DE1082
Jonny Palmer
Critical Justification
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Contents Chapter 01: Introduction 06
How to use this book
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Aim of the project
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Personal Timeline Chapter 02: Exploration
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Exploration proposal
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Initial research
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How families approach sustainability
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Educating children on sustainability
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The needs of children
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How children play outside?
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User profiles and interview
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Designing for children
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Initial market research
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Refined Brief & design directions
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Conclusion Chapter 03: Design Iteration
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Crtieria and questions
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Which design direction?
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Brainstorming ideas
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Concentred ideation
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Connecting concepts
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Initial sketching
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Conversation with Kirsten Brandt
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Validation from Laura Dobson
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B&Q visit/model making
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Validation from parents & children
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Continue ideation
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Minor interim (8/02/17)
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Refined Brief
Chapter 04: Development 70
Moving forward
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Conversation with Paul Hetherington
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Invertebrates and sustianability
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Collaboration with Bug Life
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Market Research
80
Designing the commerical kit
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Continued development
84
Validation from Carey Hunt
86
Preparing for major interim
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Final Validation Chapter 05: Conclusion
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Conclusion
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Final Brief
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What’s next?
Chapter 01 Introduction
How to use this book
These icons will represent the source of any data, research, work or information that was gained throughout the project
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Primary Research
Secondary Research
Tutor
Collaborator/validator
These icons will represent how useful any form of research or work that was carried out through the project:
Very helpful
Quite helpful
Not helpful
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Aim of project I consider sustainability to be an extremely important part of modern society. Furthermore, I view children as the future for creating a more environmentally friendly world and must understand the topic of sustainability. I believe that Children are unaware of the impacts of living in an unsustainable way and can therefore lead to the development poor habits in the future. The aim of this project is to encourage children to have more interest and responsibility of being more sustainable within a household.
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My Timeline I have designed myself a general timeline for this project including both university and personal deadlines. This helped me to stay organised and ensure I covered all the areas that are required to make this project successful.
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First hand research
Choose a topic
October (Start)
December
November
Submit exploration proposal
Interim
Background Research
Conduct Interviews
Generate design directions
Refine design brief
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Market reserch Finalise concept idea Research focussed area
January
Submit exploration project
Generate design concepts
Develop concepts
March (now)
Febuary
Minor interim
Discuss with collabarators
CJ01 Due
Chapter 02 Exploration
Exploration Proposal
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Although I had constructed a proposal for the exploration project, I was unsure of what the final outcome would be. In my first peer group session, my project tutor Neil Smith commented on how the project held great potential and what I should do. His initial suggestion was to discover and understand how families within their home approach sustainability, which helped me to get the project underway.
Initial Research Through online research, I found that the household sector was responsible for 15% of the UK’s Carbon emission1. Furthermore, I discovered that children aged between 6-15 spent on average 6.5 hours per day in front of screens2, highlighting the impact that technology has on the younger generation. I did not find the information particularly useful. However, I was still determined to encourage children to be more aware of sustainability at home, but with an additional focus of aiming to limit their use of screens on a daily basis.
Footnote 01: HM Government (2014) Statistical release. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/416810/2014_stats_release.pdf (Accessed: 20 November 16). Footnote 02: Wakefield, J. (2015) Children spend six hours or more a day on screens. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32067158 (Accessed: 23 November 16).
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Understanding how Families approach sustainability I interviewed parents who had children under the age of 12, regarding their approach towards sustainability at home.
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From this, I found that only 10% of children helped parents in their efforts to be sustainable. Parents claimed they would encourage their child to take part in simple activities such as recycling and gardening, offering rewards for their contribution. On the other hand, the majority of other parents felt that their child was either not interested, unaware or too young to take part. This task helped me acknowledge the key relationship between parent and child. Additionally, it provided me with an insight into how children can be encouraged to be more sustainable at home.
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Educating children on sustainability I got in contact with Lisa Linfield, who teaches year 6 at Bournes Green primary school, to understand how sustainability is taught in school. Our conversation can be found in the top two pictures on the left. Additionally, I compared two leading examples of facilities educating sustainability; Silverhill primary school and Juniper Hall who both believe that learning outside is the most efficient way. Lisa’s answers and the case studies were both highlighted the importance of having children engage with the environment on a first hand basis, whilst making it engaging. From here, I was focussed on how I could encourage children to get outside and interact with nature.
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Understanding the needs of children Following a conversation with Howard Fenwick (tutor), I realised I needed to understand how children’s needs change between the ages of 6-12.
