Idea Geneartion :
For every problem, ideas were genereated and documented using the mindmap software.
MIndmap ideas for mosquito repellant.
These ideas are now, puttogether from a jigsaw puzzle in to an intersting over all product idea.
3 concepts are being worked out.
As the continuing part of the design exercise, myself, Suresh Mohan, Balaji and Vanmiki had a second sitting, to continue the exercise late in the evening from 7:30 to 9:00 PM.
I had asked vaan to find products, he brought a Vernier caliper. I rejected it basically since it is too much an engineering product and the product, I felt is complicated for the first exercise. Then, I suppose with Thulasi guidance they found the Mousquito repellant plug in device for redesign.
The context of this design exercise is USER INTERFACE DESIGN,
and the product is PLUGIN MOUSQUITO REPELLANT.
We had taken the reference of the already created design methodology and followed it step by step.
Brief Research:
First we noted down all possible information we had from using this product
a. The cost f the product varies from Rs. 50 to Rs. 85 in the market.
b. The refil cost alone is Rs. 45
c. Function : It repels mosquito’s by vaporising the liquid from the refill, by heating the liquid.
d. Simlar products available in the market are Mortein, Goon Night etc.,
e. Literature search from the net , similar products and literature on how the machine works are documented in an acrobat file.mousquite_lit_search.
f. Visual Documentation of the products are documented on a power point presentation. A brief write up of the literature search and the findings are documented.08tra01_moustorepllant
g. Look at similar products that are available – Car refresher works on similar giving out smell. It works through the air from the AC ducts channelized to the freshener tube. There is a minimum and maximum opening for the air to come out. Balaji went figuring out the mechanism in the freshner, they were so involved.
The next part of brief research is personal using of the product and documenting every actions, when doing this exercise look at all best and worst case scenarios of how the product can be used, like product in not working condition, think of worst case scenarios and then try using them in that cases, these will allow more involvement and internalization of the product when doing research.
The actions that go in using the product are
a. Remove the wrapper, to take the product out.
b. Fit the refill bottle by screwing on to the product
c. Hold the product to carry it to the lug
d. Plug it in to the socket and switch on .
e. After 8 to 12 hours switch off
f. To refill, remove the product from plug, remove the bottle.
g. Dispose the existing product.
Listing of Interfaces: the next area to concentrate during brief research and understanding the product is list of all the external and internal interfaces. Since this exercise is in product interface design, understanding of the interfaces is critical, and an interface is a means of communication, an in-between layer between two entities. When listing down interfaces , list down the element and its function that it is performing.
External Interfaces
a. Plug – to fix on the wall
b. Hole on top of the product – for vapour to come out.
c. Light inside to show the product is on.
d. Refill to be mounted in clockwise and and remove in anticlock wise
f. When inserting on the plug holder and taking out from plug – firm grip
g. When not on the plug, seated on a flat surface at the bottom of the product
Internal interfaces
a. Heating coil for heating the liquid
b. light for visual interface
c. Wires connecting the light , coil and the plugs.
d. Plastic panels – top, bottom and the plug planel.
e. Screws for mounting the panel.
f. plug fitments can be horizontal and vertical mounted.
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Problem Statement :
The next methodology is identifying the design problem statement to improve the interface of the product.
Take the complete list of interfaces, noted down in the previous work and try to find problem areas in them
a. Plug when rotated 90 degrees, comes back because of wire tension
b. When removed from the plug, the body slips, make a better grip , holding in design.
c. The product should not easily attract dust, the white color shows dust patches.
d. Holes for the vapour now points only on top, the ventilation holes to be improved to all room spreading of the vapours.
e. Forgetting to put of the switch off in the morning , a provision for autocut off with 8 and 12 hrs indicationfor adjusting timing of cutoff.
f. When light fuse goes off, we are not sure if the product is working, we assume that the product is not funtioning and discard the costly apparatus. An alternate provision for knowing the product is working.
g. The internal wire routing is done very randomly, a proper routing pattern to be given.
h. The refill bottle fitment to the product, no visual interface present how we are mounting, clock wise or anticlock wise mounting direction to be indicated.
i. The refill cap goes unused when fitting on the product, can it be reused in some way or can a provision for mounting the cap on the product be given or can be cap be eliminated all together.
j. The light inside the unit can also be used as a night lamp. Better visibility of the light is required.
k. A product with out screws to be designed.
l. The product hits the body and damages the product and hurts the person, so a compact product that very little projects out from the wall to be designed.
m. The product to be made very compact.
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Product Configuration
During the product configuration stage, study the existing product and document all the views by sketches, document both the internal and the external configuration.
Capture all the dimensions. Make quick sketches, and then later make layouts in any cad software. This phase is to capture all the information that is available to us as values.
When doing the sketches ourselves, we try to understand the different elements that goes in to the product and all those elements add to the visual appeal of the product.
The internal configuarion of how the different parts are linked and the exploded views of the parts are captured.
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Concept Design / IDEA Generation
Brainstorming is the best way to generate more amounts of ideas, when generating ideas we need to come up with quick thinking. 
Idea generation phase is the most enjoyable phase in the full design exercise. Let your creativity flow and come up with out of the box ideas, wild ideas, workable ideas, obvious solutions. Document all the ideas in to this sheet as verbal formats.
The methodology of doing this is, put the product in the center, we have come up with 13 problem areas identified to improve the product interface of the product. Take each of the problem area and come up with 3 to 4 ideas to make it better. Do not limit your thinking by only a single idea, always the first idea does not work out to be the best.
After completion of this exercise you would be having about 30 to 40 different concept, for the problem statement that we have arrived at.
The interesting phase in the idea generation phase is putting it all together, to form an interesting product.
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