole chicken

• Chicken legs

Vegetables

• Onion
• Couple of carrots
• Couple of leek
• Garlic
• Lemon
• Pepper (mixed)
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Ginger
• Chillies
• Mushrooms

Selection of fruits

• Apple
• Banana
• Blueberries
• Coriander
• Avocado

Dairy

• Cream
• Milk
• Natural Yogurt
• Eggs
• Soured cream
• Organic Butter
• Cheese

Household

• Small Size Rubber Gloves- the pink ones
• Softener
• Tissue paper

Other

• Couscous
• Vegetable Oil
• Tinned tomatoes
• Tinned chickpeas
• Cereal

The purpose of our shopping experiment was to discover whether the shopping process is indeed complicated enough to require a solution, especially when it comes to elderly people. The following is a description of the actual shop:

We entered the store facing the vegetables and fruits isle. We started with the vegetables in our list. The vegetables are between two horizontal isles that have four vertical isles in between them. The vertical isles are in the shape of rectangle and have vegetables and fruits on all four sides. We started by going on the left side looking for the herbs but on the map it doesn't say where the herbs are, it only classifies the products as vegetables or fruits.

As the shopping went along this became a reoccurring problem with the map. This is because the map keys are difficult to navigate with, as they are classified by categories. Since there are hundreds of products in each section, it was a very tedious task going through them, looking for an individual product. We were going in circles around the isles many times. For instance, the vegetable vertical isles were looped many times and we went up and down different isles several times, looking for an item. As some stages, when searching for a product became impossible, we resorted to asking for help. The shop assistants were busy with different customers who could not find their products, so we had to wait a while till we could find an assistant ready to help us.
When we finished our shopping we had to queue for 15 minutes.

Below is the map of the store (click on it for full size), with the route that we took to complete the shop, drawn on it.

Defining User Requirements/Observation - Stelios

In order to define what the user requirements are, which will then help us in the design stage, it was essential to go all the way down to the root of the problem. That is taking a visit to one of the large stores in my area and observing the way people do their shopping. Based on this we can then decide whether there is space for any improvements in several areas of shopping.

Morning is usually the time older people choose to do their shopping, since they don’t work and they want to avoid congestion and long queues that occur in the afternoon. The plan was to follow 4-5 old people from the time they entered the shop and grabbed their trolley to the point they paid and left the store. I arrived at the store at 11am and got myself a trolley and started going round the store pretending I was shopping groceries, hoping they wouldn’t suspect that they were being followed!

Outcome

I was surprised to see that no one followed the order in which the products were written in their list and all of them returned to an aisle they’ve been before to get some other product that came later in the list. This means that they neither shop in the order the products are written down nor do they make sure that there are no more products in an aisle they need before they proceed to the next one. This simply leads to extra walking, tiredness and delay. Three of the old people were going around in the store to find a specific product or food and in some cases it took a total of 15 minutes to find it. The total shopping time for each individual ranged from 50mins to 1h20mins including checkout time.

Suggestions

• Total shopping time can be minimised by:

• Giving directions to the customer for finding a specific product
• Constructing a time-efficient shopping-route according to customer’s previous purchases. The customer would have the option to modify the route by adding or removing products.
  

• Checkout time can be reduced by adding some functionality to the trolleys that will allow customers to scan items before putting them in the trolley and pay using their cards as soon as they finish. No need to queue.

Questionnaire Results and Analysis - Christos

The questionnaire survey contacted had 4 objectives which were defined under the post "Spec. Requirements / Design Questionnaire". This section summarizes the outcomes of this survey on the various issues the elderly encounter with during their shopping.

1. To identify the problems encountered by the elderly while grocery shopping - Related questions: 1,2,8,11,14
2. To assess the familiarity with various technologies - Related questions: 3,4,5,6,7
3. To define measures of improvement - Related questions: Most of the questions
   
4. To identify age bias disabilities - Related questions: 13,14
   

In order to contrsuct some results to what level the e-trolley should be technologically advanced the personas were asked questions related to the type of technology they are familiar with.