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I split the needs into three main categories; social, physical and emotional. Using the gathered information from online, I created a timeline to highlight particular events that occurred during a regular childhood. From this task, I found that as children reaches the age of 9, they were more mature and learning to become more independent. Based on my brief, I felt it was more appropriate to design for an age group of 5-8 rather than 6-12.
How children play outside? At this stage, I compared three different types of play; Role, social and constructive. Comparing each type, it seemed that constructive play would offer the best opportunity for learning. I also compared the different environments that children play in. The outcome of this highlighted how those in urban area’s were perhaps more restricted due to factors such as space and safety, compared to those who lives in the countryside. From this research, I decided that for my final outcome, it had to be adaptable to different environments, otherwise this would narrow the scope of users down.
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The user Profiles & Interview Video
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I spoke to 3 sets of parents and asked them questions about their children and how, where and what they play with. I also had the opportunity to interview four children (including three from the user profiles), with the aim of understanding why they are curious about the natural world and how they applied to imagination on scenarios. From this, I found that each child thoroughly enjoyed constructive play (inside and outside) and decided it could be a design direction. Additionally, the interviews helped me understand how important both imagination and curiosity are for a child, which concluded for me that my design must promote both imagination and curiosity.
Evee, 9
Jacob, 11
Leah, 8
Noah, 5
Designing for children Here, I looked into designing for children. I spoke to both parents and children to understand what they look for in a product with answers varying between both parents and child. I also considered narrowing the user group to a specific gender. I referred to the academic research paper “Characteristics of boys’ and girls’ toys, Sex Roles” which concluded that generally, gender-neutral products offered the most educational benefits for the user5. These tasks helped me acknowledge how the final product must have a strong parental appeal, whilst I should also continue with my age group rather than focussing on a particular gender as well.
Footnote 05: Blakemore, J.E.O. and Centers, R.E. (2005) ‘Characteristics of boys’ and girls’ toys,’ Sex Roles, 53(9-10), pp. 619-633
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Initial Market Research: Identifying trends I undertook some initial market research where I researched current and future trends within the industry. I found the success of Pokemon Go relevant to my goal of encouraging children to get outside and felt the concept of augmented reality could be taken further.
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Additionally, I compared different children products that had incorporated different sustainable features. Generally, most products such as GIGI would promote recyclable materials. However, others such as Turn Up the Heat, Ima-Jen kit and the Flower Patch Kit would try to engage children in sustainability through gamefication and interaction with nature. As initial market research, it provided me with a possible design direction and also how children products have began to incorporate sustainable features.
Refined Brief/Design Directions At this stage, I refined my brief, focussing on encouraging children to play outside and interact with nature. I had also narrowed my user group down to 5-8. Furthermore, I had created 3 design directions - constructive play, augmented reality and gamefication, followed by some initial sketches which I felt could be pushed further in the next stage. The brief helped me to focus on who I was designing for and why, whilst the design directions would help me develop what the final design would be.
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Summary of Exploration
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Whilst I am pleased with parts of my exploration, such as the data collected from the parents and children, I am disappointed that I did not visit a primary school as this would have helped in understanding how children learn. Overall, with the refined brief, my exploration project will be a useful tool to refer to throughout the next stages as I enter the design iteration process.
Chapter 03 Design iteration
Criteria and questions To start with the ideation process, I summarised what were my criteria was followed by what were the questions that remained and needed answering.
39 5-8 year olds
Interaction with nature
At home (outside)
This helped simplify my original summary and also acted as a useful reference tool in terms of moving forward with the project.
Which design direction? At the end of my exploration, I was left with three possible design directions; Augmented Reality, Constructive Play and Gamefication.
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Following a conversation with Neil, we agreed that I should try generate idea’s for each one. Neil stressed that each idea must reflect the work done in the exploration on curiosity and imagination. This gave me a good starting point and let me be more flexible in my idea generation process.
Constructive Play
Gamefication
Augmented reality
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Brainstorming ideas I began brainstorming as many ideas as possible surrounding the three design directions. Whilst the constructive play direction had generated the most amount of possible ideas, a lot of the other categories cross-referenced each other. Therefore, I considered whether I could incorporate different ideas from the three directions together. This was a practical way of generating a number of idea’s in a quick and efficient way. However, I felt the idea’s needed to have more organisation to have any impact.
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Concentrated ideation I created a colour coded system, which helped me to organise the stronger ideas, whilst discarding others. I would also refer to my criteria and the questions proposed to help me with the selection of ideas.
Discard
Potential
Suitable
Why, how and what? My ideas still required better organisation. I decided to list my idea’s under the questions why, how and what. This allowed me to organise my notes again and link different idea’s together. From here, I had established around 9 concepts that I felt met my criteria and could be developed.
