Meet Gabriella

(Why Gabriella? I have no idea. I just watched High School Musical, which was better than I expected, and this was the first pseudo-classy name which popped into my head.)

Who is Gabriella? She’s a 33 year old business executive living in Singapore. She’s been clawing her way up the ladder in a large corporation, despite graduating with top honors from an overseas university. This isn’t her first job, though. She was poached a few years back, and thought that this company would have afforded her better opportunities for advancement, but the bigwigs are still rather set in their ways. At least the pay is better, although the organisational culture is one that leaves much to be desired.

Still, if she leaves, who would take her? Despite her qualifications, she’d be relegated to ‘Office Lady’ work. Working in her current situation has left her rather jaded and bitter about the whole concept of ‘equal opportunity’. She still puts in effort though, thinking that one day, someone will notice, and she will finally receive her due, either in the company or out of it.

Her life, as a result, is devoted to her work, and the occasional night out socialising with old friends or the few colleagues she can call friends. She prefers to socialise with women – her working environment has left her disillusioned about the opposite sex.

Sure, she was young and impressionable once, but after being in a number of bad relationships with men who just wanted to be with her for her status and not who she actually is, she’s decided to stop chasing after idealistic goals, and is dating someone whom society would expect of her – an airline pilot. It suits her well. Their work is dissimilar enough not to be competitive, and his infrequent and erratic visits home affords her time to concentrate on her work. She’s in no rush to get married – for her, being perceived as a successful career woman is at the top of her list. If she got married, for now, it would be just for show.

When her boyfriend is home she spends evenings with him, having dinner, watching shows, going to parties. She also feels obligated to look the part of a feminine trendsetter when he’s around (thus the leopard-print party dress). Of course, all the parties she attends are those where she is relatively sure her colleagues won’t be around – parties held by her boyfriend’s friends, or friends from college. At work she needs to keep up an invincible front.

Gabriella’s parents are proud of their daughter, if a little concerned about the way she’s running her life. As their only child, she can do no wrong, but they can’t help but wonder where her life is headed. They came from humble backgrounds with little education (they are newspaper distributors), but managed to put enough together to send their daughter to Australia to complete her degree. Gabriella is fond enough of them, albeit a little ashamed to let anyone know who her parents are, but is nevertheless a dutiful and loving daughter, when she can take her mind off work to pay them a visit.

As a result of her work-focused-ness, Gabriella does few things in her spare time, save the occasional trips to the gym. She used to play the piano, and thought of being a music major, but pragmaticism won out in the end. She misses it though. She was also thinking of taking up painting, but thinking of it rationally – the costs, and the time it requires – makes her put it off again and again. Once in a while though, she doesn’t mind pampering herself – going to a spa and having the works – a bath, facial, scrubs, wraps, and massage. It is a special treat though, one which she rarely permits herself to have.

Four Pleasure Analysis

Physio-Pleasure

Her job is physically undemanding, but she goes to the gym, so she does show some concern about her health (Need Pleasure). She also enjoys going to the spa, once in a while (Appreciation pleasure).

Socio-Pleasure

Her social needs are almost non-existent. What’s important to her is to appear ‘perfect’, as though she doesn’t need others. She does, however, enjoy the relationships where she does not have to pretend to appear invincible – thus she lets her guard down with her parents and old school friends (Appreciation Pleasure). She’s particularly wary of colleagues, who appear as competition.

She doesn’t seem to mind the glamorous, trend-setting lifestyle (purchasing the leopard-print dress), but will only spend in moderation (Appreciation Pleasure). She rarely permits herself treats.

Psycho-Pleasure

Her job may not be demanding and stressful, but she lets it be. It rankles her to have nothing to do. Her interest in the arts indicates that she is interested in artistic expression and achievement, but her pragmaticism sometimes wins her over and prevents her from indulging in these areas.

