People living/working in large Asian cities
 

I am a Product Design Student in England, and I have just been given a new brief to design a device for people who live and work in large cities in the growing Asian commercial regions.

The device is an everyday handy tool which can help people in specific situations and make everyday life easier.

As I am from England, I have little experience in the Asian sector, so I am hoping to find several contacts to talk to and help highlight any problems with existing products, products that need updating, new products you would love to see designed etc.

Any help and knowledge you could product would be really appreciated.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Can you be a bit more specific? What kind of device are you talking about?

I currently live and study in Tokyo.

ya henbaka is right.could you be more specific?because i am also not getting you.
anyways, i am from Dubai(United Arab Emirates)

Well, basically, the brief is very unspecific, so I need to do a fair bit of market research.

The actual brief given is as follows;

'We require a device that will appeal to people who live and work in large cities in the growing Asian commerical regions. The device must become an everyday handy tool that can help people in specific situation to make everyday life easier'

So, from this forum I am just hoping to find some ideas from people like yourself of what you need, for example, a solution to a problem that you face in your day to day life.

Also, it is worth me mentioning now that the device can incorporate a level of electronics but must be a tangible user functioning product and should not be just an electronic box in it's entirety (i.e. iPod, new mobile phone etc.)

Hope this helps.

Come up with some ideas, and I'll comment on them and help you the best I can.

At the moment I am still in the market research stages of the design process, and by posting on this forum I was hoping to gain some inspiration from people actually living and working in large Asian cities, so no actual ideas or designs exist as of yet.
The main aim of this thread is for me to have areas highlighted to me that need a new product/improved product to solve certain problems, i.e. commuters, lack of space in apartments, anything you can highlight will give me a route to follow.

I would like to be able to pay for the trains/subway with my cellphone somehow! (you can buy commuter cards that you swipe over a reader, so maybe something could be added to a phone that did the same thing, I have no idea).

Hm rooms and apartments are quite small here by default. So anything that helps save space without looking lame is useful.

u can.
JR

True enough, I have a "keitai saifu" as well, it works were Suica and Pasmo cards work. You just hold your phone next to the sensor instead of the card.

Hmm, something electronic/tangible that Japanese people could use in their everyday lives? It's hard to imagine anything new. My cell phone plays music, records pictures, video and audio, I can use it to pay for items in stores or pay for train/bus/subway fare. It also has live television, and GPS with Navitime. Many times the features of the Iphone (but cost twice as much).

I'm at my gf's million dollar apartment, and it's got every feature you can imagine. Room-to-room communication, fiber optic internet, wireless remotes for all the lighting, an electronic/gas heated bathtub which can be set to fill at any time (a hot bath already waiting for you when you get home), heated floors, and several more things about which I'm not sure yet. The garage is automated, pull your car onto the rack, and it's carried into the storage bay under the building (I'm wondering what would happen if there were a power outage and I needed my car...).

The best thing I could think of to make life better for the Japanese would be to reduce the number of hours one has to spend at work and school each week, or find a way to make Japanese enjoy sex more. They have less sex than any other nationality. What fun is that?

Ha! Actually after I posted that I thought: "hmm, as this is Tokyo after all, maybe that is already doable".

Anyhow, yeah, gonna get me one of those.

Ok, well, as this is a study for my career portfolio and degree, I doubt I could really design a sex toy.
Any more suggestions from anyone?
Moving away from product solely electronically based like phones as suggested before, think more practical designs i.e. swiss army knifes, micro scooters etc.

maybe something that marked or alerted chikan (perverts) who grab women on crowded trains?