Connecting Concepts
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The top right photo displays how the various idea’s I generated were revolved around three core concepts; an interactive Story, a flatpack home for wildlife and a grow your own garden. This was really helpful in stringing the different concepts together and highlighting three core idea’s that can be taken further. I discussed the idea’s through with Neil who felt the addition of a story could benefit the project and should be developed. He encouraged me to begin sketching and making models to help continue with the design process.
Initial Sketching At this stage, I started sketching some basic concepts based around the core concepts that I had developed. I mindmapped each idea, justifying it whilst also considering possible barriers. From there, I sketched a number of idea’s to give me an idea for form and function. This put me in a position of having stronger more visual concepts that I could send to possible validators such as industry experts and parents for advice and feedback.
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Conversation with Kirsten Brandt (Senior lecturer, Newcastle University) As my concepts were revolved around agriculture/horticulture, I decided to organise a meeting with Dr Kirsten Brandt.
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Kirsten informed me on a number of things I needed to consider if I was planning to design a ‘grow your own/build your own’ garden kit for children. She highlighted a number of factors such as material selection, type of soil, available timeline, new available technology and suitable products to grow for children. With the information Kirsten offered, I was able to make some adjustments to my concepts, giving them more viability and possibility of working.
Validation from Laura Dobson Designer at Twoey I got in touch with Laura Dobson, a former DFI student who undertook a similar project to myself and currently works at Twoey, which designs educational products for children. I felt that with her experience, her feedback would be critical in helping develop the concepts. Laura gave a really detailed and helpful response to my concepts. Her feedback was positive but also helped me to acknowledge a number of possible barriers for each idea, whilst also highlighting the strengths. This feedback was practical and reasonable and helped me to develop and alter the concepts, based on valid feedback.
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B&Q Visit/Model Making
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At B&Q, I compared a range of ‘grow your own’ products for children, which all varied in instructions and came across quite high maintenance. Additionally, the only bug hotel product available had no obvious feature that would interest a child. However, the information given with the product highlighted the environmental importance of such a product which stood out as something I could base around my project. Having purchased a number of materials from the store such as bamboo sticks and wooden dowels, I generated a few models whilst also having a go on the laser cutter which I felt could be key manufacturing process to any potential design. This was a great way of comparing what is currently available on the market. I also inspired me to create models to get an idea for form, function and materials.
Validation from parents & children I wanted to discuss my concepts with the parents and children who I worked with in my exploration. Each concept was well received by both the parents and children, however they felt the idea’s still needed development. I created this visual document which collected the feedback from both Laura and the families in a more organised manner, helping me to visualise the strengths and weaknesses of each concept and move forward.
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Continued Ideation
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I felt a service could be designed with the concepts, so I worked on creating a user experience map to figure out how the logistics of it. I focussed on applying this particular service map to both schools and national wildlife trusts. This helped me to work out a basic system whilst raising particular questions that would need answering. Furthermore, it forced me to start considering the different stakeholders that would be involved in the process.
Minor Interim (8/03/16) I presented all my creative work based on my three main concepts with both Neil and Laura Warwick. Laura’s feedback was positive in terms of the direction, however she raised some useful points to consider such as what is the sustainability story and how it is conveyed. Furthermore, I should think about the user journey and how to engage different stakeholders to help develop the service design. This gave me a useful platform to build on and move into the development process whilst considering possible barriers to the project.
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Refine Brief
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Following the minor interim, I decided to refine my brief. I wanted to focus on connecting children with the environment, which I believe in turn would lead to an increased awareness of sustainability. Additionally, with regard to my age group, I made a decision to alter it to an entry age of children who are 7 and above. Refining the brief helped to me to re-focus where I was and continue moving on with the project in the more narrowed and justified direction.
Chapter 04 Development
Moving forward I returned to the drawing board to tackle the issues raised in the interim. I split each issue into sections such as product, story, service and stakeholders. This helped me to take parts from my original three concepts to form a new one; A wildlife kit for children. However, I was unsure of the contents or the cause behind the kit. With regard to the accompanying service, I kept finding different barriers that could easily jeopardise what I was proposing. I knew was going round in circles. I needed to try find a collaborator that could help in implementing a service that would work and fits with the brief.
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Conversation with Paul Hetherington (Director of fundraising and communications, Bug Life Charity)
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I came across a charity known as Bug Life, who focus on the conservation for invertebrates. I got touch with Paul Hetherington to discuss both what Bug Life does and how it could work with my project. Paul explained to me in further detail what Bug Life did as a charity, whilst providing some really positive feedback on my project and there is definitely a design opportunity. It was at this point that I felt my project could emulate what Bug Life aim to achieve. Whilst still following my brief, I could encourage children to learn more about the importance of invertebrates and how they can help in the conservation process.
