Cary Michael Robinson

NESTL - Your Seating, Defined - Within the current SoHo (small office home office market), an MFP is the title that stands for a multifunctional product such as an all in one printer (containing scan, print, fax, etc.) Introducing a new product solution into this market, our design team derived the NESTL, which is a seating system that infuses comfortable, adjustable seating, storage and workspace into one multifunctional unit.

NESTL || Project Brief - An MFP (Multi Function Product) is an office machine that includes printing, scanning, copying and faxing capabilities in one physical body. Within the same market of office products, the NESTL is a product that falls under the classification of the MHOC (Multfunctional Home Office Chair), which is an all-purpose home office essential that serves as a seating device while providing maximum comfort, workspace and ample storage to consumers, so as to accomodate the home or small-business setting.
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NESTL || Secondary Research - We performed a market analysis exploring the American, European and Australian Markets, in order to see how we can we develop a revised rendition of these products that have a significant departure from the rest of their kind already on the market. We explored some of the leading suppliers of Home Office Products and we discovered that most of these suppliers contained office chairs that were more traditional than contemporary, as there really wasn’t much differentiation.

NESTL || Primary Research - We then conducted a survey and explored a cultural probe analysis in order to gain a better understanding of how the workspace of various user groups were utilized, and to determine what activity takes place in their environments. Aside from performing actual work, there are a lot of other interactions that take place within the workspace environment. --- eating, sleeping, etc. All of these insights became very valuable as we moved forward in our research phase.

NESTL || Synthesis & Analysis - Moving into our synthesis and analysis phase, we decided to reframe the idea of the office chair by comparing it to other seating systems that exist outside of the home office domain. We compared it to seated video game consoles, automobile seating systems, hospital bed systems, dentist chair systems, massage chairs and shoe shine stations – and looked at all of the unique qualities that made up these systems. We also compared the corporate office space with the home office space.

NESTL || Ideation - During our ideation phase, our goal was to try to merge as many unique features as possible. We also took into consideration the price of the materials and manufacturing and thought that it would be necessary to make a design that is both unified and polished. We improved our design, which was much more pleasing, but we figured there was still need for several more modifications and improvements.

NESTL || Refined Concepts || Interface - In our final designs, we took into consideration the interactions and activities of our potential users. In order to accommodate and satisfy the needs of a wide array of users, we designed an in-store interface system that would allow users the opportunity to “define their own seating space”. Users would begin with our basic package for $299, and add any additional components they desire. Our interface will be updated seasonally as new features would be available for purchase.

NESTL || Refined Concepts || Prototypes - Considering the large size of the NESTL, clients would have the option to have their NESTL delivered to their homes and assembled by our certified manufacturing team, or could pick up their merchandise with a detail set of assembly instructions, which would be useful for those who wish to upgrade their NESTL in the future.