“Through B&O PLAY, we will bring core Bang & Olufsen values of design, performance, and quality to a new audience” —Tue Mantoni, CEO of Bang & Olufsen
WHAT COULD THE FUTURE HOLD FOR B&O PL AY? As a company, you have always been willing to adapt and expand your horizons into new and challenging industries, when the situation required you too. Your products have always made people’s lives a little bit easier and a whole lot more enjoyable. It seems that B&O has always wanted to make people feel equal and on the B&O PLAY Brand Manifesto you ask (regarding your own products): “does it change someone’s world a little?”. Well, why settle for changing their lives just a little? Why not help them with parts of their day, that other companies simply overlook? Why not help people achieve their full potential? This is where we think we can help. We want to present to you some ideas, that we think will help bring the people in the university community closer together. In an educational environment, it is very apparent that some people can feel excluded and left out, due to things beyond their own control. We think that this should change. Do you? The products that we want to design are ones that can benefit everyone. However, they will benefit each person in different ways and to different extents. For one person, it could make a task more enjoyable and for another it could make the same task actually achievable. Every company wants to leave their mark on the industry that they operate in. However, only some companies get the opportunity to leave a truly positive, lasting mark on people’s lives. B&O PLAY has already become well established and beloved in the audio industry, by creating innovative and beautiful products, that manage to captivate people. And now we think that it is time for you to become a part of the movement to create a better world, where nobody is left behind. With B&O PLAY, we think that we have a range of products that would become welcome additions to your product portfolio. Now, we would like to help forge a new path, with you, towards a harmonious future.
“Our customers are the focal point for our conceptual work; each piece originates with our users. We do this through research and spending time with customers to gain an understanding of the pain-points associated with technology and how this tech weaves into people’s lives.” —Marie Schmidt, Head of Brand and Design at Bang & Olufsen
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CONTENTS
The Issue
01 03
The Issue at Hand With People in Mind
The Brand
05 06 08
The Past and Present Innovating Through Time The Future
Our Proposal
09 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
What Are We Proposing? Enhanced Note-Taking Memorising Information Understanding Text & Numbers Travel Independence Managing Money Making a Family of Products Summary
References
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THE ISSUE AT HAND Learning is a vital process in ones life, unfortunately not everybody has a good experience during their time learning, in the university. For some people, these uneventful experiences might come from what is known as learning difficulties. Explained below, are the most common types of learning difficulties. We believe everyone have the right to learn and the right to have a great experience at university, including people with learning difficulties.
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UK
1
3.9
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6.5
Dyspraxia UK
Dyslexia
10%
6%
Dyslexia affects reading and language based processing skills, primarily decoding, reading comprehension, recall, writing, spelling, and sometimes speech. This can exist along with other related disorders, such as dyscalculia and dyspraxia. This can differ in each individual (British Dyslexia Association, 2017). People with dyslexia have to overcome many barriers to make a full contribution to society, as the condition is a hidden difficulty.
Dyspraxia (also known as Developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD)), is not a sign of muscle weakness or of low intelligence. It’s a brain-based condition, that makes it hard to plan and coordinate physical movement. It is is a condition affecting physical co-ordination (the use of muscles). Different types of dyspraxia can affect writing, speech and other movements involved in learning. Often discussed in the same breath as dysgraphia and other learning issues (Patino, n.d.) (Movement Matters, 2012).
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llion in the mi
UK
UK
3.2
Dysgraphia
3.2
Dyscalculia
5%
5%
Dyscalculia is a specific learning difficulty in maths. Kids with dyscalculia may have difficulty understanding number-related concepts, or using symbols or functions needed for success in mathematics. (Understood, 2017) Dyscalculia can have a major impact in many aspects of an adult’s life, including managing money. It results from difficulties with complex, spatial reasoning (Parliament.uk, 2004).
Writing requires complex information processing and motor skills. Saying a student has dysgraphia is not sufficient. Dysgraphia effects writing abilities (Ldonline.org, 2007). People with Dysgraphia have difficulty with spelling, poor hand writing and putting thoughts on paper. Just having bad handwriting doesn’t mean a person has dysgraphia. Since dysgraphia is a processing disorder, difficulties can change throughout a lifetime (Ldonline.org, 2007).
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WITH PEOPLE IN MIND How well do you know your target market? We mean really know your target market? Persona is an important stage and provides a shared understanding of the target market in regards to goals and capabilities. Personas are defined to visualise the target market in great detail.
