Presentation advise

After presenting Paul and Helen suggested a few aspects that I could work on too improve the overall concept.

The fonts were to mixed and didn't follow any one theme.

Having never used a iPhone I didn't know that the Home button wasn't the back button but would instead close the application. So will need to create a seperate return button. 

The picture of the website buttons on the top of the screen has no relation to iPhones. 

The 'Logo' was still not unique enough. will talk to Paul more about ideas around how this could be done in the next tutorial. 

Flash progress

For my Flash part of the project I have kept the user interface as simple as I could with the idea of people viewing the information whilst out shopping. Once a product has been scanned by the devise (for my Flash interface I have used the iPhone as the example) the main page will load and show the E.C.R of the item, plus the same for similar products available with the lowest E.C.R rating in their range. There is also the option to view the others products and their ratings by pressing the button at the bottom of the screen. As the user moves their finger over any of the ratings it will enlarge, upon pushing down on the rating it will load the information page of that particular product. This page would include all of the energy that the product has used on average during the growing, making, packaging and transportation before being a finished product. The user also has the option of pressing the heading on the main page which would load another information page, but this would be about E.C.R and how it can help with energy saving and looking toward less usage in the future.

Final logo design

My final design is just a small changed version of one of my previous logos, the reason I changed the 'energy per watt' was because it didn't really fit with the units of measurement I am after. So instead I have used per 100g as at the moment I am basing my logo to be placed on supermarket items first. I am still not sure how I would be able to measure all of the mileage, labour, product growth etc. into one type of unit. But for now I have chosen to represent this over all energy consumption as EU (Energy Units) and just assuming that this measuring unit has already been found. So on my logo it shows a (x)EU amount, this amount is also shown by the red/green bar for a more visual glance feedback. Red being how much has been used according to 100g, while the greener the bar the better the products energy consumption rating (E.C.R).

This is my final logo design:

Flash interaction

After thinking about my overall design and how it would be presented, I decided that making it in Flash would be the best option due to me choosing to have it as a multi paged website. Inside of Flash I would need to have buttons to navigate through the pages. For the first page, the comparison page/front page, I would need the user to be able to press on the products, which would then in turn take them to the more information page linked with that specific item. So I would need to have as many buttons as there were products able to be pushed, and for each button a page related to the product. This brings me to how many products would I have displayed... I don't want too many other wise it becomes either too much to sort through or too much to read. The solution that I came up with was to have the scanned product at the top of the screen, and then in the case of multiple other brands the only others displayed on the main screen would be the lowest energy consumers in their field. Again giving companies more incentive to lower energy usage if they want their products visible, while at the same time speeding up the 'finding the best product' part for the viewer.

This is what I came up with as an example:

Interface thoughts and ideas

For the interface side of things Paul gave me the ok not to make it in flash and just to make a website out of Photoshop, which wouldn’t need to be interactive. The main thing that I wont to be displayed is the comparison of the product to similar products on the market from other companies, the reason for this would be to really enforce the 'name and shame' to companies. With information about companies currently hard to find on the web or not even available, the general public would never know how much energy they are really using. So to get companies to change the best way I feel would be to have it right there in front of you, the first thing that would pop up as you scanned an item. Also having that item and company compared to others without the need to separately search website after website.

Because this would be something that you would do while you would be shopping, I feel that the whole process of checking products shouldn't be hard to navigate, or have pages and pages to read. Therefore each product would only need to have a small amount of information, just a small page worth and nothing that would take hours to read.

So the first page would have the scanned product and a few other similar brands which are all compared, the user can then decide wither to buy that product or to choose one of the less energy consuming products, without having to scan each product separately. The user can then press one of the shown products and that would redirect them to the page which would have more information specific to that product. That would be all that I think is needed, simple easy to navigate and not too much reading to be done.

Logos from the last post

Using the information gained in the last post these are the logos which I have created:

More logo ideas

Paul suggested that rather than using the original barcodes as my reading part of the logo, to instead have it more unique and different. Also the logos need to be easy to understand without the need for more information added. I choose to not have it full of writing or any writing at all. That would be the purpose of using your phone to get additional information and product comparison. So I need to make a logo that has some sort of graph or percentage based bar so that a quick look would be enough to gather a basic understanding and also make the reading section of the logo a little different.

Designing the QR code/logo

This is going to be the logo/QR code which will be on the back of each product on the market. I need to make this logo unique and easy to read, the person looking at this logo would need to be able to quickly have an understanding of the E.C.R of that item.

These are my first ideas for the logo:

From all the products and items I have seen majority of them have square barcodes and information sections, so for my logo I would need to have something similar in shape so companies wouldn't have to change their overall design layout. Another part is that products are very crammed for space as it is, this is where my logo could also serve as its barcode. Each product and item would need a unique barcode and my logo, but that takes up to much room, so because both have to be unique a logical step would be to only have my logo which, because each product has its own unique logo, could also be used as the barcode for shop readers to price the item. So using only my logo instead of both that and the barcodes which are used currently, there would be no need to rearrange the product design.
With this in mind these are a few of the ideas and prototypes that I came up with:

My paper model for project two

Project two 200 word proposition

My proposition is Energy Consumption Rating (E.C.R), which is like that of the large appliance power rating. The point of difference being the products E.C.R wouldn’t be how much power it will use, but rather how much energy was consumed to creative it. The idea behind the E.C.R is to bring about more people’s awareness to how much energy is really being consumed in the production of individual products. This rating would then allow the general public to have the ability to choose their purchase based on each companies consideration to the environment and not just the difference in price of each product.

