Empathy Observation/Fly on the Wall (Photos + Booklets) Secondary Research (Annotated Bibliography + Imagery) d.school Research (Summary) Extreme User Interviews (Transcripts + Key Words + Descriptions) Comprehensive & Immersed Understanding
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D Define-
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Initial Concern (Statement) Research Methodologies, Objectives & Goals (Diagram) Severus (Creation, Completion of 40, Collating, Summarising) Student-student Interaction on Campus (Diagram) Problem Definition (Statement) Way to Solution (Diagram) Scope of the Problem (Diagram)
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Ideate-
Test -
Prototype Brainstorm (Ideation Map) Initial Prototype Mockups (Visualisation) Post-it Ideation (Ideation Map) Conversation Ideation (Verbal Discussion)
Which transition spaces would be successful in displaying our idea? Would a pop up stand style prop be noticed? Would students be interested in taking on real world assignments?
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T PrototypePrototype Creation (Collate Materials, Build Display, Visualise Questions and Survey Style Response Sheets, Compile Findings, Visualise)
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Our Process
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The EDIPT Process The processes of Design Thinking and designing are flexible. Following the EDIPT model, we felt that it didn’t allow for the opportunity to multi-task over the different stages, which constricted us with further time pressures. Very early on in the process, we decided not to see EDIPT as a lineal process, but as stages that we could move in and out of.
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We used a human-centred design approach to better understand our user’s needs and desires. We needed to pinpoint the weaknesses that allowed such a void in communication to develop. As second and third year design students, we believe that we have a comprehensive and immersed understanding of the user experience within the PA building, and thus believe that we are in a privileged and informed position to carry out this research. We completed Observation Booklets throughout the PA Building to observe the behaviours and habits in university life, as well as engaging with our users by conducting Extreme User Interviews to understand what students think of the design education provided by the university.
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Secondary Research In order to understand the severity of the lack of communication between students in the PA building, we compared Swinburne university to other design schools with a studio culture to see what made them work so well. The design school approached design critically. Students immersed themselves in design, comparing and strengthening their work with other students and professional designers to get the most out of their learning experience.
Konstfack - College of Arts Crafts & Design
Swinburne Design School
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Stanford D school Multidisciplinary Initiatives at Stanford. Stanford University was established with a strong focus to prepare students to be successful contributors to society. Today Stanford University remains dedicated to finding solutions to the wicked problems of the day and educating students to lead by example as they prepare for the complexities they will face as they take up their roles in society. Stanford have therefore developed new research initiatives, to break down traditional academic boundaries and bring together collaborative teams of experts to address major societal issues, including human health, environmental sustainability, and international peace and security. The hub of this innovative collaboration is the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford d.school. It is here students and faculty in engineering, medicine, business, law, the humanities, sciences, and education work collaboratively to take on the world’s messy problems together. The following initiatives are at the heart of Stanford’s efforts:
The Initiative on Human Health The Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability The International Initiative The Arts Initiative: Engaging the Arts and Creativity The Initiative on Improving K-12 Education
These initiatives offer Stanford University and its students an opportunity to collaborate across disciplines. Stanford University believes this is the key to future advances in solving major social issues.