Question 3 asks, "Do you have a computer at home?" .Both personas answered that they do have one. This indicates that at least the personas are either using a computer or someone else in the house is using it.
Question 4, "How often do you use the computer?", persona Ingrid Pollard has given the answer "I don't" while persona John Goldfinger answered "I use it often".
This indicates that we are obviously dealing with a target audience that has either never or barely used a computer before or the other extreme where they have actually been using one due to some circumstances(due to their jobs,children).
On question 5 the personas were asked to select a list of computer programs they are familiar with. Persona John Goldfinger has listed the following: 1. Web Browser (e.g. Firefox, Internet Explorer) 2. Word Processor (e.g. Open Office, Microsoft Word) 3. Slideshow (e.g. Photo Album, Picture Viewer) 5. E-mail (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird) . This shows that the personas that are using a computer are familiar with the basic tools for doing a variety of tasks. From this we can conclude to the fact that at least this portion of the population has encountered with the most known user interfaces in the market.This is something that we need to take into consideration during the design stage of the product.

Questions 6 and 7 ask the personas if they have in their possession a mobile and if so its'brand. Both personas have answered "Yes" indicating that they have both encountered with mobile interfaces before. In the case of persona Ingrid Pollard the use of mobile is restricted in just making phone calls whereas John Goldfinger uses his mobile for taking pictures,sending sms etc. We can conclude once again that the target audience varies in skills when it comes to mobile devices.The fact though that a number of those have probably used a mobile somehow is at least a good sign when it comes down to designing the product.

Questions 13 and 14 aimed to discover what kind of disabilities are common and in what way the design of the system can be adjusted in order to avoid any dissapointments.
Ingrid has complaint for back pains which has direct affect to how long she can stand or walk each time. John had a leg operation recently and his doctor adviced him not to stress his leg. Both our personas have some sort of related problems that have to do with walking. Since shopping involves walking long distances and carrying heavy loads it is then e-trolley's main priority to reduce the amount of shopping time by estimating and suggesting faster routes. Wondering in a store trying to figure out where an item is kept is both annoying and tiring. For the elderly is an another burden to the many more they already have.

Spec. Requirements / Design Questionnaire - Christos and Joseph

Define Objectives:

1. To identify the problems encountered by the elderly while grocery shopping.

2. To assess the familiarity with various technologies

This will be useful in designing the E-Trolley because it will allow for the development of an intuitive interface similar to what the user is already familiar with

3. To define measures of improvement

It is important to have a means of assessing the success of the product. These questions intend to provide a way to measure that success by empirically and qualitatively measuring the improvements after the system is implemented.

4. To identify age bias disabilities.

There are some disabilities that are more frequent among the elderly. This will show which disabilities are prevalent and to what extent the target population is effected by it.

Things to bear in mind when writing the questionnaire:

1. Target the vocabulary for the elderly

Avoid using sophisticated or technological terminology as the elderly may be unfamiliar.

2. Avoid asking about future intentions

Assume the users don’t know about the e-trolley

Administrating the questionnaire

The questionnaire will be given to the personas created for completion

1. When grocery shopping, how long do you spend in a shop on average?
1. less than 10 minutes
2. 10 to 30 minutes
3. 30 to an hour
4. more than an hour
2. When grocery shopping, on average how many items do you purchase?
1. less than 10 items
2. 10 to 25 items
3. more than 25 items
3. Do you have a computer at home?
1. Yes
2. No
3. What is a computer /maybe

If you answered Yes to the question above then proceed to question 4 otherwise skip it.

4. How often do you use the computer?
1. I don’t
2. I use it sometimes
3. I use it often
4. I can’t get away from it
5. Following is a list of five computer programs. Tick the ones you are familiar with.(more than one if applicable)
1. Web Browser (e.g. Firefox, Internet Explorer)
2. Word Processor (e.g. Open Office, Microsoft Word)
3. Slideshow (e.g. Photo Album, Picture Viewer)
4. Media Player (e.g. Winamp, Windows Media Player, i-tunes)
5. E-mail (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird)
6. Do you own a mobile phone?
1. Yes
2. No
7. What brand is it?
1. ______________________________

8. When grocery shopping, how often do you ask from personnel?
1. Never
2. Rarely
3. Sometimes
4. Often
5. Always
9. How satisfied are you with the service of the personnel staff?
1. Very disappointed
2. Disappointed
3. Neutral
4. Pleased
5. Very Pleased
10. How useful are the isle signs when shopping in the grocery
1. Completely useless
2. Not very helpful
3. Helpful
4. Very Helpful
11. When grocery shopping, do you:
1. Browse the isles looking for something that interests you
2. Plan your shopping and create a list at home
12. How important are special offers when deciding what to buy?
1. Completely irrelevant
2. Not very relevant
3. I consider offers
4. I plan my shopping based on offers available

13. Which of the following disabilities can you relate to? (select more than one if applicable)
1. Vision impairment
2. Hearing impairment
3. Memory impairment

14. Describe any difficulties you have when grocery shopping.
1. _________________________

Persona for Interactive Video Game - Alex

Emily James

• Background

Emily is 10 years old and she lives with her family in Bristol. She has a brother who is 3 years older than her. Her father works as a managment consultant and her mother is a house-wife. She attends a Grammar School in Clifton. She is an above average student and especially keen on art. She generally enjoys school but she hates maths!

