Design Process

Writing

This project was born out of a design challenge. My challenge was to redesign a favorite, everyday experience. When starting on a design task, I like to put pencil to paper, rather than start out with digital tools. The first task was to brainstorm a list of favorite experiences. Brainstorming is a great way to free the mind. Sometimes it feels like panning for gold, you never know what might bubble up. The idea is to turn off the inner critic and just let the ideas flow. Usually, you want to get at least ten ideas, but the more the better:

• Playing guitar
• Listening to music
• Drinking tea
• Hiking
• Reading a book
• Working out
• Gardening
• Riding a bike
• Being with my family
• Drawing and painting
• Watching shows and movies
• Playing video games
• Playing basketball with my kids
• Coding
• Travel
• Road trips
• Sailing
• Sleeping
• Meditating
• Eating

Usually, you want to methodically narrow down the options, until you have a short list of 3-5, and then spend time sketching each. However, sometimes the right idea just pops out. For me, this was the case with the simple idea of reading a book.

How can reading a book be made better? Well, let's think about it. One great way to approach a design is to ask,What's not so great about this experience currently?

When I asked that question, a surprising number of things came to mind. I realized that concentrated focus on a book for a significant amount of time is easily disrupted. For me, most of the time it is because something in my environment is just not quite right. I will start to feel uncomfortable because of my position, the light isn't right, or there's no place to put my cup of tea. So, three problems became clear right away:

• It is hard to get the lighting just right when reading a paper book. It is often hard to get lamps in the right position with just the right amount of light. Sometimes the light will be fine for one side of the book, but when you turn to the other page, it is in shadow.
• It is hard to find a comfortable position to read for a long time. People are supposed to move about. Some chairs seem designed to try and keep you in a single position all the time.
• I always like to have a nice cozy cup of something, or a snack when I am reading. Most chairs and couches don't have convenient places to put things. They might have arm rests, but usually these are too narrow, or are not flat and suitable for putting down items.

With these three problems in mind, I started sketching.