WEEK 3

Week 3 of my Final Major Project and I still haven't got a name, a logo or a layout. Not good. 

Measures must be taken. 

So for this week, all my focus is going to be on:

1) My name

2) My layout

- Innovation Contest Wearable Technology 

3) Categories

3) USEFUL INFORMATION

Today I decided the type of content I wanted to post on my website. My initial plan was to do a photoshoot with a wearable technology piece or something like LED lights. But now I've changed my mind. I think videos are a more useful way to expressing my message. So with that in mind, I went again out there to look for inspirations. That's when I came across the videos from Buzzfeed, Casey Neistat and The Fine Bros on Youtube. The way that they use information is brilliant. A very light and funny approach, and then I saw a video where they give a product to kids, adults and elderly and record their reactions to it. 

That gave me an idea of doing the exact same thing on my website, but of course, with a different approach. I was going to pick one wearable device and give to one person to experiment for a day. After that they I was going to ask questions such as "would you actually buy this?" or "why do you think is useful? or if not, why?" to try to understand the end user. This could even head to future opportunities with small companies that want to advertise their product and put it out there. 

Other videos I could use, go out on the streets and interview people about what they think wearable technology is or if they even know what it is. My goal here is to give the public a voice that is not usually heard. Companies always state that they do market research but honestly I don't believe it. 

Other thing I would like to include on my website is a calendar with all the major wearable technology events happening and link to their webpage. So if the person wants to go to an event, the only thing they need to do is check my website, is all there. Event + link. 

With all that being said, what I need to do now is organise the informations I want to write/record and select the main categories. 

2) NAME

Today my goal was to research and plan the name of my website. I started by creating a rule. NOTHING with: CHIC, GIRL, FABULOUS/FAB or similar is allowed. I wanted the name to be simple, preferably with one word, effective and that could say it all without going around. So before the plan, I went to the internet and research names of existing websites of fashion, technology, wearable technology or electronics. 

I did that so I could see what is out there, not repeat myself, see what is effective. What sounds like a teenage blog and what sounds like a good and professional website that is worth visiting and is worth being a source of information. 

I had three options: have a name that is related to fashion + technology, have a name that is related to the main mission of the website or create a new inexistent word. I started with the first option and it not went well, one person that I interviewed suggested me something funny and clever like "talk to my shirt" - with that in mind I came up with "own your wrist" as a reference to the Apple Watch, but I quickly left the idea because I thought it wasn't good enough. Then I followed the path of thinking about  terminologies, maybe "style, fashion, "fash", electronics, "e-something" or maybe "cyber", "tronic", "smart". None of them sounded appealing to me, or sounded right and instant. 

Then I started to play with my second option: thinking about the main goal of the website and think about something that links other things, or connect or bridge. The word bridge was in my head a lot, similar was the word "link". Then I thought, what about "The Linker"? After some research online I found out that a "linker" is a tool used to link part of a software to help it work. As a concept it was brilliant and it fit perfectly with what I wanted. A word that bring things together. So what was the problem? It's one-sided, a link is related to technology and using that justification, could lead me to contradict my own plan of being impartial. So no. 

I found particularly hard to come up with a name, the problems are: finding an original name and finding something that is not already taken - biggest problem ever!

So, what to do? Well, I'll keep looking and applying my three options, I haven't used the third one because I wanted to be my "desperate" option, just in case I can't find anything else.

1) MORE RESEARCH

Today I kept researching about my theme, but I took a different perspective. I already know the different types of wearables and how they work, now it's time to see how people talk about them, people I mean the media. I wanted to see how fashion media talks about wearables and how it differs from the way technology media does. So I went to fashion websites and got a couple of articles and went to technology websites and did the same. I was trying to find similar themes, and with some luck I did. The Apple Watch and the MICA  bracelet (by OPENING CEREMONY + INTEL) were covered by both medias, so that was a good opportunity for me to see. Moreover, I researched "neutral" websites and magazines to see how they handle the matter. 

I did that because I want my website to be unique, but not only because of the layout, but because of the way I write about it, so I checked what is out there to do something different and therefore, unique. I know I won't be able to create a new language for them, something that is the main problem today, but at least I want to show them a different way of thinking and approaching the topic. 

So, after I picked the similar articles it was time to observe the language they use. Both of them are extremely ironic, sarcastic and unkind when talking about each other, the way they write is focused on them only and not about the public or even the product itself. Fashion focuses on aesthetics and the end user, making sure to always say that "fashion can win the wearable war" or "technology should let fashion take the wheel". Technology on the other hand, thinks they are good without fashion and that fashion fades and is therefore, vain and unnecessary. 

My research made me realise I have a chance to write something that is not one-sided. But on the other hand, gave me a problem, how am I supposed to write something that an engineer and a  fashion designer could understand? How can a person who works with fibres and microchips understand what a snakeskin beaded bracelet is? Quite tricky.

I learnt that I need to be very careful with the way I write and that I should above all things be impartial when discussing it and that I need to find a way to explain to one another what is what without sounding like a dictionary.

Next on my list is trying to find a name that can summarise my goal for this project.

WEEK 2

This is the second week of my project and I'm starting to understand this world of wearable technology, is a lot vast than I could ever imagine and it's more complex as well. There are a lot of knowledge involved, but also a lot of misunderstanding, miscommunication and even, I bit of ego.

So, with that being said, my goals for the second week are: 

1) Do more research 

2) Start planning the name 

3) Gather/filter useful information 

4) More people to talk to 

3) PROTOTYPE

I created a first prototype of what I expect my website to look like, of course it's not the final piece, a lot can change in such long project. But for this initial prototype I wanted to be simple and useful, a clean interface so the user could easily find the information they wanted. Dividing the "clutter" of informations in different categories. 