• Interests and Activities

Sports

Emily wants to become a ballerina when she is older. She started ballet when she was four and she goes to classes once a week since then.

Other (hobbies)

Emily enjoys playing with her Barbie dolls. She also loves to play Super Mario Brothers and Tetris on her brother's Gameboy. She listens to her dad's favourite music (Rolling Stones, The Who, Simply Red, Kate Bush etc.) She has lots of friends who she often goes out to play with. They also like watching their favourite cartoons, on dvd, together.

• Difficulties at home

Emily's brother always wants to watch Star Wars and never lets her watch the movies of her choice. He also doesn't let her play with his gameboy as much as she would want to.

• Goals, fears and aspirations

Emily would love to become an air hostess since she likes travelling and going on holidays. She also loves choosing clothes and looking at fashion magazines; one of her dreams is that of becoming a well known fashion designer. What she fears the most is the dark.

• Disabilities

None

• Demographic attributes

Average, upper middle class

Persona for RoboNanny - Osama

• Background

Priya is an 11 year old girl who lives with her family in Birmingham. She is a middle child with 2 sisters, one older, one younger. Priya’s father works as a Warehouse Manager for a clothing company and her mother works in the Cadbury chocolate factory. She attends a grammar school in Birmingham. Priya’s favourite subjects are history, English literature, chemistry and biology. Priya has a large extended family, and spends a lot of time with them. Priya is a very sensitive child who is aware of conflict and any family problems.

• Interests and Activities

Priya enjoys drawing, knitting, playing football and going out with her friends. She also spends most of her time playing the PS2 and watching tv. Priya also plays rugby in the school team. Priya is also very interested in technology and wishes she could have more of an understanding of new technology around.

• Difficulties at Home

As Priya’s parents both work she is aware of the need to entertain herself in their absence. She therefore, takes an interest in arts and crafts and playing with her sisters. Priya does wish she could spend more time with her parents, but understands why they have to work, and doesn’t resent them for it.

Priya does sometimes argue with her younger sister; this will often occur over a disagreement about what programmes to watch.

• Technology

Priya is always keen to learn about new technologies, however, the family home does not posses much technology. She is a quick learner and would like to have resources which would help her with her homework and to research school projects.

• Other

Priya wants to be an astronaut, although her love for books often makes her think that she would like to be a librarian. Priya’s worst fear is the breakdown of the family unit.

Persona for e-Trolley - Joseph

Ingrid Pollard

Age: 76
Sex: Female

• Background

Ingrid is a widowed woman who lives at home and cries often. Ever since her husband, Colbert, died 3 years ago, the smaller difficulties in life really bring Ingrid down. She has three children, two of which don't visit due to Ingrid's contagious attitude of gloom. Ingrid used to be a joyful soul, who enjoyed being active and playing with her grandchildren. It seems that Ingrid's personal disappoints have passed to her physical health as she has been deteriorating greatly for the last 3 years.

• Activities & Interests

Ingrid seeks comfort in her two loves, gardening and cooking. Over the past few years, Ingrid has been finding it more difficult to garden due to her physical condition, so she has been focusing more on the cooking. She likes finding new recipes from books. She has tried to use the computer, but finds it difficult to understand. Ingrid sometimes knits and writes poetry about pain and death. In the rare occasion that one of her children visits, Ingrid enjoys playing with the grandchildren.

• Technology

Technology has never played a big role in Ingrid's life. Even the microwave has become obsolete since Colbert's death, as she uses the stove to make tea. She has a computer, handed down from her son. She has been told great things about it, but has never managed to make it work. Ingrid's main contact with technology comes via the television and radio. She does not possess a mobile phone.

• Difficulties/Disabilities
  

Ingrid has a plethora of difficulties and disabilities. She has been having back pains since the age of 25 and finds it difficult to walk for long periods of time. Ingrid is diabetic and very sensitive to sugar intake. She also has several allergies ranging from mild to deadly.