Each type of product would have an assigned E.C.R which would also serve as their QR code. (QR codes are unique pictures which serve as individual web addresses which can be scanned by cell phones.) Reading the individual QR code would bring up the website with all the information about that item; its origin, how far it has had to travel and over all energy consumption in its production process. In addition to viewing the products own E.C.R the website would also include products of similar type and their subsequent rating, bringing the ‘Name and Shame’ to each company as they are easily compared.

The goal of the E.C.R would be to educate the general public on how much energy is actually being consumed in the making of everyday objects. Furthermore having companies easily compared would give them incentive to lower their own overall power usage to keep up sales.

Energy consumption rating

Another idea I had and am most likely to use, due to it being more original, is Energy consumption rating (E.C.R). This would be a symbol and rating that every product would have printed on its back. The rating would be judged on how much energy was used to make the product, including shipping time, travel and any kind of energy use that was used. This rating would be easy to read to get a quick overview of the products E.C.R, but with any QR code the user would be able to compare it to other similar brands to find the best choice.

With the buyer having this information so easily accessible, and giving their product a comparison would hopefully give the companies with the smaller E.C.R more sales over their competitors. This would then hopefully make companies strive to be more energy efficient to increase sales.

Google power

I gathered from the tutorial session that we are making more the interface as opposed to the object itself. So the idea of the light in the background doesn't really work as it wouldn't have a interface or monitor displayed. So I started working on a new idea and came up with what I like to call 'Google power' the idea spawned from the picture of the world at night with all the lights from all around the world. This picture (shown below) shows where power is being consumed around the world and in what parts of each country. So 'Google power' would work in sync with Google earth, have all the same attributes but instead of showing terrain or satellite view, it would display power consumption in the same way that the night sky picture does. How it would work with Google earth would be the ability to zoom in and out of anywhere in the world to get country, city, or even street view of power use. Giving the everyday person the knowledge of how much power is really being used in their street or city compared to others or even their country. Another would be to have power consumption per capitor section, so that each country isn’t just compared on power but rather power per person.

The thing I liked most about this idea is that most of it is already set up with Google earth, the name is there the viewers are there and probably most of the algorithms also. Another plus side to Google power would be its 'Name and Shame' knowing that everyone and anyone can see how much power your house/business is using. This would hopefully make people more conscious about power use.

New idea from Tring lecture

After the lecture from a few of the creators of Tring it changed my ideas on energy monitoring devices. How the average person does not want to have to read graphs or numbers which have no meaning or relevance. Or even the sight of money ticking over still isn't the right path to follow as that still has no real relevance. But rather to create something to change their feelings or sub-consciousness toward power consumption. After that lecture I had an idea for a new way to show people how much power was being used. An object which you would have in your lounge or common area which would glow according to how much power was being consumed at the time. This object would be some type of ornament (not sure what yet, maybe something like a lava lamp). The object would just be a part of the room and would give the people a subconscious reminder of power being used. The object would glow green on low usage and slowly change to yellow, orange and red as more power is being consumed. It would have to be a small object or not very intrusive, just a small reminder that power is always on and showing when large amounts are being used.

Flat energy meter

The same day we were told of our next project I thought of an idea, the idea came from the never ending argument between flatmates as to who is using all the power around the house. To solve this problem and to make an energy monitoring device, my first idea for project one came about. The idea would be to have a device which could measure each room’s power consumption as well as the overall energy use. The device can display either total house usage or individual usage, with the individual room meter there would be no argument as to who has left their electric blanket on all week. Splitting the power bill each month would mean paying for your room plus the common area share, solving the problem of who uses more power. I figured it would be far too hard trying to allocate power usage per person for the kitchen, bathroom, lounge and any common areas. But having a graph which shows energy use as the day progresses and collating that into an average over the month could help to understand who is using how much. For example if I were a night shift worker then my power use would be during the day and others would have theirs at night. But then this still isn’t person specific so would have to still be worked out by the household. The main idea for this device is to prevent people from worrying whether you are using too much power in your room. And giving people to choice to use as much or as little as they want to due to them being the only ones paying for it. Another side to this device would be to make examples of those with excessive power use, having it viewable by the rest of the house and visitors brings in the sense of guilt or competitiveness with others. This in turn would hopefully mean less power consumed.

The monitoring device would still keep records of total house use and other little power usages like hot water and any other appliances or outlets you wish to choose. But the main difference from other devices would be the room management section.

Power Consumption during the break

Over the break I went back to Hawkes Bay to work for my previous boss, during this time me and my partner house sat for them as they went on holiday. Rather than get a wattage reading every day I decided to time how long we used appliances and general power each day. Because we both worked every day and were away from the house most hours I found that before we left each day we would use 10mins of hot water, 5 lights for 30mins, 5mins boiling the jug/toaster. On coming home generally we were both tired and would have takeaways, but would have 5 lights on for an average of 4 hours, television on for 2 hours and use the fridge on average 5 times a night. These were the only things we used every day, on a weekly usage we charged our phones once and did washing once.

The results came in as (for two people);
Five lights -- 4.5 hours every day, total of 32.5 hours each week.
Television -- 2 hours every day, total of 14 hours each week.
Hot water -- 10 mins every day, total of 1 hour 1 mins each week.
Small appliances -- 5 mins each day, total of 35 mins each week.
Washing Machine -- 45 mins each week.

These results would be very similar to our average week of work before coming to university.
This I find is a rather small amount of energy usage for two people, but due to our working every day and purchasing most of our meals from elsewhere and not having internet at home would help. Also for our heating we use a wood burner and never use a clothes dryer because we both know how fast the power bill can increase.