ELEVA TOR EXPERI ENCE Designer as Observer: An In-Depth Report on the Trials and Tribulations of The Elevator Experience
DESIGN RESEARCH FALL 2012
AMORY ELEVATORS, BRIGHAM & WOMEN’S HOSPITAL
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CONTENTS 4 INITIAL THOUGHTS Our thoughts and ideas on the project from the beginning.
9 STRATEGY Our game plan on how to take on our choosen elevator.
10 CONTROL CASE More about our specific elevator and why we chose it.
10 DESIGNATED ROLES Who is going to do what and when?
12 OBSERVATIONS A summary of our compiled observations.
14 INTERVENTION IDEAS Choosing our intervention ideas and why.
16 TAKING A STEP BACK: NEW IDEAS How we recovered from our initial mistakes.
24 FINAL THOUGHTS & CONCLUSION What did we get out of this project?
WHAT EXACTLY IS AN ELEVATOR?
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STARTING FROM SQUARE ONE When given this assignment in September, our class was first asked to take several minutes to stop what we were doing and observe what we noticed around us. Five minutes later, room 629 was full of puzzled expressions and excited anticipation about our next project. After observing a wide range of different sounds including pens against paper, to whispering coming from the back row, we did not realize at the time just how important and useful our observational skills were going to be for the assignment, Designer as Observer: The Elevator Experience.
OUR INTIAL THOUGHTS ON THE PROJECT The Elevator. These machines can be found anywhere. In office buildings, schools, hospitals, restaurants, shopping malls, apartment complexes, hotels, train stations, airports, etc. They are a crucial part of running a business or place that many people frequent. We all ride elevators, but most likely do not take the time to stop and consider how awkward this experience really can be. Depending on how long the ride is, passengers are forced to stand in a small confined area with each other, usually in silence. When beginning this project, our group decided to begin by taking a step back and understanding the elevator for what it is as well the purpose it serves.
el路e路va路tor NOUN : A platform or compartment housed in a shaft for raising and lowering people things to different floors or levels. 5
WHAT ELEVATOR SHOULD WE CHOOSE? 6
NARROWING DOWN OUR ELEVATOR From the beginning, our group wanted to choose an elevator with a high volume of traffic. The more people that stepped onto the elevator, the more observations and conclusions we would be able to make. We started by brainstorming and mind-mapping busy places in downtown Boston that we knew had elevators and decided to focus on office buildings. Once we had our list, we made several attempts to visit these elevators, but had no such luck because of security. This was a big problem. After three different attempts, we realized that we needed to go in a different direction and avoid high security. We were then forced to looked at our list again, and concluded that a hospital is a busy place, and we would be able to get in and out easily.
INITIAL MINDMAPS
BRIGHAM & WOMEN’S HOSPITAL Located in the heart of the Longwood Medical area, the hospital is accessible by The Green Line, and caters to a variety of different patients and needs. Working with Harvard Medical School, the primary focus is adult medicine, and the building divided into sections for different medical practices. Upon arriving at the main entrance, the elevators that we decided to focus on were directly in front of the information desk. This was very important because we wanted to make sure that the elevator was easily accessible and that a variety of different people would be riding them. The lobby was very open and swarms of people walked in and out of the hospital.
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“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation.” — Marcus Aurelius
FIRST IMPRESSIONS The Hospital is split up into many different sections. Walking into the main entrance was an overwhelming experience at first, just because there were so many people and doctors walking around the lobby. We noticed that there was a valet service for the emergency entrance to the hospital, as well as an Au Bon pain to the left of the entrance. Swarms of people were going through a set of rotating doors that could probably fit a total of 30 to 40 people.