Ideo-Pleasure

She wants to appear as the woman-who-has-it-all, so she likes to appear sophisticated (Need Pleasure). Her artistic inclinations are a sign of reasonably good taste, and her pragmaticism means that she definitely won’t buy a piece just because it’s in fashion. Also, because of her humble upbringing, she feels a need to appear as though she’s ‘made it’ in life (Need Pleasure).

She wants to be seen as the perfect career woman, and her long term goals are also to achieve even more career success (Need Pleasure). She doesn’t quite care for religion, despite gentle urgings from friends and parents, but has a nagging feeling that something is missing in her life, and sometimes she wonders what it is (Need Pleasure).

Product Benefit Specifications

For a handphone, Gabriella will probably need something that is sleek and stylish – the more bells and whistles, the better. She’d like the latest communications technologies – one which lets her check her email in Antartica, with video conferencing to boot. It helps her keep in touch with what’s going on in the office, and her pilot boyfriend. Having an MP3 player built in would be nice, so that she can listen to it in the gym or when she’s soaking in a jacuzzi. If it looked fancy-schmancy, it’s be nice – it’d boost her image of a successful woman. It should also be subtly feminine – perhaps, with surreptituous swirls, or themed software so that she can change the skin/display to fit her silent, repressed artistic side. It definitely should have good sound quality – as a would-have-been music major, it’d be something she’d pick up on immediately.

Speaking of software – she probably doesn’t need very many. Perhaps an alarm clock, a calculator, a dictionary? She isn’t one for games. She may like a horoscope though, to balance a possible religious lack in her life.

If we could develop a way to type emails quickly – without the use of a stylus, perhaps in a manner similar to SMS, then she probably could use one with big, easy-to-press buttons, and a decently large interface. The whole contraption shouldn’t be overly big though – it’d look ridiculous on such a petite, innately-feminine frame. Overall, though, it must be aesthetically appealing and decidedly distinctive – and should be priced fairly high.

Visceral, Behavioral, Reflective (a.k.a. vaguely health-concious drinks)

So today by way of subject topic, I picked “drinks which are supposedly good for your health”. For the people who are not overtly conscious about their health, but don’t mind selecting ‘healthier’ options to soft drinks when they are available. I wonder how many people will end up doing something which involves New Media. How did I end up on this subject, you may ask?

Well.

Last week when I asked my sister for a bad design, the first thing out of her mouth was “Jia Jia Liang Teh!”. When I thought about it, I had to reconsider protesting – their ads are terrible, memorable only for their bad-ness, and their product design not much better. I figured it’d be a good place to start this week’s assignment.

Visceral Design: Jia Jia Liang Teh

Definitely, my first reaction on seeing this was “What the HECK is that?”. It’s bloody hideous and looks vaguely poisonous. It reminded me of the black turtle-jelly stuff – I swear the cans look similar. I doubted it was any sort of drink.

My sister assures me that it is quite drinkable, for all that she dislikes ginseng (A notable ingredient, as you can see from the illustration on the can). I can’t quite figure out what the other ingredients are (the ingredients list is far less than forthcoming) but it looks like chrysanthemum and luo han guo.

Part of my initial experiment was to drink this stuff and see what it tastes like, but this can just looks plain suspect. I’ll toss it in the fridge first, and try it later.

Behavioral Design: Minute Maid (Mandarin-Pomelade)

The interesting thing about this one was that after I bought it, I left the drinks in plain sight, and no fewer than 3 people asked me if they could drink this – no one wanted the liang teh, nor the thing which I’ll describe later.

I like Minute Maid, personally. I think it’s a childhood thing. I was so happy when they started distributing their products to Singapore. When I was younger my mother would mix Minute Maid concentrate with Sprite and chill it to serve to guess as a party drink – It brings back fond memories.

    It’s pretty pricey, compared to the liang teh, which was under a dollar (this was $1.20). I guess if it’s made with REAL mandarin orange and pomelit (what the heck is that?) JUICE [see illustration], I guess we can afford to pay the premium. There are other bottled drinks like this out there – gatorade, green tea – but I picked Minute Maid becaus… it looked really appealing! Plus it holds its ground, with me, anyway.

