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Family Dashboard
“[Family] is where we all learn: love, caring, compassion, ethics, honesty, fairness, common sense, reason, peaceful conflict resolution and respect for ourselves and others, which are the vital fundamental skills, and family values, necessary to live an honorable and prospers life in harmony, in the world community” [1]
I believe almost everything will be digital in 2015. The primary intention of this design is to blur the division between digital and analog in a product that helps families with their everyday communication, planning and schedule coordination while promoting quality time within a family.
Product Features
- Birthday calendar
- Doctor appointments
- Date, time & temperature
- Family calendar
- Grocery/shopping list
- Headline news
- Member’s schedules
- Member’s location
- Memos/post-its
- Package tracking
- Phone book
- Photo album
- To-do list
- Videoconferencing
- Weather forecast
Specifications
- Dimensions (W x H): 30″ x 30″ (76 x 76 cm)
- 1/4″ glass capacitive touchscreen
Family Dashboard iPhone application screenshots
Design Process
Background
Family is a very important part of people’s life. “It is where we all learn: love, caring, compassion, ethics, honesty, fairness, common sense, reason, peaceful conflict resolution and respect for ourselves and others, which are the vital fundamental skills, and family values, necessary to live an honorable and prospers life in harmony, in the world community” [1]. It is within this core entity and because of what we learn here, that we become most of what we are. As kids, we live in our parents’ house with our siblings until we grow old enough to be independent and start our own family.
Communication and interaction between family members is very important – by communicating with our family members is how we learn about interacting with the rest of society. However, with everybody having a busy life, the time we actually get to spend with our family is limited and therefore very valuable.
On the other hand, with today’s world being as insecure as ever, being able to communicate with each other at anytime is a big relief for family members.
Concept
The family dashboard is a planning and communicating interactive tool that supports the modern 2015 family’s lifestyle and facilitates their organizing of chores and activities increasing and enhancing the quality time they can spend together. This visual family organizer is updated in real time, customizable and exclusive to the members of a group or family.
Made out of a thin glass capacitive touch screen, it displays the family (or group) members’ activities, to do/buy lists and upcoming events as well as last minute updates. The information is fed by the members directly to the board, via SMS or through a web application. Being web based, this dashboard would be accessible anywhere and anytime (with an internet connection). An iPhone/Blackberry/mobile device application could be developed to complement the system.
As time goes by and information is fed into it, the dashboard will alert members when they have an appointment, as well as when they need to replenish on medicine, detergent or other commonly used products because it knows their consuming habits.
Family members have different schedules throughout the day, meeting only in the evenings. This is when they should be interacting and enjoying being together rather than planning and organizing their schedules. By serving the functions just described, the family dashboard takes care of the “administrative” part of the family’s busy schedule.
Additionally, the dashboard serves as a reservoir by automatically keeping a record of the family’s life when otherwise, because of the hastiness of every day, the members would be much less likely to do so themselves. The members can continuously send pictures, movies, voice messages and text through their mobile devices or computers.
[1] Bahram Maskanian, Definition of Family Values, http://www.venusproject.com/ecs/definition_family_values.html
Envisioning the future 5 years from now
Assumptions:
Urban life and society 2015:
- The “green mind set” is at its peak, people are very conscious about what they consume and dispose of; the use of paper is reduced
- Internet availability increase and cost decrease
- SMS are practically free
Urban family of four 2015:
- All the members carry a mobile device with internet access at all times
- Parents work from home as much as they do from their office
- Families will live rushed, activity-packed lives. Each member involved in independent events as well as in others that must be coordinated as a family. All members finding comfort in the ability to being in touch with each other and spend time together.
Things family members use to communicate with each other today (2009)
.. but all of these are independent of each other.
The Family Dashboard integrates all of the above, therefore it serves almost as an archive and ultimately it reduces the amount of paper as well as the amount of time families have to spend planning and they can use that valuable time for other activities together.
Although it has the required capability, the Family Dashboard is meant to be an organizer and not a TV screen or entertainment center.
Early conceptualization sketches
