'Service Design and Cognitive Engineering' Mini-Project
Real-Time Research Team
2012.09.20
Team Lead: Pleasant Charles
theme: Let us deliver, through mobile, the experience of real time.
Even when looking at the same picture, or reading the same book, people draw different mental models, and afterward each person sketches their own desired picture and wants feedback that matches it.
At times like this, when the overall or shared direction is strong, the judgment is often treated as the right one. In other words, anyone who thought differently is often considered to have misread the event or the problem.
While organizing each other's opinions, someone naturally thought this was about "lovers," while someone else wanted us to go beyond just lovers and widen the scope to include overall human relationships (personal networks, family), so that the tool would be more useful.
In fact, these are problems we run into far too often in everyday life. The issue is that it is taken for granted that the majority's perception and judgment are right.. In everyday life, just letting it pass is not a big deal, but in the case of a project, small differences in thinking can grow into big problems.
(Setting the target and the positioning that matches the right time and timing, with benchmarking as the baseline, is...
It can be the difference between shopping because money came in, and shopping because you want to buy something.
Doing what you want after earning the money, or earning money for what you want to do ...
For a project or a business model, the most important thing is that team members share a common direction and purpose. So first, we gather the opinions of everyone involved in the project, and in the order of why -> how -> what -> problems -> why not, we grasp each person's intention and purpose, and through that, derive the target, positioning, main features and services, and revenue model.
Based on the results obtained this way, for each element (target, positioning, main features and services, revenue model), we start analysis (benchmarking) work against existing services in each field. Then, with the analysis content we obtained, and taking into account the realistically operable cost and timeframe, efficiency relative to investment, opportunity cost, and so on, we decide how to flesh out the content for each element (target, positioning, main features and services, revenue model).
(Also, for each category of project implementation, the final decision should be made by the person who is most related to it, who can actually experience it, and who has the most exposure to and experience with that content.)
why: 1. How preciously are we living out our lives with family and friends?
Are we not, under the excuse of "there is no choice," pushing ourselves gradually into such situations?
2. Not a mere date on the calendar — let us increase the moments of actually being with each other, communicating, and connecting.
3. If you are living away from home, how many more times can you see your parents going forward?
Can it be 100 times? If a year has 365 days, can you see them that many times?
4. Physical time -> time of communion.
5. Offer motivation through real time, on the warmth of family life in modern society where individualism has run rampant.
6. So that the time they do share together can be spent valuably and truthfully.
7. Smartphones are now widespread -> cases of making eye contact while being together are few.
8. Indifference to other people's lives.
9. It would be nice to have a fun relationship-management tool.
E.g., Mironi: extracts the music I often listen to (auto-tracking).
10. Facebook ranking apps have low credibility.
There is more contact with Facebook friends than with close friends.
11. Looking after the precious people around us.
12. By emotionally expressing relationships that even we ourselves hardly know, let us give value to each encounter.
13. Let us try sharing through the smartphone that is always with us.
14. Existing social services can unintentionally also expose work-related people.
how: 1. Record while you are together, while on a call, while texting.
2. Record the number of attempts made to communicate.
3. Graph the relationship index to help improve relationships with specific people and to review overall life.
4. Freemium service through item purchases.
5. Space for worries and counseling.
6. Not mere time or ranking statistics — what can be done with that time.
7. D-Day -> D-Time!!
8. Target time, target parent visits.
10. Offer events based on the ratio of family vs. friends.
11. Use recommendation features to smooth out overall human relationships.
12. Expressed as a love tree, fruits, and leaves instead of numbers.
13. Differentiate features between short-distance relationships and long-distance relationships.
14. Japan -> Hutick.
15. GPS + give points proportional to app usage count -> points as cash.
16. Simplified features -> cut out obvious things like diaries or photos -> tracking itself has meaning.
17. Offline, one photo a day, call time + sharing.
18. Expressed emotionally.
19. Manual -> automatic (Foursquare is inconvenient).
20. Offline group events (when designated friends gather at a designated place, points are awarded).
21. Visualize information through a path: viewpoint and location.
22. Inject game elements to increase immersion.
23. Rankings across the whole app user base, and KakaoTalk-style information sharing focused on close contacts.
24. Send a text -> points on reply, deduct if no reply, score the time taken to reply.
25. Benjamin Button item + turn time into points.
what: Once why and how are set...
Problems: 1. It can feel like surveillance, control, or restraint, or a sense of obligation.
2. Our service — even without that — may already have users who,
through other services like this, have an existing perception or mental model.
3. Existing apps are weak in their consideration of a revenue model.
4. People who use it before dating, people who start using once in a relationship (in between) — how do we handle them?
5. Lovers vs. family + personal network: depending on the target and attribute, the app's role can change or be confused.
6. Between is personally closed -> Band is group-closed.
7. Check the battery consumption issue.
why not: 1. Resolve the ticklish beginnings with a method that can stand in for them.
2. There is no revenue model for couple apps, but if you widen the benchmarking scope to general apps that perform related functions,
you can get good insight.
Also, examine why the structure inevitably ends up without a revenue model.
