MP3 players for personality
Each MP3 player looks somewhat the same, although there are so many different people in the world. In the master course ‘interactive technology design’ we designed players with the personalities of people as starting point.
My team (Sanne Kistemaker, Satya van Heummen, and me) and 7 other teams participated in a project of Caroline Hummels. Her aim was to investigate whether it is possible to design products, more specifically music players, for personalities. The project entailed the development and design of music players for the 16 personality types defined by Myers and Briggs for their MBTI personality tests.
Personas
I researched together with my team the 16 personalities and personas were developed for each MBTI personality.
Concept development
Together with the other 7 teams 128 designs were made based on these personas and tested amongst 160 users for their preference. The focus of the designs was the type of interaction the user has with the product.
Using the results of the test, 16 designs were selected. Two of our team designs were prototyped (maxMSP) and tested. Below you can see movies of our final concept designs.
Sit ‘n hit for the mechanic (ISTP)
This music player has the shape and functionality of a pillow. The main idea of this concept is a combination between energetic input and relaxation output. This contradiction between energy and relaxation is directly derived from the design vision for this personality type. This personality likes adventure, but listening to music gives him a relaxed moment. With this product, operating will give an energy boost, while listening gives a moment of peace. The pillow has several distinct areas which match specific functions. To activate a function you should punch the right area. The pillow has distinct areas, because this personality likes to have functional and clear products.
BlingRing
This music player is a puzzle, made of a RVS tube and a flexible surrounding ring. For this personality, action and risk should be involved. The ‘BlingRing’ is small to be portable and usable everywhere. The ring should be slided over the RVS tube to change functionality. The ring can be placed on eight positions. The tube has three functions with a static position. This means these functions, which are stop/off, pause and hold, can always be found on these specific positions. The player also has three variable functions, which are play, volume up/down, and next/previous song. To know which (variable) function is positioned where, color coding is used. There are always two variable positions with no function. When the ring is placed on these “wrong” positions, the player will give a volume boost. This is a risk you have to take.
The results indicate that it may be possible to design for personalities. People with the personality for which the players were designed statistically preferred a few music players, although for our designs this was not the case.
Period: January 2005 – June 2005