P1.1 Research/a

Ok...so I have a definite target audience...Pregnant women! My friend is newly pregnant, so as her shopping companion, I feel like I am involved in her growth process too!

I didn't just want to map any days of the year, but tried to think of an event that was directly related to time, and what better than 9 months of pregnancy? I know that pregnant women have a lot of appointments to go to, and have to keep really organized, so a calendar is a necessity. I also thought it would be nice for parents-to-be to keep this calendar as a memento as their child is growing up.

The only problem is that pregnancy has a lot of cliche visuals linked to it and avoiding them is going to be tricky...plus fetus images are so cute!!












I have an option to use a metaphor like a cupcake that grows in the oven...or i could use completely abstract visualisations such as shapes.

i did research on the available calendars in the market and there isn't much variety at all, so then i moved on fetal charts which are more pragmatic. this type of chart applies more to my project because it contains more information about the fetus; such as length, weight and development stages.

i tried to ask myself: what information do pregnant women need? my constants would be:
time (perhaps a count down till due date would be nice)
estimated weight,
length,
and size of fetus.

there are many facts about pregnancy which would be nice to include, but without using icons, images or text, it might be tricky. but here's on for general knowledge:

Did you know:
by week 6 its heart starts to beat
by week 10 all vital organs are formed
by week 13 it sucks its thumb
by week 25 it can hear your voice
by week 32 it can survive outside of the womb

when do you think life begins?

anyway, i digress...back to the subject...as i said earlier i did some research on medical charts so i came up with a load of boring looking graphs. i am interested in the wheel type charts that the viewer can interact with depending on which stage of her pregnancy she is in. here is one i found which measures nuclear isotopes and decay...it is so boring though that i would rather be decay. maybe i can jazz it up though??












so generally, i am at a more pragmatic point of research as i think if i get all the information down in a logical way and then think about design, it is a good tactic.