Persona for e-Trolley - Stelios

John Goldfinger

• Background

Sixty-six year-old John is the father of two grown-up children and lives with his wife Betty in Birmingham. His two children, Peter, 34 and Kathy, 29 both work in another city and both are married with children. John retired a year ago after working for an organisation that provides security services 24/7 at different buildings.

• Activities & Interests

He enjoys taking long walks with his 6-year old golden retriever. He says he’s been his best friend ever since he had him. He and Betty spend a lot of time gardening and he really enjoys going fishing with his grandchildren. When younger, he used to play futsal with his co-workers and spend many hours in the gym. John takes care of household and food shopping as Betty was put in a wheelchair after a serious back injury.

• Technology

John gets excited about new techie gadgets and still uses his laptop to check his email and read the news on the BBC website. He even chats with his grandchildren through MSN. However, he never liked the idea of online shopping and due to his suspicious nature he has always been worried about identity theft and credit card fraud. He upgrades his mobile phone every year and uses it to take pictures of the family during gatherings.

• Difficulties/Disabilities
  

He had an operation on his left leg after an injury at work 2 years ago. His leg is ok now but the doctor advised him not to stress his leg extensively. However, the operation did not affect his everyday activities in a great extent.

Persona for Hologram/Projector Mobile device - Christos

Persona: Chris Smith

Background

• 11 years old
• lives with his family in Selly Oak,Birmingham
• he has a sister older than him, she’s 16
• his father works for a construction company while his mom is a nurse at Selly Oak hospital.
• Goes to a local school in Selly Oak
• He is an average student but in technology related topics he excelled.
• He hates history lessons.

Interests and Activities

Sports

• Skateboarding with friends. Chris goes to the skate park with his mates twice a week where they take pictures or videos with their mobile phones of their tricks, such as grinds,grabs,flips.
• He groups up with his mates mostly in the afternoons for a football game at the nearby park.

Other (hobbies)

• Chris is very interested and follows all the updates in mobile technology. Although he finds it hard to convince his dad in buying him all the necessary accessories for his mobile this does not discourage him from keeping up to date with the latest releases.
• Playing games on his favourite console, Nintendo Wii.
• He keeps pictures and videos of his favourite football players on his mobile phone.
• Listens to hip-hop and rock music.

Difficulties at home

• Chris and his sister currently share the same room. His parents though, are not having any plans in the near future for refurbishing the house in order that both have their own bedroom.
• Mostly the reason Chris wants the room for his own is so that he can invite his friends over and watch on the computer the videos and pictures they take every week at the skate park. The mobile screen is very small and thus not suitable when all of the guys gather to watch the videos. However his sister is using the computer most of the time and does not wish to get destructed from studying since her A Level exams are getting closer.

Goals, fears and Aspirations
Chris wishes one day to make it to the state skate championship.
He is afraid of breaking a leg during practice hours with friends. He got injured last year and his parents disallowed him to skate for quite some time.
He is also afraid of spiders!

Disabilities

None

Demographic attributes

• Average, middle class

photo reference : http://republika.pl/blog_tp_596576/1093542/sz/skatex.png

Brainstorm Idea - Osama

RoboNanny

Modern life has brought much stress to parents trying to give their children the best start in life.

Child care is a very demanding job, and so it should be as children are the future of society. But parents also have very demanding and stressful jobs nowadays, which makes the task of looking after and making sure that children get the best upbringing even harder.

As parents are feeling more tired and stressed, they are interacting less with their children and spending less time with them. And most parents are finding it hard to, maximise their children's learning capability, feed their kids in a healthy way and spend more time with their children.

Families need more help and support in their homes to give them a better standard of life. But this type of help does not come cheap, as hiring nannies who are qualified to help the children's development is not easy nor cheap. For this reason I propose the development of a RoboNanny, who will not only help the parents in looking after the children but it will also take part in their education.

The core software of the RoboNanny will rely on an intelligent educational agents. These agents aim to maximize the children's learning capability. The intelligent core software will continue to learn itself. The learning will be from interaction with the RoboNanny's environment. And the parents would have control over the orientation of the learning program and can input into it as well. The program will have targets of what the children have to learn and will also test them to ensure that they have the required knowledge.

RoboNanny will also help the parents with the home tasks such as cleaning and cooking, which will allow the family to spend more time together. This will help the family have a more balanced and less stressful life, but most importantly it can be done on a much cheaper and affordable way. We would be able to effect the lives of millions of families in a positive way, as the technology would revolutionize the Nanny world.