MAIN ENTRANCE
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DEPARTMENTS The elevator we chose is located directly in the middle of the hospital lobby and divided into three different shafts, all located fairly close together on one side. There is an information desk to the left and an area for seating directly in front on the elevators. Security guards walked casually throughout the lobby but did not seem to notice that we were linguring for about an hour in the lobby. We knew that we would be able to conduct our research without being stopped. Above the middle set of buttons, there was a plaque on the wall describing where each floor went to and each floor that the hospital specialized in. There were over 25 departments, so we decided to go to each floor and make a list of the ones that were closest to the elevator doors. There are five levels, each level catering to a specific area of expertise. There were many other elevators to choose from located throughout the hospital, but we decided to focus on the Amory elevators because it seemed to have the most foot traffic.
NUCLEAR MEDICINE PET SCAN OUTPATIENT X-RAY RADIOLOGY ULTRASOUND CARDIOVASCULAR IMAGING CARDIOVASCULAR RECOVERY ROOM RADIATION ONCOLOGY STRESS TESTING ADMITTING EXIT TO STREET FAMILY LIAISON GIFT SHOP BLOOD BANK BRIDGE TO CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL ENDOSCOPY CENTER NEUROLOGY CENTER FOR FETAL MEDICINE CENTER FOR INFERTILITY MINIMALLY INVASIVE GYNECOLOGY PATHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
WHAT ELEVATOR SHOULD WE CHOOSE?
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WHAT WILL OUR STRATEGY BE?
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PLAN OF ACTION Now that we chose our elevator, now what? We needed to come up with a game plan and figure out how we were going to conduct our research. After scoping out the lobby area several times and coming to the conclusion that we weould not be stopped by security, we became excited about taking notes and riding the elavtors up and down while observing people. We decided to each go on different days at different times. We definitely wanted to go during a lunch rush and again on the weekend when it was more quiet.
CONTROL CASE The Amory Elevators were now our control case, and we needed solid evidence of the specific types of people the entered and exited the elevators. Before beginning our research, we believed that we were going to see mostly women and people that worked in the hospital. We did not think there would be many families or men walking around.
DESIGNATED ROLES One person can be the “variable� meaning that they are always changing their appearance or persona, while another person can be the recorder or observer recording data as they see it. They both will pretend they do not know each other. The third person will be the analyst, combining all our research and data to come to conclusions. By switching roles, we will have numerous observations, recordings, and notes.
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OBSERVATIONS We decided to go on a Tuesday afternoon during a lunch rush because of the heavy foot traffic. On Monday September 10th, we strolled into the hospital like we owned the place and basically set up camp near the seating area. After checking around for security, we walked up to the buttons and boarded the middle elevator. We stood to the back so that we would be able to look at the people in front of us and get good notes. It was difficult trying to take notes in such a little amount of time while also trying to act inconspicuous. We noticed many doctors and nurses wearing their hospital attire, which we expected from the beginning. There was an older woman yelling on her cell phone, and she seemed to be pretty upset. That was awkward because it was just her and us in the elevator, and it seemed to take forever to get to the floor she pressed. After awhile, we noticed that people were looking at us probably
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WHAT WILL OUR STRATEGY BE?
because we were just standing on an elevator with no destination, so after a couple of trips, we decided to press floors so that it wasn’t obvious we were doing a project. We noticed a man pushing an empty wheelchair that seemed to be humming to himself and a couple of spanish speaking employees that seemed to be in their own world. Because it was during the lunch rush, almost everyone had an Au Bon Pain coffee in their hand. In order to take pictures, we held our phones close to our chest and pretended to scroll down, obviously turning off the flash. This helped us to our advantage. The next visit was on a Sunday around noon. Already we could tell that it was not as busy just from being outside in the front. We made our way to the elevators again and decided to split up. We noticed that there were many pregnant women that were by themselves, as well as the usual amount of doctors and nurses. There
seemed to be an overall anxious feeling in the elevators that day, compared to the rush feeling from the previous trip. Our third visit was during the week on a Tuesday, and we decided to focus more on each individual person. Again, there were definitely more women than men and they all seemed to be dressed nice with expensive bags and clothes. There was little to no conversation in the elevator and people seemed to keep to themselves. Everyone seemed like they were preoccupied and anxious to get were they were going. There was no music so that made it even more tense. After several trips up and down, we all came to the conclusion that the overall feeling was very uneasy and everyone seemed to be in their own world. Mostly women frequented the elevators and they all seemed to be traveling by themselves. The nurses and doctors that worked there did not notice anyone.
