Fujitsu Smart Life Project
People and Weather in the Highlands of Scotland
Summary: "Fujitsu Smart Life" was a case project in partnership with The Glasgow School of Art, Parsons: The New School for Design, Chiba University (Japan) and Fujitsu. Fujitsu presented each team with a brief relating to cloud technology and its potential social applications ten years in the future (which during the time of the project, was the year 2022).
The project theme for each team was unique. My team focused on the special relationship between people, the weather and a Scottish national park. Our task was to conduct on-site research to create a scenario of life in the national park in 2022. At the end of the project, we were invited to present our research findings and design concepts to Fujitsu at their corporate headquarters in Tokyo. My team's concept showed how cloud technology might enrich a visit to the national park by allowing visitors to capture and share their location specific memories in cabins (called "bothies") scattered throughout the park.
My role: researcher, communication designer, presenter.
People and Weather in the Highlands of Scotland
Summary: "Fujitsu Smart Life" was a case project in partnership with The Glasgow School of Art, Parsons: The New School for Design, Chiba University (Japan) and Fujitsu. Fujitsu presented each team with a brief relating to cloud technology and its potential social applications ten years in the future (which during the time of the project, was the year 2022).
The project theme for each team was unique. My team focused on the special relationship between people, the weather and a Scottish national park. Our task was to conduct on-site research to create a scenario of life in the national park in 2022. At the end of the project, we were invited to present our research findings and design concepts to Fujitsu at their corporate headquarters in Tokyo. My team's concept showed how cloud technology might enrich a visit to the national park by allowing visitors to capture and share their location specific memories in cabins (called "bothies") scattered throughout the park.
My role: researcher, communication designer, presenter.
Project location: Cairngorms National Park, Scotland
Project slides
The project theme for each team was unique. My team focused on the special relationship between people in a national park in the Scottish highlands and the weather. The challenge was to find ways in which cloud technology could somehow alter or improve this relationship.
We spent a week in the Cairngorms National Park interviewing and observing residents and visitors in order to collect insights about their relationships to the weather.
One of our methods of insight collection was the "cultural probe" we created. We gave these to participants and collected them at the end of the week. We made badges with Scottish phrases as thank-you gifts. People loved them.
After the research trip we began to comb through observations and identify themes. After that, we were able to articulate some insights.
Our design concept focused on bothies, which are free to use cabins scattered throughout the park to shelter hikers during bad weather. Inside most bothies are logbooks, which visitors can write in.
The concept we developed is called the "Bothy Book." An app that replaces the tattered paper logbooks normally found inside bothies.
Each bothy's unique "book" can be accessed via the app throughout the park, but to create content in a book, the user must first tap their smartphone on an NFC sensor to confirm their location.
Users can use their smartphone to record audio, video or text. Explaining who they are, the condition of the bothy and more. When future hikers visit, they will be able to access and contribute to a narrative of location specific experiences.
Over time, Bothy Book could become another reason to visit the park. Just as Scotland is famous for its whisky trail, the park could become known for its "bothy trail."
Project highlights: Working in a national park was an amazing experience and research participants seemed to genuinely enjoy talking about the weather in this unusual context. The badges we made ended up on BBC television when a traveling folk band we met decided to wear them.
Finally, the biggest highlight of this project was being able to present our concepts to Fujitsu in person at their headquarters in Japan.