Children in their nature are adventurous and tend to like the idea of robots. When designing RoboNanny this will be taken into account. RoboNanny should have a cool look, that children will feel comfortable with. RoboNanny will help the children's education with games which are adapted by the nanny as it learns from its environment and depending on the mood of the children and what they like. But also the nanny would educate the children through everyday interactions.
Children would learn more in a way which is most natural and fun for them, this would be without them even realising that they are been educated.

Brainstorm Idea - Alex

Interactive Video Game Develops Confidence and Optimism

During their growth and development, children go through many stages of self-doubt. They are always comparing themselves to others, and they often see themselves as coming up short. In addition, our world is so full of negative feedback and therefore we have the obligation as a society to offset this natural tendency in our children by giving them the skills to think more positively and stay focused in the right direction. There is real value in discussing positive thinking and self-esteem but sadly, these subjects are not yet included in the school curriculum.

A portable, fully interactive video game could be ideal for this cause since the majority of children play video games. From a psychological perspective we want them to be talking about how cool this game is, while we almost want them to be unaware that they are educating themselves. The challenge is to making it fun so that they will use it!

First of all, the game should be light weighted and its size should be that of a typical portable video game. It will have a touch screen monitor which will be able to recognize the age and the sex of the kid by his fingertip.

When the game begins the kid will have the ability to choose the main theme of his game by choosing amongst a plethora of cartoon heroes. The themes will be be automatically updated by its wireless connection capability. The chosen hero will guide the kid by giving him verbal and written directions on what to do next.

Different elements will come up depending on the path chosen. Each path may contain entertaining video games, educational videos, animation stories, puzzles etc. According to the kids choices the game will have the intelligence to offer tips on how the kid should think in order to get what he wants out of the game. In other words, this fully interactive video game has infinite endings so as they are playing the game it takes them on different routes each time- kind of like conversations do.

The game’s aim would be to encourage children to think and on a grand scale to enrich their lives and encourage a better society. It is essential of course that this game is developed with the assistance of psychology experts, teachers, parents and doctors.

Brainstorm Idea - Stelios

e-Trolley

We all have been in a large store before shopping for groceries or any other household products. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda you name it. Before I started shopping online, I used to make a list of what I needed and hurry to the closest store in my area. Then I started going round the store searching for the things in the list, often according to the order I wrote them down. Well, what if number one (milk) is at one end of the store and number 2 (olive oil) turns to be at the other end? This is simply waste of time. But hey, am I supposed to remember the location of each product and plan beforehand my shopping-route? Personally, I cannot memorise this kind of (unimportant) details neither can the majority of customers.

When you get to the store, you can start shopping in different ways. The “reasonable” ones I can think of are:

1. My way!

Comment: You think are the best don't you? Around and around you go in circles.

2. Take a look at every shelf in the store and put the things you need in the trolley as you move on to the next one.

Comment: Ok, so you went to 36 different shelves but you only got stuff from only 8. Great!

3. Start whistling and go to random shelves until you have crossed out all the products in the list.

Comment: You are wasting your time (unless you don’t have work to do) and you are bothering other people too! Take a look around. You are not alone!

It’s a fact that nowadays increasingly more people switch to online shopping as it is much easier and quicker. That’s great for us and our parents, but what about the elderly people? Think of your grandparents. Did they ever use the internet? Do they know what online shopping is? People at this age will continue shopping the way they did 10 years ago. My idea is about finding a way to enhance their shopping experience and reduce the time needed to find all the products they want. This involves a multi-purpose e-trolley.

As an alternative to the traditional trolley, this new kind of trolley provides directions to a product or in the worst case, to the appropriate shelf. It also saves information about what products where looked-up in the past by the customer and group them together to provide the customer with a time-efficient shopping-route. The e-trolley will automatically recognise a customer by their fingerprint. The directions to a product or shelf are displayed on a 15” LCD monitor that is attached to the trolley. The monitor has memory and processor built-in and is has wireless connection to the store’s server which keeps a “map” of the store as well as the position of all e-trolleys. In this way, the customer is able to see their position in the store and the shelves around them.

The e-trolleys can certainly be useful for customers of all ages, but only the characteristics of elderly people will be taken into account for the design and implementation of this idea.

Brainstorm idea - Christos

Hologram/Projector Mobile device

The past few years, we have seen mobile phones developing rapidly. They started off as simple devices providing services such as making phone calls or sending sms. The future of mobile devices though is unpredictable and no one can really foresee what mobile device capabilities will be in 10 years from now. New services are being added on a regular basis each year. The mobile industry is huge and whoever wants to become a pioneer in this field must come up with the “coolest” ideas of services that their mobile device can offer to the public or to businesses since mobility is an advantage to those that make use of it. The users vary from very young ages to older generations.