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WHAT SHOULD WE DO FOR INTERVEN TIONS? 14
IDEA #1: SMOKE AN ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE For our first intervention, we decided that we were going to smoke an electronic cigarette. We noticed a no smoking sign in the elevator and wanted to see if we could push limits. We wanted to test the situation and see if anyone would say anything to us in order to take note of people’s reactions. This would provoke conversation, which is something we wanted to do.
IDEA #1: JUMP UP AND DOWN AT LEAST ONCE A hospital focuses on health, so we wanted to do something that seemed active. One of us would jump up and down once or twice in the back of the elevator and see what people’s reactions were. Again, we wanted to provoke conversation and see what people would do.
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If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. — Robert Browning
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“What do you want to get out of this?” NEW INTERVENTION IDEAS After the fourth critique, we felt lost. We had no idea what we were doing and what started off as a fun and exciting project, turned in to be more of a burden. Gunta realized this and asked us, “what do you want to get out of this?” We had no answer. This is when we knew we needed to go back to our research phase. We began looking at our photos again and realized that everyone looked sad, which most likely contributed to the anxious feeling the we were taking note of. We wanted to use this to our advantage and began to do more research on where these people were going. We realized that these elevators were going to departments that dealt with some pretty heavy stuff and that these people were most likely depressed. Then we came up with our post it idea. We wanted to put smiles on people’s faces, instead of trying to get a reaction out of them. We wanted to make them forget they were inside a depressing hospital for the ten second ride on that elevator. Now that we knew what we wanted to do, we tested out our new intervention ideas.
Radiation Oncology: a medical specialty that utilizes various forms of radiation to treat cancer. It is a unique blend of state-of-the-art technology and warm personal care by a multidisciplinary radiation therapy team. Center for Infertility: We offer the full range of treatments and have our own nationally certified, full service laboratories, capable of performing an array of sophisticated tests and specialized capabilities including embryo storage. Fetal Medicine Center: Fetal medicine (MFM) is the branch of obstetrics that focuses on the medical and surgical management of high-risk pregnancies.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO FOR INTERVENTIONS?
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“HOW WONDERFUL!”
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“IT MAKES ME WANT TO JUST SING!”
“WHAT A GREAT ACT OF KINDNESS!”
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TESTING A NEW LOCATION After the amazing results from the hospital, we decide to test our intervention in an “opposite” location. We decided to go to the Landmark Center because it had shopping, dining, as well as a health club. This meant that people were most likely doing things that they wanted to do and it wasn’t like having to go to the hospital at all. We did the same test by putting a post it note on the elevator door so that people would see it when they got on. We not only go the same reactions from people, but one guy took the post it note off the door and put it in his wallet. We felt as though we had made another successful attempt at our interventions.
“That is so nice of someone to actually do!”
APPEARED AS THE DOORS OPENED
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SO WHAT DID WE GET OUT OF THIS?
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FINAL THOUGHTS Needless to say, our new intervention idea was a huge success. Pictures do not do it justice, but we were able to make people laugh, smile and talk to each other. We realized that if we had not gotten stuck or made the mistake of picking horrible interventions, we would have never come to this point. We really dug deep into what we thought these people were going through and a sense of empathy came over us. We did not know who these people were, but we could definitely feel what they were going through, especially as women, and wanted to help them instead of doing random inventions that would probably lead us to getting kick out of the hospital. Not only did we get the reactions we wanted, but we got more than that. We were so happy that we could make a difference in someone’s life, even if it was just a small difference, but it meant so much to us. By the end of the project, we were more than satisfied with our results.
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