Project Description
The Fond Video Camera was completed in 1996 as part of a junior year Ergonomics Class. The project brief called for the design of a video camera designed from a human centered perspective.

Design Solution
In researching the project I found that the act of videoing a scene had the effect of removing the person recording an event from a sense of participation in the event, creating an artificial barrier between the cameraperson and those being recorded. This was due in part to the fact that typically a camera user would hold the camera to their face during use, and also on the degree of concentration that was required by the operator to maintain the recording. Additionally, I found that family video recordings tended to sit on shelves or in boxes away from the lives that the memories that they contained were intended to be a part of. I proposed a digital video camera that recorded information within a media case that could be purchased in a variety of different forms (the form of a bear is shown here) allowing the external form of the media case to come to be associated with the information contained within. The distinctive form of each media case becomes a memento of the recorded happening. I also proposed allowing the user to separate the aspect of the product that recorded and played back information from the part of the product that took in visual information. The final product comprises a hand piece that contains the lens, a small visual display and associated controls. This can be separated from the record/playback module with a wireless connection connecting the two components. This configuration allows the user to position the video camera components in many arrangements relative to the user. Giving the user the flexibility to find configurations that maximizes their involvement in the event being recorded and minimizing the demands that monitoring the recording places on them.

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