Prototype Development Notes and Sketches - Katie

These were the sketches I created while we were developing ideas for our prototype. We had settled on using the ground-based volcano alert levels as our way to visually indicate the threat level. It's a set of colours that is universally recognised. A user can intuitively understand that green is good news and red is bad news. I proposed a different kind of clipping attachment to Tala and Eanna's concepts, one inspired by an accessory that was already tested and on the market: the Pokemon Go Plus accessory. It's an example of a product with the flexibility we wanted. It has a clip on the back that can allow you to attach it to anything you want-- your belt, your bag strap, your pocket-- but if you want, you can slide the accessory into a wristwatch attachment and wear it like a watch. 

At this early stage, a lot of the concepts were focused on making the product aesthetically pleasing, so I wanted to draw our attention back to the most important feature, which was making sure the user could easily feel the vibrations and light changes that warned them of danger. Instead of obscuring the light, we should make it as obvious. My design here was a transparent plastic shell that would allow clear view of the light and had a flat base that would make it easy for any vibrations to be felt by a user. 

This idea would then be developed further by bringing back the aesthetic elements that would make it appealing for a user to wear while also integrating the culture of region into the design in our final prototype. 

My sketches

The Pokemon Go Plus Accessory

Alert System we integrating into prototype

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