Invertebrates and sustainability Through some research, I found that the conservation of invertebrates had a strong link with sustainability, which suited my original brief. The top photo on the left highlights how invertebrates can offer a number of benefits to both humans and the surrounding environment. Furthermore, Wilson (1992) reiteration of how important these types of animals are to the environment, connects their conservation to being sustainable. This justified the direction I was heading in by linking it to sustainability. It also gave me a good cause to design for and helped narrow down what was now needed.
Wilsom, E.O.O (1992) The Diversity of life, London: Penguin Books.
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Collaboration with BugLife I sent a basic service model to Paul, outlining how it would work, the benefits and followed by potential issues/decisions that needed to be made.
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Paul’s responses are on the post-it notes where he highlighted what should be done. A short discussion with Neil followed where he re-iterated what Paul had said and massively encouraged me to go ahead with both a retail and educational wildlife kit, based on the conservation of invertebrates. Both sets of feedback helped me make critical decisions and help outline what I should design when moving forward.
Educational pack include 30x Bug-life magnifiers, teachers notes and project plans Make the pack available through web-hub, with retail and educational versions
Retail pack could include: Magnifier glass Bug Identifier book Meadow seeds Flat-pack hotel
Go for app for online profile and include a rating system for schools/gardens/ communities for bug friendliness
Online ‘museum’ (through app) where photo’s of bugs/hotels/gardens can be uploaded. Re-iterates local/regional/national sense of community
Market Research To gain a better understanding of the market, I compared existing products including apps, bug hotels and bug catching kits. For each product given, I compared their price and given features followed by their pro’s and con’s. This helped me to identify a suitable price point for the commercial kit to based around. Additionally this allowed me to compare the different features given that could both inspire me but also ones to avoid, to ensure my kit is designed professionally and suitable to the brief.
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Designing the Commercial Kit
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I began designing the commercialised kit, as I knew this would be the kit I would eventually manufacture. After some initial sketchwork, I began experimenting with different shapes, forms and materials. I was keen on enhancing the bug viewing experience and began playing with magnets to try create a an easy to use magnifying glass. With regard to the Bug Hotel, I wanted to make it easy to build, whilst also encouraging imagination and use of natural resources. This was a great way of getting into the workshop and playing with different materials to find the most suitable form and function.
Continued development Continuing on, I developed a way of incorporating magnets within the magnifying glass, whilst also exploring ways of making the bug hotel a modular design. I began iterating other contents such as the pack of seeds to attract bugs, a mesh bag to collect resources which helped give an idea for the overall look and feel of the box. This gave me more idea’s of how the commercial kit will look and work, whilst also providing me with more material to give to my validators.
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Validation from Carey Hunt, Creative projects manager, Seven Stories
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I met with Carey Hunt from Seven Stories, who provided some very useful feedback on my project and the inclusion of a storyline. She felt that due to the time available, it would be difficult to fully incorporate a story. Carey suggested using the Bug Hotel as a way of introducing some form of casual storyline. This was a useful meeting and helped me to decide how and where I should include a story. Carey also highlighted different authors to give me insights into how the kit can be styled, both visually and through writing.
Preparing for Major Interim With the major interim near, I began preparing how I was going to communicate my idea. I wanted to illustrate my work through a detailed service map which would explain both the kits and how this would benefit all the stakeholders involved. Whilst this helped to be well organised for the interim, it helped to consider aspects of the service such as the educational kit. It also gave me something firm to send to my validators to get feedback.
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Further feedback Having developed my kit and service further, I wanted some feedback from both Laura Dobson to get her thoughts on how I had developed my concepts further. I sent her a quick presentation to illustrate my progress.
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As the photo on the right highlights, her feedback was very positive, reassuring me I was going in the right direction. They also provided some food for thought on minor details which would help develop the project.
Chapter 05 Conclusion
Conclusion I am pleased with how my project has come along. Through the ideation process, I have benefited from feedback from both tutors, peers and external validators, helping me shape the project to a suitable and well developed point. With regard to the next stage, I must work more smartly, ensuring all aspects of the project are well covered. I am keen to get in touch with someone from a school as their feedback will be useful in regards to the educational side of the service. I hope that with continued feedback from various tutors and validators, I can develop this project and produce a well thought out design in May.
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Final Brief Here is my final refined brief which I changed due to the recent developments in the project.
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This gave me a confirmed statement of design and allowed me to move forward knowing what I needed to design.
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What’s next? It is crucial that over the next 9 weeks, I am organised and prepared for the different tasks that will need to be completed. This timeline helped me to identify what I must do and when to ensure that this project is completed successfully and in time.
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