Assignment 2: Four Pleasure Analysis

Product Analysis

After revisiting of the importance of creating a persona, I have decided to revisit the product itself before coming up with the extended profile.
The design of the product is something that stands out from the usual but not to the extent of being strikingly different due its all-time safe color. As such, the product evokes some sense of urge to be different with its folded leather and, yet not something that is wild and outstanding compared to long high heel leather boots. Hence, it is highly likely that
consumers of this product will be someone who treasures security but has the inner urge to break from the norm though the urge is not strong enough to be confidently different.

*note: the following description is on an imagery subject designed for academic purposes.

Expanded RMA Profile


Name: Jamie Tan Miao Ting
Age: 27
Job: Analyst at JP Morgan Singapore
Nationality: Singaporean
Status: Single
Annual income: S$80,000

Common denominator
Majoring in finance and accounting, Jamie is a 1st class honour graduate of the Business School at the National University of Singapore. As someone who treasures security and stability, she has been with her current job since she first started work after graduation.

Idiosyncrasy defined
the work self
Jamie is an analyst at the Asian Finance division. Brain power exhausting is all you can describe about her work. She used to be a non-team player who hates to socialize. But after going through the compulsory Asia Finance Management Trainee Program (FMTP) at JP Morgan, she has gotten used to working in a team, leading the team and networking even though she still dislikes to do them. Jamie's belief that one will get paid off by working hard has led her to overcome the challenges at work.

Jamie coordinates with her colleagues especially those overseas through instant messaging. She enjoys the non face-to-face contact using IM even though she is not well versed with technology. Despite hating to socialize, Jamie is still being known to her colleagues as someone who is intelligent, diligent but at the same time very mysterious as she is never contactable once work doesn't require her to.

the pirvate self
Apparently, Jamie shows her alternative self, the self that yearns to take risks in life, and to be different after work and on weekends. Out of her plain usual plain black figure non-showing corporate suit, Jamie goes for figure showing, sexy and elegant designer label dresses such as those from Yves Saint Lauren and Donna Karan. However, they are never loud or elaborate in design and Jamie favors them to be black because they give her a sense of security. She would dress up to meet her girlfriends during their free time and hang out at exclusive bar, Vau wine bar, at Le Meridan Hotel.

ohana
Her contradictory yearn for security and stability; and risks or to be different could be due to her family background. Both her parents are practical and realistic businesspersons who got divorced since she is 10 years old. They have always taught her to be practical, as such she got herself into the business school and studied finance and accounting like what her parents expected of her. Thus, being forced to be practical and realistic, Jamie always dream of being different from the realistic mundane world. She actually hopes to become artist who does human portrait for patients at the asylums. It is due to her parents being divorced that she yearns to have to a complete and stable family instead, which would give her much more sense of security.

Given such a family background, Jamie grew up not to trust love and marriages. As such, she is single. She lives in a bungalow at Bukit Timah with her mother who is never home as she is busy running her business.

Motivation
Jamie seeks stability and security through meditation. She is a strong believer of meditation as it frees her from her mind, the stresses she faces and the fact that she is trapped in a realistic world.

Goals
She hopes to find a balance in life where she could fulfill her parents' expectations and at the same time be able to pursue her dream.

Four Pleasure Analysis

i. Psycho-pleasure (cognitive and emotional reaction)

• As a strong believer of meditation, she goes for meditation classes to free her from the stress given by work and family background. (Need)
• As she dislikes being in the realistic mundane world, Jamie loves to be with the nature. It relaxes her mind. (Appreciation)
• Due to her contradictory yearnings, she loves to look at crows. Her mind goes blank and seems to get sucked into another world when she stares at them. Crows are of her favourite color and always seem to evoke an aura of mystery. (Appreciation)
• She yearns for the appearance of her true love even though she does not really believe there is ever one. Thus, she indulges in romance fiction novels to fill in her empty space. (Appreciation)
• Not being well versed with technology and probably a little techno-phobic, Jamie tries to free herself from contact with technology whenever it is possible as they add on to her stress level. (Need)

ii. Socio-pleasure

• Being someone who yearns for security and stability, she doesn’t like to mix around with people whom she doesn’t know. She such, she is pretty much anti-social and has only her clique of good girlfriends whom she hangs around with during free time at Vau wine bar that they patronized very regularly. (Need)
• As she doesn’t has a lot of friends and she don't consider her colleagues to be part of her real social circle, thus she prefers to meet her clique of girlfriends very regularly and keep in close contact through face-to-face meetings than emails etc. (Need)
• Jamie still dislikes networking and socializing except with her close friends. Thus she actually enjoy most when she is not in the limelight during networking and prefers to stay home alone. (Appreciation)
  

iii. Physico-pleasure (body pleasures drive from senses)

