Cognitive Design

Functional jewelry includes wearable artifacts that are truly beautiful but also do something really useful, often everyday.  I just completed a small innovation project with a client where we looked at trends and used cognitive design to prototype new product concepts for functional jewelry that fit their core competencies in electronics.

We can make wearable gadgets that are already useful more beautiful as some net-connected watches are or we can take jewelry that is already beautiful such as bracelets or rings and make them more useful.  A third category includes wearable artifacts that are designed from the ground up to include both art and functionality,  for instance  devices that support personal informatics, wearable computing,  environmental causes (e.g. jewelry made from crystals the absorb greenhouse gases) and even innovation in art-based approaches to therapy or behavior change.

Jawbone just announced how they are using their strength in blue tooth technology and design skills in inescapable engagement to create UP, a piece of functional jewelry that works with a smart phone App to track your movement, sleeping and eating patterns and act as a life coach.

UP is a great example in the personal health informatics space. It also raises the question of beauty. How do you really combine art and product engineering?

As I cataloged and deconstructed examples of functional jewelry two reusable design patterns emerged.  I was surprised by how much activity and potential there is the market. There is a lot of opportunity for cognitive designers in functional jewelry, especially if we start with the art.

Interested to hear from readers that own functional jewelry.