Anna Larionova

How might we empower mobility-impaired users to engage with the Downtown Santa Monica Farmers Market more comfortably?

The Downtown Santa Monica Farmers Market is an abundant, beautiful space to explore. People value organic produce and supporting local businesses. However, upon closer inspection, the market is riddled with hazards to anyone who uses a mobility device. We also found that the crowded market can be an overwhelming experience even for returning visitors.

During our interviews we discovered that pedestrians feel lost at the large Saturday market and pushed to side-- “...if you were just meandering, like one does, at a farmers market, you're going to get run over.” Mobility-impaired users tend to outright avoid places like farmers markets.

Routed: A stand-alone progressive web app that uses AR guidance along with physical pathways. Routed uses a map of the Downtown Santa Monica Farmers Market created by the market itself to guide visitors to vendors and items, as well as designated safe pathways. By placing signage throughout the market, visitors can quickly find where they need to go without feeling overwhelmed.

The project brief was open-ended: design a table lamp in our Product Design 2 studio class that challenges the traditional expectations of a table lamp.

At the time of the project, I lived in a tiny studio apartment with a tiny desk. I aimed to find a small lamp for my workspace, but even the smallest table lamps I looked at had a footprint. It still needs a place among the pencil holder, computer, and keyboard. This led me to the question: does a lamp really deserve real estate on your desk?

Chema Madoz’s surrealist photography inspired me to imagine interactions as visual metaphors. Along this line of thinking, I encouraged myself to let imagination and play lead the way for this exploration.

Élan is a soft, e-textile lamp. When the user pulls the LED-embedded fabric up from the center, magnets from either side meet to complete the circuit and turn on the light. Flattened out, the light turns off and “disappears,” leaving precious room for other things on even the tiniest desk.