Category Archives: Cases

Cases

Traffic light labels help us drink less wine

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People often do things while drunk that they regret when they sober up. Opening expensive wines is one of them. In order to solve this problem and, more academically speaking, to overcome the hot-cold empathy gap (proposed by George Loewenstein), I adopted traffic light system.

I place red sticky notes on the definitely expensive wines that I should NOT open while drunk. Yellow sticky notes go for the relatively expensive wines that I stop and, hopefully, think once more while drunk. Daily wines have no sticky notes. Thanks to this simple traffic light system, I regret less in the morning. 🙂

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Cases

Hanjin Shipping, the box project

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MMCA (national Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) is a representative museum located in the center of Seoul, Korea. In the museum stood an eye-popping art piece. It is “Home within Home within Home within Home within Home” and sponsored by Hanjin Shipping, the 8th biggest shipping company following Maersk, MSC, and CMA-CGM. Probably, it will take ages for a shipping company to obtain some artistic flavor. However, its effort will be paid off in the long run. Even a financial company such as Hyundai Card goes with musicians and support creative talents.

 

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… Hanjin Shipping The Box Project is an MMCA’s ambitious project through which Seoul Box is accoutered with artists’ ingenious and stimulating ideas. MMCA has selected Do Ho Suh (1962- ) as the protagonist for the Project’s first chapter held in celebration of the historic opening of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea’s Seoul Branch…

This huge fabric installation of Suh entitled ‘Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home’ is specially created to epitomize the vital spatial property of Seoul Box that can be undeniably characterized by its abundant natural light coming through its glass walls and the historical attribute of the Seoul branch’s compound in which traditional, modern and contemporary buildings embrace each other…

This work is comprised of a life-size (12 meters in height, 15 meters in width) replica of the three-story town house at Providence, Rhode Island, which was the artist’s first residence where he lived as a student in the United States in 1991 and ‘Seoul Home,’ a reproduction of his family’s traditional-style Korean house in Seoul, hanging in the middle of the former…

As one can infer from the title, the work elucidates and conjures the ever-expanding concept of space: traditional Korean house within Western-style house; Western-style house with Seoul Box; Seoul Box within the Seoul branch; the Seoul branch within Seoul… (written by Chuyoung Lee, Associate Curator. Click here for the complete introduction)

 

 

Cases

Studying materials for design

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Materials matter. Designers use biological materials to solve trade-off problems (e.g., strong and light-weighted chair). Consumers buy transparent products. When students join the Master of Product Design and Development program in the Segal Design Institute, Northwestern University, they should take Materials Selection course in the beginning before learning about accounting, negotiation, strategy, decision making, and market research.

In the DDP, Seoul Korea, I met a section dedicated for materials. I saw the same section when I visited TCDC, Thailand Creativity and Design Center. I expect the material section enable general public to develop the knowledge about and the taste of different materials so that they think more creatively.

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Cases

DDP, a controversial architecture

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20140506_Ran Joo @ DDP (2)

DDP (Dongdaemun Design Park plaza), designed by Zaha Hadid, is an extremely controversial architecture in Seoul, Korea. Some argue that it is neither functional inside nor goes well with neighbors; they view it as a dead space next to a naturally dynamic communities. Others, however, argue that this building cannot be judged by the contemporary perspective; they believe it become the landmark of the city in the future, just as Eiffel Tower.

Here is the introduction on the Zaha Hadid’s website:

“The DDP has been designed as a cultural hub at the centre of Dongdaemun, an historic district of Seoul that is now renowned for its 24-hour shopping and cafes. DDP is a place for people of all ages; a catalyst for the instigation and exchange of ideas and for new technologies and media to be explored. The variety of public spaces within DDP include Art/Exhibition Halls, Conference Hall, Design Museum/Exhibition Hall/Pathway, Design Labs & Academy Hall, Media Centre, Seminar Rooms and Designers Lounge, Design Market open 24 hours a day; enabling DDP to present the widest diversity of exhibitions and events that feed the cultural vitality of the city.”

For now, a wide variety of shops run their own businesses in the building. They sell design products and books. It is worth a visit.

