A Mobile Communication Concept to Enhance Perceived Proximity

A Mobile Communication Concept to Enhance Perceived Proximity

Rahman, N.

Hekkert, P. (mentor)
Visser, T. (mentor)
Van den Dries, J. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Strategic Product Design

2010-08-23

This thesis project is completed as part of the Product Planning and User Experience team at Vodafone Netherlands. The main objective is to create a new mobile communication concept based on the vision to make people feel closer to each other. This report proposes a context-aware communication called Airmail that enables people to send messages to particular places at a specific time, allowing the recipient to have the right context when receiving the content of the message. One major escalation of a brand is a shift from the end into the beginning of an innovation. In order to maintain the company’s prosperity, Vodafone is expected not only to provide satisfactory services but also a value offering that emphasizes the experience. Hence, the challenge for future innovation is to create services that fit the Vodafone brand, as well as enhances the mobile communication experience. Since people are becoming more and more mobile and live scattered across the globe, being connected in terms of physical closeness—or physical proximity—is not always an option. The foremost important value in mobile communications is that it enables a connection between people, not only by means of a functional connection but also providing an emotional connection. Although people have hundreds of contacts listed in their mobile phone, approximately 80% of the communication is only done with four people in their inner social circle. Communicating over a distance allows the feeling of closeness, making people feel valuable and that they belong to their social circle. However, this feeling of closeness—or in other words, perceived proximity— in mobile communication is not always enhanced by the richness of the information (such as in video call), but also by the engagement of the mind through what is called mental representation. This mental representation is an imaginative state of mind, where people in distant places emotionally feel closer to each other. It is influenced by the context of communication such as the type of relation, or the situational context, in other words when and where the communication takes place. With the communication concept called Airmail, people will be able to send a message to a particular place at a specific time. This way, the recipient will receive the message at the right time and place, allowing for a vivid experience in perceiving the content of the message. For instance, even if when people are away from home, they could send a “Good night, sleep tight” message to the bedroom of their loved one, and still, the message will reach the recipient once he/she goes to bed in the evening. Or people could recommend a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower to their friend who is traveling to Paris. Although they are not sure when he/she will visit the place, the message will reach the recipient once he/she comes across the Eiffel Tower. This concept is designed to use a simple platform (i.e. the SMS channel) in combination with an Internet channel, allowing it to reach as many people as possible, without depending on the mobile device or the network provider.

Mobile Communication
Vision in Product Design
Experience Design
Brand Driven Innovation
Service Design

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:3147c002-2955-4fa6-8d74-98d3489a1245

2011-08-23

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2010 Rahman, N.