“Learning difference! Not difficulty.” —Pong Chan
“I feel more comfortable when I am around people like me because I can be myself, without being self-conscious.” —John Brody
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Pong Chan Pong is a 22 year old student currently studying his masters in engineering. He suffers from Dyslexia, a form of learning difficulty. Pong finds that with his dyslexia, reading and writing becomes very difficult because in his case, words/letters are perceived as different shaped blocks and this has become an anchor of sorts because over the year he has had to adapt his mind to decode these ‘blocks’. Despite having difficulties decoding text, he finds it especially difficult to understand grammar. Often these letter shapes are very similar to each other which therefore becomes very challenging to differentiate from one another. John Brody John is a 21 year old student, currently in his final year of studies. He has a number of learning difficulties: Dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia. Although these difficulties bring a lot of frustrating issues, the biggest issue for him is social acceptance; how he interacts with his colleagues, their perceptions, and the feelings that he has to go through. Unfortunately, he has to deal with both his difficulties and social issues simultaneously. John believes that helping him with these social issues is also as important as helping him with his learning difficulties. He has felt alienated and different since his childhood; feeling included in the society and learning environment is all the he wants.
Pong and John have to struggle to overcome their difficulties during their days in the university, frequently. To understand their experiences further, we have summarised their typical daily routines. Travel • Difficulties in reading tavel information. • Feel neglected by staff. • Feeling lost/lacking spatial capability.
Socialising • Feel judged/critised by being themself. • Feel more comfortable being around with students with similar issues.
Learning • Difficulty in mainting focus in lesson. • Self-concious about asking for assitance. • Unable to keep up.
Assignments • Require assitance to understand the assignment. • Challenging to make out words.
To cope with their difficulties, people usually use these devices:
Text Overlays • Translucent coloured sheets that cover the page. • Reducing the contrast on the page. Headset • Used alongside computer software such as Grammarly and Dragon Dictate.
Home • Require assitance to learn, read, and do some daily tasks. • Difficult to become independent.
Popularity
Ergonomics
Suitability
Text Reader • Pen-shaped device that scans over text; reads the text or shows it larger. • Only being usable on standard text in books.
Usability
Aesthetics
Dragon Dictate • A software that reads your voice and records everything. • still has some issues; the reviews aren’t very good. 4
THE PAST AND PRESENT Bang & Olufsen was founded in Denmark in 1925 by Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen. Since the early days, Bang & Olufsen always strive to be the forefront of audio and Hi-Fi technology, while also integrating it with clever and beautiful design. During their growth Bang & Olufsen has proven to be versatile in terms of innovation; they attempted to build products in diverse scope numerous times. Carrying on with the adventurous spirit, Bang & Olufsen released a new brand—B&O PLAY—in 2012. PLAY means curiosity, positiveness, and energy; this brand is about integrating Bang & Olufsen values with PLAY. B&O PLAY aims to reach wider range of audience, by offering Bang & Olufsen’s quality and performance at a more affordable price point. Targeting the mature yet playful design-conscious audiences, the product line comes with the finest technology and stunning design. Innovation As the forefront of audio indutry, B&O PLAY never ceased to innovate in order to create better product.
Design-Concious B&O PLAY seeks design that matters. The minimalist design has been proven to be timeless and functional.
Playful Designed for curoius and energetic individuals. Portable and intuitive to use.
Humanisation Adapting technology to fit human needs, easy to integrate into daily life. Exellence B&O PLAY believes in bringing the finest quality and performance to their costumer, while also maintaining exceptional craftmanship in their products.
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INNOVATING THROUGH TIME er ay Pl o a de er Vi m Ca o er de lay Vi P P3 e M ar w ft So g tin gh Li e on Ph ck lo /C ch at er W av Sh on si vi le i Te i-F /H io ud
A
1927
Bang & Olufsen B&O PLAY 2012 2017
?
Innovation has always been one of the Bang & Olufsen core values; they have always been able to seek new opportunities whilst still expanding their brand. With the tendency to explore their options, we believe B&O PLAY will be confident to jump in with new endeavours. 6
THE FUTURE What could the future be like? We imagine the future for B&O PLAY being one of great diversity in their products. We also imagine the future being one filled with jaw-dropping and truly impressive designs. This doesn’t sound too dissimilar to what B&O PLAY are currently doing, does it? Well, by 2025, we believe that B&O PLAY will have moved away from just doing sound based products, as this is a market that they have already conquered. We believe they will have started creating diverse electrical products—just like Bang & Olufsen used to do—that can make a real change to somebody’s life. How will our proposed solution accomplish this? Our dream for B&O PLAY, is one that we hope can be achieved through great innovation and market exploration. We want to stretch B&O PLAY slightly out of their natural comfort zone so that they can be known for more than just creating incredible sound related devices. We want B&O PLAY to start bringing people together by making them feel more comfortable around each other. We hope that our discreet solution and new direction for B&O PLAY, will give them an insight into how they can really help and improve a person’s lifestyle.
