F: Design Viability

The proposed design was carefully reviewed based on several relevant extra-functional considerations; a judgement about design viability based on those considerations--the capacity of the proposed solution to address the problem--is clearly realistic and well supported with credible evidence.

Introduction

Problem Statement: According to industry experts, glasses can easily be damaged by casual cleanings, leaving the lens with a scratched surface that can hinder vision. This is due to ordinary tissue paper and many types of clothing being highly abrasive.

We see experts in the industry all stating that it is important to keep glasses clean for various reasons such as keeping your vision clear, preventing from bacterial infections, or extending the lifetime of your glasses. Looking at cleaning glasses, their are methods that experts deem acceptable for cleaning glasses, but we see experts suggesting that people use their shirt to wipe off their glasses purely out of convenience, but over time the coarse nature of shirts or clothing can reduce the clarity of lenses. Our goal is to create a final product that allows people to have top-notch cleaning quality and efficiency in a device that is able to be slipped into a pocket or handbag/purse.

From this evaluation we produced some questions to ask ourselves:

• What key things will draw market attention to our product?
• Is our product a viable way to solve the problem?
• Do we have a scientific way to test our product and obtain measurable data?

These question led us to find an expert in the field, an optometrist from Huber Eyecare , Timothy, here in Rochester. He gave us some information centered around a few main points: legitimacy, marketability, and testing.

Legitimacy

When reviewing our problem statement with our eye care specialist, he confirmed much of the data we had already gathered from optometrists about mistreatment of lenses, with the additional info that most often the coatings that are applied to lenses are commonly damaged due to that fact that they are softer than the glass itself. He also added that only a saline solution should be used when cleaning because of the minerals that are contained within tap water. For example, because of Rochester’s geographic location, we commonly see calcium buildup from tap water. We then gave him an quick overview of our cleaning design. His review was positive, stating that everything necessary to clean properly was part of our design, and could easily fit in a drawer. The information that we received from this interview about the legitimacy of our project was all very positive and helped to confirm our design.

Marketability

Our interview gave us some good pointers on the marketability of our product. Keeping in mind that our goal is not necessarily to profit from our design, but rather to solve the problem at hand. Our Huber eye care specialist suggested that he could see our product being sold in a glasses store just like theirs even as a package with a new customers glasses. He also liked the open space on the bottle of the pen suggesting that it would allow for graphic designs or branding. In terms of the size and portability of our product, he stated that people like to have something that can fit into a drawer at their workplace. This added to our list of people that we could appeal to with our product.

Testing

Given that our plan for testing was not necessarily “conventional”, we wanted an expert opinion on our method outlined in Element H. The Huber eye care specialist we talked to was confident that our method of testing for microscopic scratches in the lenses would work, and even offered lenses to test on.

We also considered some of the following things:

Cost

Online prices for materials to clean glasses all fall around the same price range (as seen below) anywhere from $5 - $15, mostly determined by quantity.

The spray bottles that we found to prototype with sold for $0.69 a piece. A lower price in general will help us achieve our goal of solving the problem at hand, so ideally a starter kit that includes the pen, saline solution, and several brushes should be under the lower end of the price range. Keeping the price under $5 allows brush refills to be a more reasonable purchase.