"Although digital devices have their own unique features that differentiate them from other tangible types of resources for reading, writing and sketching, a majority of people still prefers traditional paper media as it provides better user experiences in many aspects: readability, portability, ease of making annotations, shared reading, tactile sensory experiences, etc. Even people who have tablet PCs have to carry both their journals and tablet PCs as they haven’t found effective computer devices or software for this yet."
--Euiyoung Kim, Product Planning Manager for Samsung Electronics
A video demonstrating the features of the end product: the Galaxy Ray, a Digital Sketchbook.
Team Members: Gordon Yang, Jason Praditbatuga, Kunwoo Park, Paul Leutheuser, Sebastian Yen
Over the course of a semester in ME110: Introduction to New Product Development, a class devoted to the learning and practicing the entire design process, my teammates and I had the task of working under Mr. Kim to bring to life a next generation digital device.
The final summary report of the process can be found here.
We centered our user research on the intent of figuring out how and when professional uses both paper and digital media in their work. Initially, we were trying to cover the whole spectrum of "professionals," which we vaguely defined as just anyone who does work.
After conducting our research in this manner for quite awhile, our design coach, Peter Michaelian of Frog Design and Mr. Kim helped us focus in on just one part of the spectrum: professional designers.
With that, we evaluated what we have researched and picked out our primary needs of professional designers.
1. Professional designers need to have the ability to express whatever is on their mind onto some sort of medium.
2. Designers often collaborate with others, whether to bounce off ideas or work on a project together.
3. Idea portability meaning that the professionals would be able to have a copy of their work digitally.
4. Way to make sure that professional assets and information are secure.
5. And of course professionals would want to use a product that promotes professionalism with its aesthetics.
2. Designers often collaborate with others, whether to bounce off ideas or work on a project together.
3. Idea portability meaning that the professionals would be able to have a copy of their work digitally.
4. Way to make sure that professional assets and information are secure.
5. And of course professionals would want to use a product that promotes professionalism with its aesthetics.
From these needs, we were able to establish the key goal of our product: A product that is also a user defined environment for how they wish to design.
Concept generation was done in two phases. Both phases were done individually with no constraints on creativity of feasibility. As the center of the project was to create something not! in the market yet, everything was fair game. Each concept contained a title, a short description, a picture, and a metaphor. The concept count was nearly 100.
The following are the top 3 that made it past concept screening/scoring (scored on how well they met the primary needs.)
Inspired by the modern storage tubes and scrolls for their compact design, we came up with the Papyrus, a portable product which features a unrollable large extendable writing/drawing surface that uses E-ink paper technology for digital storage.
The Con-Next-Ion, a tablet table that wirelessly interfaces with different digital devices (ex: phones, laptops) brought to design meetings, making the transfer of information more interactive. Can also be propped up as a convenient display for interactive presentations.
We recognized how attractive and useful design journals are in the professional design world, so we came up with the E-book. It modernizes the portable experience digitally while retaining all the elements that make paper attractive by using modular, removable e-ink technology for its displays, making it perfect for collaborative work.
We chose to refine the E-book into the Galaxy Ray. It retains the simple design of the E-book while combining the expandable display feature of the Papyrus and the collaborative capabilities of the Con-Next-Ion. It is a combination of both a tablet PC and a design journal (and can be used as such), but a step further. Besides being modular, the pages of the Ray are also able to interconnect and unfold into a larger display or a multitude of different forms that suit many different possible user scenarios.
You can find how we prototyped it here.
The pages of the Ray use flexible e-ink technology to mimic the feel of paper thereby provides a more natural digital surface to draw/write on.
The small yet expandable size allows for great portability as well as extended usability.
These features alone provide for a much greater array of functionalities than a traditional tablet or notebook.
Its design is meant to be professional yet familiar.
The triple bottom line analysis of the Ray.