However it is mostly the youngsters that make use of the multimedia services provided to them. Video recording…taking pictures….downloading ringtones…sending email..browsing the web….

Now this is the point where the idea is born. You have the younger generations being really excited about new features that come out each time, especially those that have to do with multimedia services. Well there’s something there that I want to see happening. I was always fascinated by science fiction films and especially by the hologram technology “used” as a way of communication. At the time being technology has not reached that point but significant progress has been made in developing a fully functional hologram.

Now the idea is to create a mobile device that will be used by kids for viewing their favorite videos with their friends. The screen size of a mobile restricts that option to users at the moment and you certainly don’t want to have a huge screen cause then that won’t be a mobile device anymore. Imagine Chris, a 12 year old super-excited kid that wants to show his friends this new video or pictures that took recently….now he won’t be able to show simultaneously to a group of 5 the video since the screen size is tiny for everyone to be able to watch at. What if Chris was given the capability of putting his mobile on some surface..select the option “Display Hologram Video” and sit back with his mates enjoying the video being displayed in a 3D form. If this goes too far then the alternative solution to hologram would be a projector. We’ve all more or less seen or used a projector before. A necessity in this case is to have a surface to project onto. Now Chris can select the option “Project video” or “Project photo gallery” on a wall in his room or on some other white surface and show his friends his videos or photos.

The target audience of course is not just kids; however, for the purposes of this project we consider that the users of such device are of young age.

Brainstorm Idea - Joseph

Anti Shock Airbag Technology Lined Clothing

(ASALTC pronounced AZ-ALT-C)

Thinking back to when I was a little boy, a phrase I clearly remember is “do not”. Do not climb on that, do not be so aggressive, do not break anything, or do not take such crazy risks. Now that I have grown into a full little boy, I know that many of my friends had the same problem; particularly the guys.

(Clarification: The problem was the nagging, not the wild behavior of course.)

It seems that no matter how much warning is given; little boys (and some girls) seek fun through adventure and more importantly danger. Little boys crave to know they are adventurous, powerful, dangerous, and a force to be reckoned with.

All the above, according to my shrink, 'is natural'. Boys will be boys, or more specifically, boys will be reckless. Why fight mother nature by telling kids to sit still and enjoy the picnic 'like a good little boy'? I'm not 'a good little boy', I'm a superhero! (Still am) This product tries to offer the balance between, childhood heroism and parental trepidation.

This introduction has given a glimpse of the persona targeted by the product. Below is a small explanation of the actual product; a detailed persona description will come in my next post.

As the title suggests, the product offers safety enhancing clothing, designed for active kids. It should have the ability to sense danger and activate corresponding safety mechanisms. The mechanisms can vary from stabilizers around joints like the neck, to padding that prevents fractures, and maybe even an inflating bubble for the head. Of course, when no danger is present, the material is so “amazingly amazing”, that the kid can hardly feel s/he is wearing it under her/his clothes. This is all achieved through (insert some advanced technology here) that perhaps observes the speed/acceleration of joints/bodyparts to detect whether a collision is occurring; or maybe there are sensors on the suit that analyze the child’s body in relation to its environment and predicts possible risks. Future us are really smart…

Team's first Meeting

First Meeting :
Location: School Of Computer Science Common Room
Date: 01/02/07
Members Absent: None
Goal: Come up with a number of ideas during this brainstorming session. Document all the keywords that members have mentioned and on a later stage go into more depth for each of those.
Process: Each member shouts an idea or a few words on it's turn while others add more to it. A member of the group records on paper all the words and ideas developed during brainstorming. Keywords mentioned by members are then linked or combined to create an "idea" that could lead to a product that serves the two age groups we are interested in. The two age groups are :
a) <11>b) >65 , old people



(click on diagram for a bigger view)

At the end of the brainstorming session a mapping diagram was being developed using FreeMind. This has the advantage of mapping our ideas or keywords like we would normally do on a paper but in a better structured way while keeping it simple. Click here for a better look of the diagram.

In brief, the ideas we came up with by the end of the session are the following:
a) Shopping trolley e-assistant
b) Anti Shock Airbag Technology Lined Clothing
c) Mobile - Projector - Hologram
d) Space Navigation for kids
e) Flying carpet! :)
f) Robots that play with kids

Conclusion/Decisions Taken: The decisions taken at the end of our first meeting are summarized in our mapping diagram above.