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WHAT ARE WE PROPOSING? We are wanting to design different ways in which everybody in the university environment can be brought together regardless of what may be holding them back. We want to give everybody an equal opportunity to reach their full potential, whilst ensuring that the designs fall within the bounds of the B&O Play design manifesto. B&O Play have set a very high bar with their products, and we will make sure that we meet these high standards. Making Progress Together
Creating a Lasting Impression
Desirability Is Key
We want to help people reach their potential with regards to the university lifestyle. This could be whilst they are in a learning environment or whilst they are socialising with friends. We want to help enhance their personal experiences and to make education simpler and easier for everyone.
Leaving a lasting impression on someone is very hard to achieve. However, B&O Play have definitely done this with their range of products. As soon as you see a product of theirs, you think about it all the time and it becomes something that you one day aspire to own. We want to have the same effect with our products. We want to create things that inspire and become key elements in people’s lives. B&O is definitely one of the best brands for inspirations.
B&O Play products are well known as being breathtakingly stunning in all aspects of their design. This is what makes them so desirable. Therefore, for our designs to be a true success, they have to be something that people want to own and use, and not just something that they need.
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A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE
ENHANCED NOTE-TAKING Jahanzeb Khan
The product allows the user to efficiently take notes at good speed whilst making them more legible. The digital notebook will aid the user to write in straight lines as well as help with spelling and spacing. The product will ideally be of an A4 size with glass screen and minimalist design approach, to keep in line with the B&O PLAY design, which is simple, sharp and clean with geometric shapes. The design inspiration is the Beo TV collection especially the BeoPLayVi. This product can be used by handlers of all ages and abilities, to not only take notes efficiently and cleanly but also to quickly annotate, sketch out and to help improve handwriting with ‘text trace feature’ as writing skills can be improved with practise and having ‘predictive Maths’. The Tablet Comes with a Special stylus that has features like highlighting and movement recording, so the user can save, review and improve their writing with ‘B&O PLAY Back’ feature. The product will be the perfect tool for both Pong and John to help them with everyday tasks. This product is perfect for everyday ‘on the go ‘use, the user can take notes on meetings, classroom and even while traveling. 11
MEMORISING INFORMATION Rheza Ismansyah
This audio note device aims to make the learning experience much easier and more practical. This device is going to have an easy interactive feature, that enables the users to record voice input and play it back with the push of a button or a touch of a finger. This device will also work well with the current B&O PLAY products since it is going to be a portable electronic device. This is going to massively help people with dyspraxia, who have difficulty in memorising things. They can just activate the device easily and quickly, without the hassle of getting a recorder out from their pockets. Since it is an audio note device, this device can also help people with dyslexia, dysgraphia and ADHD, such as John and Pong, who have problems with writing and concentrating. This is crucially important because this device can help students with learning difficulties, have a better experience in learning and everyday life. It will take audio note taking to a new level of practicality. The design of the device is also going to be modern and elegant, to make people feel more confident in using this device. 12
UNDERSTANDING TEX T & NUMBERS Mohamed Alani
The product integrates a smart projector with touch and sound capabilities. It will aim to help individuals to organize their day and understand documents and math’s related issues, (by highlighting and defining certain words, phrases and formulas). There are numerous editing features, such as projected keyboard and a voice assistive feature. A stylus or finger can be used for any manipulation. The size of the projection can be adjusted for a better experience and learning platform for the user. The device suits B&O PLAY’s characteristics of trendy, well crafted materials, and quality operating electronics, in sound and imagery. The product and integrated software aims to help individuals like Pong and John with there daily activities and struggles in regard to Dyslexia and Dyscalculia. This includes reading and language based processing skills, writing, spelling and understanding number and symbol-related concepts. This however, can only be used in an office or work environment; not on-the-go. This product is important because it diminishes the assistance of external help, as the voice assistant and touch capabilities will make the process easier, faster, more enjoyable and less disjointed than editing on a pc etc. 13
TR AVEL INDEPENDENCE Armin Dedi
