Semester #2 Week #1- Rethinking Our Direction

The first week of the semester wasn’t just about starting fresh, it was about making a significant shift as a team.

Over the semester break, we realized that our initial focus wasn’t fully aligned with the real opportunity.

Instead of designing for teenagers, we made a strategic decision to pivot towards students. a group that is more relevant to our daily environment and more open to integrating such a product into their routine.

This shift influenced almost every aspect of our thinking moving forward.

🎯 Understanding Our New Target – Student Life

To better understand our new audience, we explored student life - their routines, study environments, and daily pressures.

We focused on the reality students live in:

• Studying in libraries and cafés

• Constant transitions between focus and social interaction

• Ongoing stress and mental load

This helped us anchor our product in a real and familiar context.

🛠️ From Idea to Technology

This week, we met with Inbar, our technological mentor, and started breaking down what our product actually requires from a technical perspective.

We began mapping the core components:

• Controller

• Vibration motor

• Battery and charging mechanism

This was our first step in translating the idea into something buildable and testable.

🎨 Defining the Experience with Aviad

Together with Aviad, we explored different directions through moodboards and visual inspiration.

We asked ourselves:

• What does this generation connect to?

• What would they actually carry with them daily?

One key insight was the bag charm trend- accessories people proudly attach to their bags.

This led to a critical realization:

👉 Our product doesn’t need to be hidden - it can be part of the user’s identity.

🧠 Understanding the Generation

We also analyzed Gen Z behavior, especially around mental health.

We found that:

• There is more openness around mental health

• Expression is visible, not hidden

• Accessories can carry emotional meaning

This insight strongly supported our shift toward a visible, everyday-use product.

✋ Exploring “Squishiness”

Another key focus was understanding the physical experience of the product.

We explored:

• Materials that respond to pressure

• Internal textures (like rice or particles)

• The balance between softness and resistance

This helped us realize that the product is not just conceptual — it’s deeply sensory.

💡 Key Takeaways

This week was about redefining our direction and grounding it in reality.

We learned that:

• Choosing the right audience changes everything

• Trends can turn function into desire

• Physical interaction is critical

• Design and technology must evolve together

🔬 What’s Next? From Ideas to Experiments

Next week, we move from big ideas to real experiments.

Instead of only exploring concepts, we will start testing them:

• Running user experiments combining the object with breathing techniques

• Defining and refining the experiment flow and observation questions

• Testing different vibration patterns (timing, intensity, interaction with the object)

• Understanding how material + vibration affect the user experience

This is the point where our project begins to shift from vision to evidence-based design.