Final Chindōgu Prototype
Final Culture Jam Advertisement
Elevator Pitch
Do you have problems with your glasses sliding down due to your low nose bridge? This chindōgu, a combination of a headpiece and a skin sucking goggle, is made to keep your glasses in place. Because your head won’t go anywhere and the rubber sheet and suction part of the goggle attaches to your skin, you no longer have to worry about not seeing clearly due to its sliding down! Also, because all the parts are attached with velcro, you can customise the peice according your taste.
Creative Brief – Seminar
See Different!
What Problems Are We Trying to Solve?
Everybody has their own unique problems, but there are also problems that concern people of a certain culture or community. It was the latter was the case for my client, Melanie. Many Asians with low nose bridges, suffer the problem of having their glasses sliding down, therefore, they have to constantly push the glasses up to see. Unless users have plastic surgery and make their nose higher, it is nearly impossible to prevent the sliding down. Like Melanie and many others, I also have the same problem. Therefore, it was convenient for me to analyse the behaviour and obstacles involved with this problem. Observing both Melanie’s behaviour and mine, we keep unconsciously push the bridge part of the glasses with our fingers. However, they stay in place only for a short amount of time. Also, even if we adjust the temple tips, they do not do much work to keep the glasses in place.
Who Is Having the Problem?
My client Melanie and I, along with many others suffer this problem. After interviewing my client, I found a few problems that could be solved. But among those, her problem with her glasses was most intriguing to resolve because her attitude towards this annoying problem was nonchalant. For Melanie, this bothersome problem came to the point where it no longer bothered her because she was too accustomed to it. And thinking about it, I also have become used to putting my glasses back up that did not realise I was even doing that.
What Is the Best Way to Help Them Solve It?
Many people lack the ability to understand problems that are not related to them. So, if one hears about this problem, one might simply say, “Just wear contacts” or even “Don’t wear glasses.” Nevertheless, that is an act of blinding us as our glasses are our third and fourth eyes. How can we live without eyes? We already have contact lenses to replace the glasses, but they have their limits. Long term wearing of contacts hurts our eyes and there are also some circumstances in which we are required to wear our glasses. Therefore, to help people like us, we need a product that incorporates our glasses.
What Could We Do or Make?
It is essential that we devise a tool that somehow sticks the glasses to our body parts, especially the face. An example could be a variation of a safety helmet with a light. Instead of a light, glasses could be extending down from the helmet. So, the glasses would not have to sit on the nose bridge for people to see. Another example could be a plastic nose bridge in the shape of a tweezer which sort of works as a support for the glasses. We could also devise a mask that wraps the whole face with a goggle to suck the skin.
What Would Make People Talk About or Share It?
Whether it is positive or negative, because of its peculiar and dorky looking feature, and innovative function, people would talk about this product. Also, following the current trend of the usage of social media, regardless of its feature, a single from an influential user would make everybody talk or share this product. In addition to this, an advertisement showing the benefits of the Chindōgu could be made. An advertisement is the most basic and influential way to appeal to the users. The advertisement will target people with this problem or any others who are related. The aim of the advertisement is to suggest an alternative to normal glasses and contact lenses.
How Can They Participate in the Experience of This Product?
As Melanie suffers the problem of having her glasses sliding down, she will be able to participate in the experience of this product. And from what I have observed from this short period of time, she does not wear contact lenses so she needs to wear glasses to l as she needs her to live. However, as the user’s problem is limited to people with certain physical characteristics, it is certainly hard for everyone to participate in the experience of this product. Thus to attract people, we should showcase this product to interact with potential costumers. Customers could try on the real product and get a sense of how this effectively this product functions.
What Is the Context for Engaging with the Product?
The cultural, physical, and historical context plays an important role in engaging with the product. Unless one is associated with these aspects, this product will not have a huge significance. The essential cause of his problem is the low nose bridge, common to Asians. And in a worldwide context, this Chindōgu is aimed to be utilised for consumers with bad eyesight, as people wear glasses for the whole day.
What Would Happen If This Product Was Mass Produced?
Though this product is essentially made to help people with the problem, this is a Chindōgu meant to be “unuseless”. However, as a result of consumerism, people consume things that they do not even need under the name of “trend”. If Apple was to manufacture this unuseless product, regardless of their nose bridge and eyesights, people will mindlessly buy. But soon they will realise the meaningless of its possession and then the world we simply pile up with wastes. As quickly as its value and popularity rose, it would also quickly diminished.