This product is one that will help navigate a person who suffers from learning difficulties around unfamiliar environments using Taptic feedback and visually on the watch face. Additionally, it will help people to read time more efficiently and it will feature a voice assistant that is activated by pressing the crown. This voice assistant will allow the user to request a direction. This will use inspiration from the Jacob Jensen Beowatch, for Bang & Olufsen to maintain its relevance within the B&O PLAY family. The product aims to tackle difficulties that are faced everyday, by those that suffer from Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia like John and Pong. The device will allow the user to become more comfortable with travelling on their own and will also provide everyday assistance, to all users thus preventing them from feeling neglected. This is important because if a person does not feel comfortable getting around on their own, then they can lose their independence. Independence is a very important thing that most people can take for granted. The device will give the user confidence to be themselves without requiring help from others. 14
MANAGING MONEY Muhammad Arisyi Adwani
Managing money is a skill that can only be acquired through experience. University students usually do not fully understand how to manage their money and they tend to ignore it, even though most of them just move out from their home and start to manage their own money. This can be a complicated problem as they go along in the university, their lack of knowledge in the area can lead to financial problems that might affect their studies. This problem becomes more severe for people with learning difficulties such as Pong and John. They sometimes find it hard to organise money, especially for John who has dyscalculia. Another observable problem is international students; they are new to the country and have a hard time managing and sorting the new currency. The solution aims to tackle these everyday financial problems for both people with and without learning difficulties. The main solution is to help them manage and sort their money. A more creative approach—such as visualisation—will be taken in order to make it understandable for all users. I believe helping the students to visualise their money and control their spending, is a way to create a better learning environment. 15
MAKING A FAMILY OF PRODUCTS Kieran Spruce
The main purpose of the product is to convert text on things such as posters into Audio and editable text. As well as this, the App can act as a Hub for the rest of the products. All the products will link to this app so that the information can be stored and shared between each of the different devices. The app will be in the style of the current B&O app. This idea came about from a meeting with Pong Chan and he specifically asked for a product that does this. This will be most helpful for people with Dyslexia. The app will also allow for people to take information from the rest of the products and have it all stored in one place. There are currently no products on the market for reading text on images, such as posters. This is currently only available for Word documents. This will give Pong Chan exactly what he asked for and it will also make the products feel less disjointed. Also, having all of the products link together would be very helpful for the individual, so that they can access all of their information in one place.
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The products and services that we have decided to present all help people but, they help people in different ways. The products have links to each other, that are in some ways subtle and in other ways very pertinent. This is a family of products and it is a family that can be easily expanded upon in the future. The products are all very discreet and they are things that will hopefully become a part of someone’s everyday life.
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REFERENCES British Dyslexia Association. (2017). About the British Dyslexia Association. [online] Available at: http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017]. Dyslexia Action. (n.d.). Facts and figures about dyslexia. [online] Available at: http://www. dyslexiaaction.org.uk/page/facts-and-figures-about-dyslexia-0 [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017]. Dyslexia International Better Training, Better Teaching. (2016). [ebook] pp.2-10. Available at: http://www.dyslexia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DI-Duke-Reportfinal-4-29-14.pdf [Accessed 13 Oct. 2017]. Movement Matters. (2012). What is Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)?. [online] Available at: http://www.movementmattersuk.org/dcd-dyspraxia-adhd-spld/developmental-disorders-documentation/frequently-asked-questions.aspx [Accessed 14 Oct. 2017]. Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2012; Mid-year Population Estimates for England and Wales, 2012; Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pop-estimate/population-estimates-for-england-and-wales/mid-2012/mid-2012-population-estimates-for-englandand-wales.html [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017]. Office for National Statistics. (2012). 2011 Census. [online] Available at: https://www.ons. gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/ bulletins/2011censuspopulationandhouseholdestimatesforenglandandwales/2012-07-16 [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017]. Patino, E. (n.d.). Understanding Dyspraxia. [online] Understood. Available at: https:// www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/dyspraxia/ understanding-dyspraxia [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017]. Pennington B F. (1990) The Genetics of Dyslexia, The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry [Online] Volume 31, Issue 2, pages 193–201. Available at: http://onlinelibrary. wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1990.tb01561.x/abstract [Accessed 10 Oct. 2017]. Roper, M. (2012). Dyspraxia can be serious – it deserves more recognition | Maxine Frances Roper. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/29/dyspraxia-serious-recognition [Accessed 14 Oct. 2017]. 18