Four Pleasure Analysis

Mike is a 33 year old Civil Engineer living in Singapore.

Mike has a passion for photography since his high school days.
Being a Civil Engineer working for SBS trains, the opportunity to practice photography has become part of his job.

Due to the late night shifts, Mike gets certain days off. With his free time, Mike goes for short trips as he loves to travel and take pictures. He loves the nature and prefers taking landscape shots. Mike is middle built with tan complexion.

Ever since he got engaged, he became more health or rather shape conscious. Thus, Mike goes for occasional runs or jogs when he has the time to prevent an unsightly tummy especially for his wedding shots.

Mike’s social circle involves working professional with almost half in Engineering fields and the other half in varied occupations such as Army officers, executives in public sector and a few entrepreneurs. Mike enjoys social hang outs especially during weekends but has since cut down when he got attached.

Four pleasure analysis of Mike;

Physio- pleasure: Maintaining a healthy built without a tummy and a slight tan

Socio- pleasure: Maintaining social contact with his friends while improving the relationship with his fiancee. Needs recognition or a sense of belonging among friends.

Psycho- pleasure: Sense of achievement from mastering certain gadgets, application and technique especially those in photography. Not trend setting but must be acceptably sleek, stylish, quality and/or practical. Self confidence from protraying a good image such as being sleek, neat and clean.

Ideo- pleasure: Believes in himself and being down to earth. Being filial to his parents.

Specifications of product;

Practical
- Bluetooth (easy connectivity)
- Wlan (easy connectivity)
- removable memory card preferably 2 Gb
- organiser (to organise his schedule)
- e-mail and internet accessibility (to check his mails)

Affective
- large screen (necessary especially for taking photos)
- 3.2 megapixel camera (his interest in photography and a certain quality)
- Carl Zeiss lens (his interest in photography and a certain quality)
- music player that can play MP3 and AAC formats (in his line, they prefer using Mac system)
- sleek but not loud
- weight around 160g (too light in weight feels filmsy for Mike who's used to rather solid cameras)

Mike already has a mobile phone and it's common for people in his social circle to own at least 2 phones. He needs one that is stylish and potrays himself.
Suggested phone in my opinion.

Image taken from www.nokia.com.sg

This phone is sleek and stylish and would be somthing different from what Mike already have.

The ability to twist the screen allows for easy photo taking and the slide show function allows him and his friends to view his photos easily.

Carl Zeiss lens is what attracted Mike at first since it's the first time the lens was incorporated into a mobile phone in Singapore market.

Being into photography, Mike have long wanted to try a little video taking as well. However, perhaps the back of the phone could be leather to have an extra touch. The price range is comfortable for Mike as well.

Pleasure with products - Watches

Image taken from http://www.casio-intl.com/wat

This is one of the typical rubber strap watches from Casio that is of the very 'basic' range where one could get it easily for around S$25 - S$35 dollars in Singapore. For most people, they're likely to have owned or seen one during their childhood years or National Service (NS) days.

Visceral: Simple and dull design usually black in colour which is not attractive. Boring.
Behavioural: Economical and value for money. Labelled as one of the (Hokkien; 'Chong Suah') watches meaning it's commonly used during NS time for outfield training.
Reflective: Not of show off value but could indicate certain status such as being in NS or being thrifty. No frills.

Image taken from http://www.tissot.ch/?mod_collection

This is the T-Touch series watch from Tissot and was widely advertised in the media previously is Singapore. The price range is around S$1200 dollars in Singapore. There's a touch screen to operate the functions such as the compass, thermometer and altitude.

Visceral: Sleek and visually pleasing.

Behavioural: Not value for money and functions are not really neccessary in daily activities. Have to take off the watch to get an accurate temperature.

Reflective: Status symbol as a working professional, young at heart.

Image taken from http://www.22dollars.com/2006/07

This is one of the most expensive watch in the world from Rolex with a price tag of about a quarter million in US dollars. Covered in diamonds, scratch proof sapphire crystal watch face and 100m water resistance.

Visceral: Beautiful and sparkling.

Behavioural: Lack functions compared to digital watches.

Reflective: Status symbol as the rich, show off, self image.

Move over Muvo!

Getting warm up to NM4210 and the need to blog for a non blogger like me, let me roll in the carpet with Creative Muvo Mp3 players.

Nearly 3 years back when prices of Mp3 players were still rather steep (one that's pursuing a degree in NUS without sources of income except allowance), Creative Muvo was rather popular. Although Muvo is not cheap, it was still afforadable. (>S$200 for 256MB)
Having rationalise the usability of Muvo as both a music companion, thumb drive for school work and back up in case voice recording needs to be taken - for whatever reasons be it project interview or recording a lecture, I bought a Creative Muvo.

Image taken from www.creative.com

Here it is, Creative Muvo TX FM. Here comes the irritating and lousy user experience for a bad design that Creative have yet to rectify for their Muvo series of Mp3 players.

The black coloured part of the Mp3 player could be pulled out to be connected to a USB port on any computer to function as a thumb drive. However..... "Muvo, you are too FAT!"
Unlike portable thumb drives or most of the other devices using the USB port, the circumference of Muvo is a little too big. SO much so that I had to remove the mouse when using the labtop as there's simply not enough space with the FAT Muvo around not to mention other occassions where I had to make space for Muvo by unplugging other devices.

As a result, my confidence of Creative have since dropped and their image is tarnised. I started finding faults in other areas such as the impossible rate Muvo consumes power. (3-5 days for a new AAA battery to be depleted) Next I find their ear phone sucks and finally, I just give up on Creative except for the sound cards they make.

Well, I've gotten other 'slimmer' thumb drives and I tend to prefer Ipod to Creative Zen as I just feel that their Mp3 players are fat. I believe it is necessary to look at other aspects of a design especially one that the producers promise usability in. Creative failed to recognise the space between USB ports resulting in lousy User experience.

"Move over Muvo, it's time to make space for others!"