Remote Models

This is the first idea that I tried out for the form of the remote. The remote is an important part of my product. It will contain the button which will trigger the camera to take a photo and will be built into the reel which controls the rope. The two interactions will be built into one component.

The form was just a starting point of working out how a remote would look. I envisioned the camera trigger to be a big red button. I also needed to add grip onto the remote so I moulded some finger placements into the shape. Although this was a starting point, it wasn't aesthetically pleasing and didn't fit with the project.

Leading on from this I tried a more angular approach but kept the idea of a big red button on the front. Also keeping the grip mouldings, I thought it might be a better idea for these to be on each side of the control. This would be useful for both right and left handed users.

My next thought was to take a more modern approach to this and I took inspiration from the new iPod nano shape. I liked how the shape was slim and tried to mimic this when I was thinking about the form. The made a curve on the front and the back to give it several lines of symmetry and this also made it comfortable to hold and interact with. Taking the wheel interaction from the iPod, this was just left as a simple push button but was still made to look like the iPod wheel. I really like the styling of this remote but it still needed to be incorporated with the kite reel.

In my next from attempt I made a copy of the handle from the kite reel so that I could place things against it and see how things looked.

This idea was focused on looking at how the reel was held and what interaction was left for the user. When holding the kite reel it uses both hands, one to hold it and the other to wind it. The only part of the hand that the user would have free is their thumb. This left me thinking that this is where the button can be pressed to trigger the camera. Taking this into account, the handle was made uniform to create the compartment that the remote would be cased in. The button was strategically placed so that the thumb could reach it without any strain.

This is my favourite form for the remote so far but it's too small to fit all the components for the remote. Also, reflecting on this, there is a larger area as to where the thumb can stretch to so in my next form models I will focus on the user interaction with the button.