Meet your Buddy

Abstract	With Buddy, we aim to inspire Ford with a future vision that engages handymen in intuitive communication experiences with technology in their van to support their daily routines. We believe that future technologies drive systems that go beyond functionality and productivity. Future technologies will allow the creation of all-encompassing systems that enhance the emotional and sensory quality of experiences through intuitive interactions.
Group	27
Students	Caroline H�ger, Amy den Dekker
Client	Ford
Brief	Handyman?s Companion
Coach	Daniel Shor, Wouter van der Hoog
Morning Exhibition Time	@July 1, 2020 10:00 AM-11:00 AM
Exhibition Video Channel	https://tudelft.zoom.us/j/92991888783
Afternoon Exhibition Time	@July 1, 2020 1:00 PM-2:00 PM
Live Status	Closed now ?

The future of mobility in 10 to 15 year within the context of handymen

Handymen drive from job to job, from house to house, to fix, repair and build. It's a physical job, as well as an administrative job. In the future, the handymen's activities are not likely to change. However, the world around them will.

Future technologies will drive the creation of products and systems that will be connected increasingly more as ever. They are smart and work seamlessly together. And we as humans will have to adapt as technologies will intertwine more and more into our daily lives.

The same rules for handymen; products and systems around them will develop and become smart.

We hook on to this future and present an all-encompassing system for handymen. This system not just aims to fulfil functional and productive needs. This system aims to create engaging and intuitive communication experiences that support the handymen's daily activities and create a feeling of companionship.

Buddy's Embodiment

Buddy is embodied in the front area of the handyman's van and makes itself visible through a blue interactive light. Buddy has two main bases; the armrest and the steering wheel. Depending on the tasks at hand, Buddy moves from one location to the other. To communicate and collaborate with Buddy, special interactions are required.

Touchpoints

Buddy guides the handyman through his daily routine and supports his administrative work. For this, Buddy facilitates PRE-job activities and AFTER-job activities for every job.

Join a typical day with the handyman and Buddy

A typical day of the handyman and Buddy includes two jobs. The office scheduled the jobs a week earlier and notified Buddy with the necessay information to do the jobs. The van is loaded with the right materials and the handyman and Buddy are good to go.

Today, the handyman will have to do the following two jobs:

Buddy knows the schedule and guides the handyman through the day.

**swipe left** *across the armrest to activate Buddy and release him from the armrest*

**tap** *the armrest twice to confirm the job*

***Scroll*** *through the the job preparation*

***swipe right*** *across the armrest to return Buddy to the armrest and put him on stand-by*

*the first job: repairing a water leak in the kitchen*

*add your current job status via* ***speech***

***scroll*** *through suggested answers and select via* ***speech***

*select the used materials via* ***speech*** *and add detail*

***tap twice*** *to confirm the job description and send it to the office*

Once the first job description is sent, the handyman and Buddy continue their day.

Interaction library

As mentioned and illustrated, Buddy facilitates a technology driven communication experience that focusses on intuitive interactions. The interactions include touch, gestural recognition and voice recognition.

Touch

The first interaction type is touch and is inspired by human to human interactions. Greeting and saying goodbye often includes a moment of touch as e.g. an expression of kindness or friendship. Buddy is your day to day companion, your trustworthy friend. Touching the armrest (the embodiment of Buddy) therefore aims to represent this act of kindness and friendship to grow a trustworthy relationship.

***Swipe right to put Buddy on stand-by***

Gestures

The second interaction type includes gestural recognition. Buddy's operational system is a simplistic interface with a few pages and is projected on the windshield. The gestures are designed to go through the pages and their content in an intuitive manner. Swipe to move from page to page and scroll to go through the content of the specific pages.

***Swipe left and right to move through the pages***

***Scroll up and down to go through lists of information or suggestions***

Voice recognition

The third and last interaction type includes voice recognition. The job description requires job specific information. Buddy gives suggestions to the question at hand, based on the job. This allows the handyman to go through the suggestions and select the correct ones through speech. Sometimes, it is necessary to add specific details, e.g. the dimensions or the amount of materials used. Voice recognition allows to communicate the job specific information quickly and detailed. It is the final interaction type that makes the job complete.

***explain to Buddy the status of the job, the activities done, the materials used and add details***

and finally

As technology continues to grow its influence in daily human activities, we as designers have the opportunity to guide and shape meaningful collaborations between human and technology. We foresee that a future with Buddy is a future with companionship, a trusting collaboration between human and technology. Hopefully, Buddy inspires future mobility design to embrace communication experiences that put emphasis on the emotional and sensory nature of humans to create intuitive and engaging interactions with technology.

Everybody needs some Buddy.

(ps. if you are our student reviewer: from 13.30 to 13.45 our coaches and client join our zoom meeting)