2. Product Ideas

I love generating ideas to solve for something I encounter as a problem or just a situation that can benefit from a better design. I typically pull out my notes, and start brainstorming. Here is a list of silly and some not so silly ideas that have been sitting in my notes for a while.

  1. Tech & the Elderly - How many times have you received that frantic phone call from a parent asking for tech help? Is there a way to automate this tech help? Here’s another angle, how will the elderly (loosely defined age range) keep up with the rapidly evolving tech.

    Idea: The idea here started with straightforward YouTube tutorials and ended up with an automated “clippy” like assistant. Imagine, the assistant is able to start with some troubleshooting, and then escalate to an “expert” when needing human intervention.

  2. Doctor’s consult: Whenever there’s a remote consultation with a doctor, it’s been difficult to review either x-ray’s / scans or results from a test together. I’m with Kaiser and they do have their own video service but most of the time that fails and I end up getting a phone call.

    Idea: Very simple.

  3. Planning travel: I have come across several

  4. Learn a language: I learnt to speak 4 languages growing up. Some I picked up in less than a month. How was that possible? I was just thrown into conversations with people around me that spoke the language. So what better than conversations to teach and learn language?

    Idea: Imagine a Siri like language assistant that can have sassy two way conversations. You speak, assistant replies, if any corrections have to be made - the assistant teaches you in the process.

  5. Decision maker for product people: I was inspired when attending a design conference a while ago. There was a lot of talk around “black box” in the context of ML/AI.

  6. Typography: I went through a phase of obsession with letters, numbers, typefaces. So, a whole bunch of playful ideas ;)

    1. Generate type pack based on sketches of characters

    2. Letters play: A mixed reality experience of playing with typography, tweaking type style real time and generating art floating in the air all around you.