The Nostalgia
“Nostalgia – it’s delicate, but potent. In Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. “
The Nostalgia is a portable media center that takes the various mediums through which you’ve recorded the moments, events and artifacts of your life, and makes them available to you in a elegant yet simple package -an electronic book.
Audience
Having a portable media machine with a tape deck is definately something that befits a niche market. It suggests that whomever would be interested in such a product could either be: (A) Anachronistic or (B) Nostalgic.
So, this product is geared to an upper-middle to upper class demographic that tends to shop at places like Andrew Martin, where one is willing to spend several thousand dollars on handcrafted appliances.
Research
The Nostalgia is essentially an amalgam of the iPod Touch, the Amazon Kindle, and the Nintendo DS (with an added tape deck). Thus, the research revolved around the idea of going beyond that. Something that would not only set it apar, but also apeal to a different audience.
Whatwith many studies showing that the human memory has become increasingly attached to technological devices like cellular phones and computers. Thus, creating a portable “memory machine” with a classic, leatherbound aesthetic appeared to be the best way to go.
Affordances
The Nostalgia looks and somewhat functions like a book. This, coupled with a fairly intuitive interface, makes it so that the user’s experience is as natural as using a book. This is further simplified by the means of interaction; a iPod Touch, gesture-based interface makes it for a user-friendly experience that should please the older target audience.
Constraints
The machine is roughly the size of a book (or DVD case). Though it has the thinnest possible technology embedded in it, the inclusion of the tape deck added a substantial size constraint. Thus, it becomes difficult to fit more media into the machine.
Conceptual Model
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