• Despite having a physically undemanding job, Jamie never balances her life with physical exercising. She hates to exercise. She derives her pleasure simply by lying in bed and do nothing (maybe just reading her romance novel). She doesn't see the need to exhaust herself physically when she already does so to her mind when she works. (Need)
• Jamie has an unexplainable liking for the smell of grass. (Appreciation)
• She also has an unexplainable liking for the feel and sound of typing the laptop keyboard despite being afraid of technology. (Sometimes she hates the extreme contradictory self. She calls herself a walking contradiction.) (Appreciation)
  

iv. Ideo-pleasure

• With her background, Jamie feels that having a complete and stable family in life is the top most essential things in life. As such she volunteers herself at the orphanage. She admires celebrities who shows concern for children e.g. Angelina Jolie. (Appreciation)
  
• As a believer of meditation, Jamie aspires to give her own meditation classes one day too. (Appreciation)
• As she enjoys to be in the nature, Jamie feels strongly for the need to protect the earth. Thus she does recycling and minimizes the use plastic bags. (Need)
  

Product Benefits Specification

Phone for her alternative (private) self (not the boring corporate image)

• Design must stand out from the usual but not to the extent of being strikingly different. (Appreciation)

• i. Black
• ii. Other elements that defer from the usual

• Basic functions i.e. SMS/Call where Jamie can text/call her close friends. (Need)
• Camera function to take pictures of her close friends and store them inside her phone. (Need)
• Password lock function because she places emphasis on security. (Need)
• Good brand name as she treasures stability, and the reputation to be environmental friendly. (Appreciation)
• Product must be visceral and reflective rather than behavioral. As Jamie is not well versed with technology, she does not need her phone to be technologically sophisticated. However, there is a need to be user friendly or it will add on stress. (Need)
  
• Nice keypad because Jamie likes the feel of typing. (Appreciation)
  

Example: Nokia 7390


Image from: Google

• Nokia is well known for producing user friendly phones and their products are relatively stable. As such it will fulfill the need pf Jamie for a user friendly and a phone of a good brand name.
• In addition, caring for the enivronment is one of Nokia's corporate responsibility aim.
  
• Basic functions i.e. SMS/Call and camera function of 3 megapixel to take pictures of her close friends and store them inside her phone.
• Password lock function is available.
• Nokia 7390 is known to be a fashion phone more than a phone with great technical specs.
  
• It is mainly black in color and has bronze tinge to it. Design is slightly different and clam shell phones are not common, but definitely not out of the world kind of design.
  
• Nice keypad buttons.

Reflection on 29 Jan class

The class activity was actually to judge from the photo of a product on what target audience the product is meant for and come up with a imaginary subject. Through the activity, I realised that to come up with the target audience is pretty much easy, but to come up with a specific imaginary subject is tough! I guess to paint the persona, one has got to be very specific, exclusive and the key is really to know and understand each individual consumer is pretty much distinctly different.

Geri and I came up with a subject, and the comment is that it was good but not specific enough because there is still alot of such people around. So the assignment 2 will be a second attempt to better the skills of coming up with a good imagery subject that one can really visualize.

However, before embarking in the assignment I guess there is a need to understand the subject of the matter more. Why is there a need to paint a specific persona? I had the same question as Mike. Having designing a product by keeping a specific person in mind, wouldn't it be way too subjective and narrow? Also, in reality, commercial success is the main aim of producing all products. Can selling to one person ensure commercial success?

After reading the readings to look for the answer, I realized that there is indeed a need for a persona. It is the key to commercial success. In her article, Alison Head put forth the same doubt: How can designing for a single soul possibly ensure an interface that supports the needs of many users? Based on Alan Cooper's view, she argued that "personas introduce designers to hypothetical users who have names, personal traits, and habits that in a relatively short time become believable constructs for honing design specifications." Such personas are "stand-ins with archetypal characteristics that represent a much larger group of users." In order to have a strong sense of what users' goals are and what an interface needs to fulfill them, designers need to have persona.

Additionally, as argued by Tina Calabria, by creating a product through analysing a group, the data collected from them will end up to be a endless list with no priorities. Such approach has no directions and the ending of such will be designing a product that targeting no one at all. By using personas, it is like enriching the market segmentation technique, where designers can identify the type of users profile in.
Lastly, as argued by Paul-Aumer Ryan, in order to create an emotion design, knowing one's audience is very important. Idyllic designs can never exist due to individual differences in cultures. As such, if designs are geared towards being idyllic by focusing on designing for the masses or a group, it will not succeed. He argued that designs must gear towards hedonism, where there is a match between the emotional effect of design and emotional effect of situation to achieve emotional designing. As such, in order to gear towards hedonism, it is more effective to have a single subject in mind.

With all these arguments, it is evident that there is indeed a need to create a persona in the process of designing a product...