Handy Edison

How Handy Edison Came to Be

As a graduate student at Austin Center for Design, we were challenged to identify problems and develop ideas related to our first job. I worked for my father as an electrician's assistant. As a 12-year-old I packed tools from a truck to the worksite. As a 16-year-old I was stocking shelves. And as a 19-year-old I was wiring a new grocery store.

It didn't turn into a career (disappointingly the family business was not embraced by a third generation) as I pursued marketing roles in the healthcare sector after graduating with a BA in English. It has been fun to spend creative energy and time reflecting on how I might develop related products and services to meet today's needs.

Storytelling

The challenge was to develop a short video to help us explain our idea. After sketching several app features for Handy Edison, I developed four storyboards to demonstrate how the app features will benefit a customer. I began with rough sketches and moved to Adobe Illustrator to draw more detailed storyboards.

I decided to focus on how a customer might use Handy Edison to find and schedule an electrician for the video. Due to time and resource constraints, I used stock video footage and iMovie to create the video.

Prototyping

The challenge was to develop a physical prototype. Instead of producing a physical product for customers, I thought it might be interesting to design something that the electricians who work for Handy Edison might use. How might we make their jobs better?

When I was a little boy and helping my dad on small jobs, I remember how he would always ask me to hold his flashlight so that he could work in a small, dark area. Whether my dad was working on an electrical box, an industrial refrigeration unit, or a milking machine on a dairy farm, it was not uncommon to find me standing there beside him holding a flashlight.

With that memory in mind, I designed a hands-free flashlight/camera that will allow an electrician to work more freely. I started by sketching a blueprint and then moved into Adobe Illustrator to draw the product from 3 views: top, side, and front. I then moved on to constructing a physical prototype out of foam board and found pieces such as a clip, magnets, and lenses.

Interface Development

To give more depth to the idea of Handy Edison, I created sketches of app screens and used Adobe Experience Design to develop high fidelity mockups. I chose to create four displays that will give insight into a user’s first experience with Handy Edison: login, homepage, search results, and a cost estimator tool.

I chose an image with the iconic Thomas Edison light bulb for the login page, and after researching color trends and recommendations from Apple for how to design for iPhone X, I chose a bright green color which is calming and renders well on iPhone X.

User Experiment

The challenge was to create mockups for the iOS app that leverages augmented reality, to build a testable prototype of an augmented reality (AR) experience, and to test the prototype with two people.

After brainstorming different AR experiences, I decided to create an experience that might help Handy Edison customers select ceiling fans. This new business model will open additional revenue streams for Handy Edison and provide a valuable service.

I created a prototype using Keynote and GIF videos of ceiling fans. After starting with Keynote on my computer, I was able to quickly use the Keynote app on my iPhone to simulate what it might be like to use the AR function.

I tested both the Handy Edison app and the AR experience with two participants: Polly, a 46-year-old nurse practitioner who does not consider herself tech savvy but regularly uses a computer and iPhone 7; and with Ryan, a 39-year-old venture capitalist who believes himself an early tech adopter.

Both participants saw value in the AR experience and would like more information on the screen such as price to help make their buying decision seamless within the AR experience. Both participants saw value in Handy Edison (as a resource to find and schedule home electricians) however the app itself requires further iteration to curate icons and content to make it more intuitive.

Studio

Takeaways

Now do it again

Feedback from peers, instructors, and others allowed me to quickly generate ideas and to iterate

Show me

Physical models, sketches, and other low-fidelity representations allowed people to give better feedback so I could iterate

New tricks

From Adobe Illustrator to Photoshop, practically all of the applications for the assignments were new to me

Get it out into the world

Developing a user experience experiment allowed me to talk with real people to test product ideas

Tell a story

Crafting stories and using narrative to express ideas helped others see the value proposition of Handy Edison

Unlock creativity

Creativity and reflection on an experience from years ago helped me to come up fresh, relevant ideas and potential solutions

Lateral thinking

Solving problems with an indirect and creative approach allowed me to think about the service area in new ways

Create With Love

Reflecting on my childhood job of running wire and installing fixtures reminded me of my parents and the work ethic they cultivated

Scott Reed

Graduate Design Student at Austin Center for Design

Scott combines expertise in leadership, marketing, and communications with curiosity in design and storytelling. Most recently, he served as marketing director for a division of Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia overseeing marketing, communications, and creative teams. With more than 20-years experience and the recent completion of a Strategic Design MBA, he's focusing the next phase his career on human-centered design.