Date: 2004.
Context: Part of Master thesis at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.
Product: Mobile.Seed explores how to motivate common well-being behaviors by designing the consumption flow and the emotional relationship with the product.
Context: Part of Master thesis at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.
Product: Mobile.Seed explores how to motivate common well-being behaviors by designing the consumption flow and the emotional relationship with the product.
Mobile.Seed is a fully biodegradable mobile phone that contains a visible seed inside. It can be planted rather than disposed of, and after a while it sprouts a flower.
This project is a communication of a future scenario where objects could motivate users to engage in an ecological ideology without need to renounce the consumer society's acquired benefits. Mobile.Seed is a redesign of the end-of-life of a mobile phone and an exploration on the possible changes in the relationship between the consumer and the device.
Mobile.Seed is at the same time a project in which the social responsibility of the designer is practiced, and a marketing strategy to sell a product that would be ecologically sustainable, but uses the motivations present in the consumer society as the main stimulus. Behind an innocent façade (a flower) conceals an elaborated persuasion mechanics (spread out of an ideology).
This work is part of my Masters thesis at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII).
Visit the Mobile.Seed thesis website for more information.
Mobile.Seed is at the same time a project in which the social responsibility of the designer is practiced, and a marketing strategy to sell a product that would be ecologically sustainable, but uses the motivations present in the consumer society as the main stimulus. Behind an innocent façade (a flower) conceals an elaborated persuasion mechanics (spread out of an ideology).
This work is part of my Masters thesis at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII).
Visit the Mobile.Seed thesis website for more information.
The main video scenario, called "New eyes", is used to visualize possible new interactions with the mobile phone due the re-design of its end-of-life and also to show a possible situation in which a skeptical observer could become motivated to engage in the idea.
The narrative starts with a Mobile.seed spot in the TV and then continues with the protagonist walking through the city, going to visit some friends. On his way, he sees people planting a mobile phone in public squares, teenagers with the new cool model and a guy giving the old phone to his dog to bury it. He has a very skeptical behaviour in the beginning, but after the experiences that he witnesses on his path and the visits to his friends, he begins to change his perception of the situation. The first friend does a kind of mystical ritual with the personal phone. With the second friend, at the end, he joins a little girl in an innocent and playful discard of the Mobile.seed, and attends to the process of spreading out of the idea.
The narrative starts with a Mobile.seed spot in the TV and then continues with the protagonist walking through the city, going to visit some friends. On his way, he sees people planting a mobile phone in public squares, teenagers with the new cool model and a guy giving the old phone to his dog to bury it. He has a very skeptical behaviour in the beginning, but after the experiences that he witnesses on his path and the visits to his friends, he begins to change his perception of the situation. The first friend does a kind of mystical ritual with the personal phone. With the second friend, at the end, he joins a little girl in an innocent and playful discard of the Mobile.seed, and attends to the process of spreading out of the idea.
Project motivations
1. A personal criticism on the radical approach of several environmentalists that simply blame politics, industries, products and consumers for the consequences on our world, but often disregard the interconnected economical, motivational and social reasons that constitute our current scenario.
2. Overall low interest in getting people to engage in the ideology of common well-being. I see this in part as a consequence of a poor communication strategy, not really working on the motivational reasons of the process.
3. Real facts and concrete problems related to e-waste that we face nowadays. This project will constrain its focus on the mobile phone, which have a very toxic waste and high material requirements for the manufacture.
1. A personal criticism on the radical approach of several environmentalists that simply blame politics, industries, products and consumers for the consequences on our world, but often disregard the interconnected economical, motivational and social reasons that constitute our current scenario.
2. Overall low interest in getting people to engage in the ideology of common well-being. I see this in part as a consequence of a poor communication strategy, not really working on the motivational reasons of the process.
3. Real facts and concrete problems related to e-waste that we face nowadays. This project will constrain its focus on the mobile phone, which have a very toxic waste and high material requirements for the manufacture.
