The Early Blow
My team and I began brainstorming on ideas way ahead before the official commencement of the project. Inspired by the physical product that Mr. Reddy mentioned: the Kneon beer bottle, (as we thought that creating a physical product would be more interesting than creating interactive web content), we went towards that direction of creating physical products, coming out with a lengthy shortlist of ideas comprising of: a multi-functional female urinal (of various designs), 5-way highlighter that is slim and handy, shirt hanger that digitally adapts to fit the varying sizes of shirt, and even rebranding of Thinkpad laptop through LED screens on the laptop cover to change perception of Thinkpad as a hideous and unexciting laptop.
We were really keen on presenting these ideas on that preliminary proposal session with Mr. Reddy, but was devastated (really shattered) when these initial ideas were utterly slammed and rejected. An entire month of effort was practically wasted! Mr. Reddy did not agree with our multi-function female urinal as he felt this product already existed and adding functions to it will not be appealing, and he went strongly against the idea of rebranding Thinkpad, as he felt rebranding isn’t the focus of ‘needs’, particularly this module isn’t about branding.
The Wise Man Speaks
Mr. Reddy raised up an important pointer that entirely changed our perspective of the final project (for the better). Instead of going in the direction of creating the new products first, then addressing the need, the focus should start with identify user’s needs; REAL needs that existed, and then focus on solving them through the product. It only made sense, and woke us up entirely as we were blindly heading in the wrong direction! It was very true as we had the dilemma of having a new product that we tried to forcefully add interactivity to it and then tried to convince ourselves it was a need.
It shouldn’t be that way.
Nature Took Its Course
That really woke us up and gave us a correct direction to head to. Now comes the big brainstorm: identifying user needs in present setting. I was pretty frustrated initially as I realized all possible needs that I can think of seems to be already solved, and sometimes they are solved so simply. Yet, I firmly believe there must be a need somewhere, which we never realized. Deciding to reflect on common needs relevant to my social circle (as commoners in the population), I realized a rather significant need that’s commonplace which I’d overlooked: the need to transform car-parking negative experience. There are plenty of antagonists in Singapore who are really frustrated with parking in town (some do not even want to drive but take public transport to town areas), and the uncertainty when queuing only makes driving n parking unpleasant and annoying. This struck my mind and gave me a surge of motivation: Why hasn’t someone tried to resolve this problem? Maybe I’m the first? Went on to research online on such systems, no results! Not in Singapore, not even in other countries, I guess I’m creating a novelty, something that I’d never thought of, but this might be it!
Conveyed the idea across to the group and they seem rather excited by this need. To double-confirm, we followed up with some quick dialogue with our family and friends, whom we asked just one simple question: is car-parking during weekends frustrating to you? A unanimous ‘YES’, certifies that it indeed is a need. Furthermore, when they knew that we’re developed a product to alleviate this issue, their face lit up surprisingly but pleasantly, seemingly glad with the idea. It really is intuitive; focus on real user’s need, product would naturally prove useful.
At the same time, Alvin came up with the iCalorie suggestion, which was also an ideal need, due to health concerns reported in both TV News and Newspaper that Singaporeans aren’t health conscious in the food they are taking in. Stuck between the 2 ideas and undecided, we arranged a crunch-time consultation with Mr. Reddy to seek his opinion on the feasibility of these 2 ideas. He seems fine with both ideas as they both seems promising, but he has a preference for car-parking as he felt more strongly that the car-parking need would prove rather fruitful. He was supportive and interested towards it, furthermore it was something that was unique and different from the previous batches. Thus, that marked our start (finally, after so many ‘bumps’ and ’swells’ mentally), and our progress for this novelty got underway. We are excited!
A good lesson learned indeed: Mr. Reddy’s wise reminder of the approach of examining needs ahead of products, eventually made the process all so natural and convincingly for the eventual product, that naturally requires interactivity.