First drawing of what I'm trying to achieve. Then I went to Photoshop and tried to create a digital version. 

1) The "home page" with all the informations and a big home slide with the main features in the middle. A name (which I still don't have it yet) and the categories right under it. The secondary features under the slider and when you scroll down (and the slider goes up) you have access to the old features. They are in chronological order and they have small thumbnails. Here you can also have access to the social media links. 

2) This part is after you screw down the page and all the old features appear. As you scroll down the name also goes up and the categories split in two and opens a space so the name can go in between them. 

- CFE Fashion Tech Meetup Images

Going to the CFE Fashion Tech Meetup was extremely useful for my research, I could meet in person some of the people that I wanted to interview. I met Michelle Hue from the company Made with Gloves and we had a really nice chat about wearables and my project, my research and she introduced me to a couple of people that could help me go further. 

We discussed fashion, technology, how fashion can help small start-ups to connect with their final public and how big companies need to adapt to the new technologies,etc. 

2) CONTACTING PEOPLE FOR INTERVIEW

Contacting people was hard. Some of them didn't even reply to me or finding their contacts was quite difficult. Initially, I went to the wearable technology show website and wrote it down the name of the speakers that matter the most to my project. After that, I went to Google and searched their names to find an email address, a Twitter account or something that I could reach them. Most of them use Linkedln and their informations are not always available. I managed to find some of them on Twitter. That's where it all started, now I'm following all of them and some of them are following me back. 

So after a couple of attempts, I managed to contact a professor from the Nottingham Trent University, Tilak Dias, the director of the company Made with Gloves, Michelle Hue (who invited me to the Fashion-tech Meetup) John Weir, director of the Wearable Technology Show, Priti Veja who is a researcher and designer at Weft Labs and Claire Duke-Woolley from the Beecham Research. These people were amazingly helpful to me and they kindly give hours of the days answering my questions. 

I tweeted, emailed and some I called for an interview. It was really rich and informative for my project, I learned a lot and could understand what is missing in this field. Some of them really encouraged me to go further and create a real thing. I'm still waiting for a couple more answers because some of them I sent after the event on Thursday. 

The questions I sent them were: 

1) How is the engagement between your work and the fashion industry?

2) I read once on Wired that one of the reasons people won’t buy wearable gadgets is because they are ugly(as in not fashionable), specially clothes. Do you think the Apple Watch and things like CUTECIRCUIT are good steps in creating wearables that are pretty? or do you think people still won’t use it? What are your thoughts about it?

3) Yesterday we talk a lot about the difficulties between fashion designers and this type of technology, do you think by having new degrees and more units about it at universities could help to make this gap between them smaller? 

4) What do you think the fashion industry can do to help develop and expand the studies and practice on wearable technology?

5) People tend to use clothes as a way of expressing themselves more than the utility. How do you think wearables can be applied in that scenario? 

6) What do you is missing in the media when it comes to wearables? Do you think that having people from the fashion industry talking about it could help?The goal of my project is to create a website about wearables. 

7) Do you think ego can also be one of the factors that these two different and big industries don't collaborate as much as they should? 

8) If I turned this project into a real website, what advice could you give it to me?

And from that the discussion started, the questions changed and we talked more and more.  

1) RESEARCH

The first part of my research was attending the event Wearable Technology Fair in London. The talk about fashion was extremely interesting and I could see some of the prototypes for a lot of different ideas. It was quite mind-blowing experience because even though I knew wearables were quite innovative and there are people seriously working on it I was not yet prepared for what I saw there. 

The event gave me an amazing opportunity to learn who is working in this part of these two industries and what their role are and advanced wearables are and how they can change the fashion industry. 

Second part of my research was at university reading websites and looking for books on the matter. My research showed me that wearables are everywhere in the fashion industry and the possibilities are endless BUT there is a serious problem with lack of knowledge about each other, lack of common language (because fashion people might not understand engineer's language and vice versa), lack of investments and a tiny bit of ego involved. 

Most of the wearables out there are mainly smart watches and wristbands that can monitor your heartbeats and how many calories you're burning. Other thing I found out, most wearables are considered quite masculine and even ugly, which is one of the reason people don't buy them as much as they should. 

People tend to look fashion as a form of identity and self-expression. People don't want clothes because of their utility and that's something wearables also needs to think about and develop. Because people need that desire to buy something. 

The third part of my research was going to another event called "Fashion Tech Meetup" where other specialists talked how fashion could benefit from this technology and how start-up can benefit from fashion expertise. It was amazing, because we had a little Q&A and I could ask questions and talk to people and ask them if I could interview them. I try to absorb information about how is the relationship between these two and how are they handling it. 

After the event I start to look for blogs that are talking about it and how they talk. Most of them are focused on one or the other, or they focus on only one specific point of view, which is the big problem. 

For engineers the right name is "wearable technology" for the fashion industry is "fashion-tech" there isn't a middle ground. 

My next step is to interview the people who are involved it and working on it. 

WEEK ONE

 This is the first week of the Final Major project. My theme is Wearable Technology and my plan is to create a website - a informative website - about wearables, as well a photoshoot to be featured in the website. 

 My first week was divided in 3 parts :

1) Research 

2) Contacting people I would like to interview 

3) Prototype 

For this first week, my goal is to gather information, from all sorts of sources, without much a plan, I just wanted to see what is going on out there so I can make my own decisions. Understand what is this world and what this technology can do and who is doing it. Investigate what could be the future of it and how my website could be included in this context. 

It's all about gathering and analysing information. Studying and having a initial prototype of what initially I wanted the website to be. It's not the end thing yet, it's just a start point.