SPECULATIVE SAFETY OBJECTS
How might product design produce an increasingly safer world without sacrificing elementary human behavior?
Good product design should make our lives easier, tackling certain challenges and making them unnoticeable. But what does product design look like when we are faced with new and absurd ways of living, ways in which we are not accustomed to. How far can we push design solutions before they become a burden?
What products do we need to design that adopt new health and social norms for us to stay safe in this new COVID 19 era?
A suit that physically prevents others from getting closer than 2 meters to the user. A biometric wrist wearable that releases a strong stench when elevated body temperature is detected, causing people to dispearce or evacuate the area. Or a set of hand signals that people hold up next to their faces to communicate subtle emotions such as cracking a smile or biting a lip.
Collectively, our world has been flipped upside down, what role can product design play in highlighting its flaws or help bring it right side up?
This DIY guide to creating a bodysuit is the perfect new addition to your post-COVID-19 closet! With a singular quick motion, you can create a social distancing zone around you immediately no matter how crowded places get.
Inspired by the pufferfish and… an umbrella, this suit mimics its purpose and function into a new wearable.
Whether you’re at work, in line for a coffee, or on public transportation, the Space Suit fits every occasion and keeps you and your
family safe.
The brace-let
The brace-let is the latest innovation in C19 social distancing wearables. The more that people have them on, the better it works!
With it on your arm, along with everyone else, the brace-let is constantly monitoring your body temperature. In the case it senses an elevated body temperature while you’re in a crowded setting, it immediately releases a foul smell as well as signaling all other brace-lets in the vicinity to activate simultaneously.
This creates an environment with an unbearable stench that will quickly and efficiently evacuate people from a room or create distance from
one another as they desperately try to escape the smell.
In the case a user has elevated body temperature, the bracelet uses its built-in proximity sensor to sense if a crowd is present. Once triggered, it releases a strong and foul odor that forces people to leave a room or distance themselves away from the smell.
Subtle Emotions
How do you communicate subtle emotions that are beyond words through a mask?
So much of our day to day communication happens beyond our words and with facial expressions instead. But, when a mask covers half of our faces, we are choosing safety over human communication.
What if we designed a set of hand signals to flash as we converse to convey facial expressions that transcend language?
Cracking a smile, an unimpressed frown, or curling your lips? What if we invented new hand signals to convey subtle emotions?
Issue no.1: Safety
By Hamza Al Omari
Join the conversation at @_palmwood_