I    ‘ve tried their other flavors before, the Limeade and Lemon. I can’t quite say I like this one. It’s a smidge too citruscy-sweet – not exactly sour, but somehow biting still. It works, though. It’s not a bad drink – a cut above most other drinks, I’d say, and still somewhat healthy (despite the sugar), although in the cultural context its health benefits cannot be compared to the Liang Teh. It’s pretty easy to use though – I’m glad it’s resealable, otherwise I’d have to drink the whole thing at one shot (Like the Liang Teh, which is anothe reason why I’m putting off drinking a canned drink). It’s also easy to port around, since it’s plastic. This becomes an issue later on, when we move on to…

Reflective Design: Perrier

This is a decidedly pretentious drink. $1.90 for water bottled at the source? Enhanced with ‘natural gas’? With descriptions in French? In real glass and a snazzy metal cap to boot? Ouch. (See Illustrations)

    Personally, I hate fizzy water, or whatever it’s called. Water that isn’t still. But still, you have a to admit, that drinking this stuff is decidely posh. If anyone sees you drink it, to begin with.

No one at home wants to drink this stuff, so I think I’ll pass it to Mom, who likes it for the design and prestige. It just makes the rest of us nauseous.

A Bad Design

The Bad Design I’ve picked today is the Sony Ericsson T630. My sister has one – it’s pretty old and dated, but was at one time really popular. I used it the other day to send my brother an SMS – and the system was ridiculously hard to use. Not the typing system – it seems the same as mine, but the number of steps and options you had to go through just to send your message.

User Reaction

I asked my sister about her phone – she admitted she wasn’t one to rely much on the handphone, as long as it served its purpose of calling and smsing. She understands why people find it difficult to use, and found it annoying too, at first, but after she did it several times, it became a habit. “You just had to do it! Not like I was going to change [my] phone, or anything. So until you mentioned it, it didn’t occur to me that it was troublesome.”

“It can be really annoying especially when I want to send an sms quickly, and the software is laggy, so I press the button several times when I want to send it without looking at it, and it really frustrates me when you find out your message hasn’t been sent because it’s slow. The only thing I learnt from it was to get used to it.

“I won’t change [my] phone until it’s old and dying and falling to pieces, and then maybe I’ll consider getting a new one.”

When asked about the brand, she said “strangely enough, I’m still a Sony-Ericsson convert/fan, despite Nokia being more ‘user-friendly’ and responds more quickly. The OS of the system is quite hassle-free – I find Nokia phones have to go through multiple menus before you get to what you want to do. The aesthetic design is also really appealing, compared to Nokia phones which have really ugly interfaces.”

Nokia’s have multiple menus? But your SMS system has multiple menus too!

“Oh, I’m talking about the phone overall. The SMS system, although annoying, has little effect on my overall impression of the brand.”

My Reflection of the Product

I have a Sony-Ericsson phone, the K310i, which is a comparatively newer model. The interface was still the same, and as I was used to it, it appeared easy to navigate. To plot the path to sending an SMS, it went from:

Envelope Icon > Text > Write New > [Type SMS] > Continue > Request Reply? Yes/No > Contacts> [Type Contact Name] > Select > [Number] > Select > Send

On my phone, it’s:

Envelope Icon > Text > [Type SMS] > Continue > [Select Contact from 'Recently Used Contacts' or 'Contact List'] > Send

I daresay there’s been quite a bit of improvement.

I’ve always liked Sony-Ericsson phones, primarily for their aesthetic design – both physically and of the interface. My OS is also quite a bit faster than my sister’s. My sister’s phone is slightly bulkier and heavier, but otherwise, they are quite similar.

Overall, I think her phone is a pretty decent phone, save for an annoying system. Thank goodness they’ve rectified it in later models.