20140506_Ran Joo @ DDP (14)

20140506_Ran Joo @ DDP (25)

20140506_Ran Joo @ DDP (11)

Cases

Hyundai Card design library

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Hyundai Card is an usual financial company. It has introduced interesting design projects for over ten years. For instance, it started its own bottled water business (it water), introduced daily kitchen products called (oyster), proposed a new taxi service called (my taxi), and collaborates with Pantech for new mobile phones.

Most notably, it runs a design library at Seoul exclusively for those who carry Hyundai cards. It has rare design books mostly unavailable in other libraries. For some, we must wear gloves to open. A stationary set including Faber Castell pencils is provided on tables. Although this library is smaller than the design center at Bangkok (TCDC), it is deserved to pay visit to polish design taste.

Cases

SK Broadband B-Box, a better TV experience

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SK Telecom/Broadband introduced a setup box called B Box. It was co-developed by a design consulting agency, Plus-ex, and recently received a red-dot design award. It not only looks way different from other ugly, bulky setup boxes, but it also provides several interesting services with TV viewers through immensely improved User Interface (UI). For instance, viewers can access the information about weather, stock prices, and his/her own schedule information watching the program. They can customize the layout and choose main screen size as well as select which information they want to get among traffic, home monitoring, pictures, and etc.

For me, I like the Dynamic Channel function. It allows me to “watch” up to 12 running TV programs on different channels. I review multiple contents, skip commercials, and choose the best channel. I wish other companies pay attention to improving viewers’ TV experiences as well.

SKT_bbox_UI (2)

Cases

Devices help us empathize with others

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Empathy matters in design and new  product development (e.g., Dev Patnaik’s Wired to Care). In order to deeply dive into target customers’ thoughts and feelings, marketers have used some combination of observation and interview (i.e., market-oriented ethnography in Rosenthal and Capper 2006) and even pictures (e.g., Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique). Academic researchers in the marketing area continue exploring tools (e.g., Listening-In in Urban and Hauser 2004).

However, designers seem to invest more effort into empathy probably because they are able to develop tangible devices. Last year, I met several interesting empathy support devices at the exhibition by the College of Design at Kookmin University. Students developed a series of devices that help researchers put themselves into the shoes of pregnant mothers, asthma patients, and even the seniors suffering from the pain of hands and legs. In order to empathize them, researchers carry baby dolls or wear masks, gloves and sand sacks.

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Cases

PhD thesis: paper vs. book

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Marketing PhD candidates write papers. However, some design PhD candidates publish books. I have received book-format theses from two people who obtained their design PhDs from European universities. I also know of some other design PhD candidate in US  who are presently writing books for their PhD degrees. Why do marketers and designers require different formats of work to obtain PhD degrees?

I believe that design PhDs are asked to have a broad understanding about an area, whereas marketing PhDs are asked to generate specific piece of information from an area. An author of a book (PhD in Design) raises a broad question (e.g., value of design thinking), reviews others’ answers comprehensively, and then makes his/her own argument. Differently, an author of a research paper (PhD in Marketing) raises a specific question (e.g., value of design thinking is greater when economy is good than when economy is bad), reviews others’ answers briefly, and then test the question by performing statistical analysis. In sum, design PhDs make a holistic approach whereas marketing PhDs make an analytic approach.

Cases

Please help us recycle easily

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We want to voluntarily participate in recycling but do so only when it is easy. Here are the two bin boxes available at a university in Seoul. Unfortunately, their colors and their names are not matched: the left one has a blue cover and its green panel says “recycled” whereas the right one has a green cover and a blue panel says “disposable.” The mismatch among name, cover color, and panel color led me to give up choosing one for my empty coffee can. Instead, I threw it away somewhere else. Indeed, behaving in a sustainable way requires huge mental resources. Therefore, things need to be designed carefully in advance.

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Reference

White, K., Hardisty, D. J., & Habib, R. (2019). The elusive green consumer. Harvard Business Review, 11(1), 124-133.

People say they want sustainable products, but they don’t tend to buy them. Here’s how to change that.