User Experience
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Imagine that you're an MIT student, and you're bringing a prefrosh around to see MIT. You take her to the MIT Museum or the Co-op to look around and to pick up a souvenir. But while you're there, waiting for your prefrosh to decide on a shirt to buy, you see something that also strikes your attention.
In celebration of MIT's 150th anniversary, you see some HACKED MIT Mugs packaged on a shelf. You see the package and read that they are mugs that reveal a hack when you pour hot liquid into them! You pick the package up to examine it more closely, but it seems like there is a hole in the bottom... you look at the bottom of the package to see that there is a hacker's map on the bottom!
This is exciting. You've never hacked before, but you admire the playful hacking culture of MIT. You also realize that this would be a great gift for your hacker friends. You tell your prefrosh about the hacks, and she's really excited about the mugs as well. She buys the mug instead of the t-shirt. You buy a couple of mugs, give them as gifts to others, and word gets around about HACKED - the MIT mugs that reveal hacks in the same playful spirit as the MIT hacks themselves.
The user experience of the mug is fairly simple. Users pour hot liquid into the mug and enjoy watching the hack slowly reveal itself while the mug is heated. The user can then also enjoy drinking their beverage from this mug.
However, the experience can also extend into other facets of the user's life, becoming points of conversation or bringing back memories.
Our Story
The ideation of this product was a result of observing existing MIT-related products, brainstorming clever ideas to represent MIT during its 150th Anniversary, and experiencing MIT's culture for ourselves as MIT students.Previous ideas included an MIT-building shot glass set and a drinking set.
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A move was made towards revealing MIT hacks when the idea of a semi-frosted shot glass set was modeled.
However, because of the wider audience appeal of mugs and the intriguing technology of heat-sensitive inks, we settled on the idea of the HACKED MIT mugs.