Designing useful future products and interfaces

This week we were asked to come up with a product that does not yet exist but may exist in the near or distant future that is designed around the idea that presents information to a person in a simplistic way. The idea was based around a person with a busy life style that has little spar time or concentration and a product that would catch the attention of this person/people. We were given around a week to come up with a idea, develop it and then to present it to the class. Our group based our idea around public transportation, eliminating the need for use of physical money and instead replacing it with a swab system, the swab first went from a wrist bang and later evolved into a Key ring.

The idea was to upload money to this swab so that no money would be needed on the bus, therefore speeding up the whole process. Along with the swab idea we also came up with a 2D holographic touch screen interface that would be built into one of the glass panels within a bus stop, this interface would easily show you which bus route you would be taking and also where the bus would be and how long the journey would take taking into account traffic on that day. The name for this design would be "Map Trak", one of the many useful tools unlike routes and times that are available now, would be that if the bus had been diverted and unavailable, "Map Trak" would inform you instantly and direct you to the nearest available bus stop. Another useful tool would be being able to view your travel history online, and suggest alternate faster routes. A points system would also be in effect, with keeping "Trak" of your progress and reward you with free journeys and other benefits for using public transport. The overall idea was to make public transportation easier, more enjoyable and more efficient. 

I really enjoyed this task because if anything it helped me realize the problems that designers face, how hard it is to appeal to people with very little time and how to appeal to their extremely small attention span.