wireless charging lamp
voila!
Team Project
Project Timeline:
16 weeks (Aug 26 - Dec 16, 2019)
Deliverables:
Finished working prototype
Process book
Process video
Advertisement video
Roles:
User and market research
Concept ideation
Videography
Marketing and communications
Branding
Overview
"Entrepreneurship has become a core component in every discipline like design, engineering, business, and marketing. For this team project, each member will have to champion in each category: design, manufacturing, business plan, marketing, sales, point of purchase, advertising, financing, inventory, and customer relation. This project is a holistic approach to both DFMA (Design for ease of Assembly/Manufacturing) and entrepreneurship.
The goal for this project is to understand how design could transform to both manufacturing and market."
Meet the Team
Alyssa Auw
senior vice president of marketing and communications
Anna Chi
senior vice president of research and product development
Karthik Subramanian
chief technologies officer
Our Company: voila!
Our Mission Statement
At voila!, we strive to create unique solutions that make big differences by addressing small problems.
Our designs focuses on consolidating existing tools, removing visual clutter, and simplifying processes to make every interaction and each day feel seamless.
Our Design Philosophy
Craft: Decision-making through care and intention.
Empathy: Form a genuine connection between people and their tools.
Focus: Deliver solutions we are proud of.
Futurism: Present a new spin on how integrated solutions can simplify and enhance the mundane.
Company Branding
Before jumping to product ideation, we began by creating our brand identity. Having already established a mission statement and design philosophy, we moved on to crafting our visual brand language, including a logo, color scheme, and reference images.
(logo created by me, reference images, color, typography curated by Anna Chi).
Research and Development:
the target user
We identified target customer segments and detailed a target user profile. To do this, we Interviewed users about daily routines and consolidated the most repeated activities into a common daily routine, and consolidated a report of findings from user surveys and interviews of similar day-to-day habits and preferences.
We found that our users enjoy routine and like to feel that they are in control and responsible with their time and resources, so products that are useful and can be incorporated into their routine is most appealing.
user persona
We created a user persona of a target user to have a profile for reference as we start concept generation.
user environment
We found that clutter due to limited desk space was a major issue for users.
Users spent the most time at a desk - either one at their work space, or at their bedside. We photographed these spaces to gain better understanding of the environment our users are in the majority of their day.
Concept Ideation
We found that majority of users struggled with frustrations of limited space and unorganized bedside table tops. We also found the two most common products found on or around bedside tables are phone chargers and lamps.
The voila! lamp consolidates these two main products to save space on users' bedside tables.
market research
There are many products out on market offering wireless charging or light. However, while there are some products that include both wireless charging and light together, the components are not fully integrated together in the product. Prices for these products vary.
We found that prices come in a range, but generally fall between $20-$30.
Very few products in the market consolidate the components of the wireless charger and lamp.
concept sketches and final concept
We decided on having a mood lamp with the wireless charging pad on its top, which was most intuitive for a user to know how to place their phone.
reference images
We collected reference images based off keywords to serve as inspiration for form generation. (Curated by Anna Chi)
Keywords: minimal, cohesive, subtle, and warm.
ideation sketches and models
We sketched possible forms, drawing inspiration from our reference images. We then selected our favorite shapes from the sketches, and made CAD mock ups for to survey users which forms they liked best.
We found that rectangular shapes would be more cohesive in their surroundings. Because of this, we experimented with different fillets in comparison to tabletops. (Sketches by Anna Chi)
product iteration and CMF exploration
We wanted our product to be calming, warm, and simple. We explored possible colors, materials, and textures, before selecting matte textured plastic and wood for material and soft off-white and tan for color. To match our CFD, we also decided to use warm lighting.
After deciding our material, we illustrated multiple iterations of possible designs on how the materials could be combined. We focused on experimenting with the ratio of wood to plastic, and how the wood can be paired with the lamp shade.
Our final design was chosen for its simplicity. Having a wood veneer on top and a wood base at the bottom made the elements cohesive throughout the product. In addition, having majority of the product be the lamp shade allows for the product to be more illuminating.
(Sketches by Anna Chi)
Business Model and Materials
business model plans
We drafted different business models plans for our company. This included key patterns, key activities, value propositions, customer relationship, customer segments, key resources, channels, cost structure, and revenue streams. This is the final draft of our business model.
product components and bill of material
Manufacturing Process
We utilized CNC wood cutting machines, 3D printers, and laser cutters as part of our manufacturing process. After the main components of the product were crafted, we hand-assembled each lamp.
Marketing
We opened an Instagram account to advertise our product.
Throughout the semester, we advertised different campaigns and created posters to be hung around campus. By creating a presence, we were able to successfully attract attention to our product and sell pre-orders.
Advertisement inspired by Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw / Morning Scene (Split Screen)
Pop-Up Store and Final Product
To inspire our pop-up shop layout, we researched different store displays such as Target and Best Buy. Overall, we ended up selling out of all our our product stock. We found that most of our customers bought our product to gift to families and friends for the holiday season. Having predicted this beforehand, we designed our packaging to be simple and gifting-ready.
Project Insights and Reflections
In brief, this project was both challenging but also very insightful. It taught us a lot about the details of marketing, costs, prototyping, and manufacturing. It was also useful in allowing us to move past the usual prototype stage that typical design studio projects stop at. Additionally, this project was a lot of fun in the end at the pop up shop, and seeing our products appreciated and sold was both satisfying but also very encouraging. While we understand that this class project is only a scratch at the surface of true entrepreneurship and manufacturing, it was a great experience to get a small taste of a “real world” design to shelf process.