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Enhancing the Student Experience: A design thinking approach to the university environment, 2010, IDEO,http://www.ideo.com/work/enhancing-the-student-experience/ IDEO presents a case study of their work with the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School at New York University, where the design consultancy investigated the potential to innovate the overall experience of the university environment. Through participant observation and interviews, IDEO developed an emic understanding of the university community and campus culture, identifying key “moments” in the narrative experience of the space. A number of initiatives were recommended, many of which are now being implemented. The article demonstrates the application of design thinking within the realm of learning environments and is unique in its realisation of the importance of social interaction within educational institutions. This article has formed the basis of our secondary research because of its immediacy to our topic. Bell, S. J. 2008, ‘Design Thinking’ American Libraries, January/February, pp. 45-49 This text addresses the necessity to redesign the library system against a design thinking framework to achieve a memorable “library experience”. The remodelling of the Carnegie Library in Pittsburg by Maya Design was presented where methods such as shadowing and interviews were conducted to research the end-user’s habits and actions in a library environment. The author concludes by suggesting solutions to alleviate problem areas that obstruct a more positive library user-experience, indicating that more a comprehensive understanding of the users needs is imperative. This article presents useful supplementary information on design thinking within educational and learning environments. Jenkins, J. 2010, ‘Creating the Right Environment for Design’, Design Management Review, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 16-22 This text highlights the need for designers to design “entire cultural transformations” (p.19) to create design-friendly environments, and design thinking is described as a tool to achieve this cultural transformation. The author identifies the disparate values in the corporate and creative worlds, submitting nine organisational “cults” and their respective “design cultural value” counterparts. Characteristics of a design thinker are also identified. Jenkins maintains optimism and confidence in the potential of design to create human friendly urban landscapes and organisational ecosystems, stressing the importance of communication and connectivity within these spaces. This article helped us solidify the importance of social interaction within organisational institutions. Al-Homoud, M., Abu-Obeid, N., 2003, ‘University Outdoor Spatial Layout Effect on Perception of Students’ Interaction and Group Seclusion’, Journal of Architecture and Planning Research, vol. 20, no.3, pp. 221-232 This text considers how the architecture of university campus spaces dictates student interaction and seclusion. In a study at the Jordan University of Science and Technology, the authors gained data through structured questionnaires in in-context interview situations in selected outdoor zones in the university. Analysis of these interviews as well as observation of students’ habits in these spaces found that designs that attract pedestrian flow encourage interaction, whereas enclosed walls encourage seclusion. With more attention given to the location of outdoor spatial layouts, interaction and seclusion can be created and manipulated. These findings were pivotal in the decision to focus on transition spaces as our problem area. Johnson, C., Lomas, C., 2005, ‘Design of the Learning Space: Learning and design principles’, Educause Review,July-August, pp.16-28, viewed 4 April 2011 This text questions the process of designing a learning space. Rather than solely focussing on “formal spaces” such as classrooms and laboratories, the authors suggest that there is opportunity in the design of “informal learning spaces” such as hallways, dormitories and courtyards to further enrich student learning. The text redefines a learning space to be any space with the potential to project sensory or virtual stimuli, and proposes a set of steps and guidelines that should be taken to (re-)design more meaningful learning spaces. This article was pivotal in supporting our notion to use transition spaces within Swinburne University as the basis of our problem space.
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Then after our first observation...
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User Journey
whats this girls name?
1 min Foyer
this hallway is boring i wish they’d put up something more interesting
10 mins
STAIRWAY
HALLWAY
60 mins LECTURE THEATRE
i dont know anyone here
lunch break
HALLWAY 5 mins 60 mins LECTURE THEATRE
70 mins
STAIRWAY
1 min
120 mins studio
goes home Foyer finally a friendly face
10 mins
lift
30 secs
180 mins studio
i should be taking the stairs
lift
30 secs i have an hour before work but i don’t know if anyone i know is on a break
Our User Journey determined that 1. Students were uninspired whilst moving through the PA building That there was often no chance for them to socialise whilst moving through the building 2. That students often moved trough the building in a similar pattern 3. Active transition spaces - Reception Foyer - Stairwell - Outside computer room - Outside Lecture theatre - Elevator
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After synthesising our Empathy findings, we developed a Problem Statement to focus and frame the problem: “A large portion of students design and think reclusively, which negatively affects the entire student corpus. These students need a way to integrate into the ‘design student’ community to create a more confident and proud student body.” Due to the constraints in time and resources defined by this subject, we also developed a clear Research Goal so that our proposal was realistic and achievable within the time frame (although the affects and influence of our proposal would resonate after the subject was over). This Research Goal was “to open avenues for students to communicate and inspire them to talk about design”. In order to achieve that, we also defined four Research Objectives, and the Research Methodologies we would use to ensure that.
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Goals / Objectives
Secondary research
fly on the wall
To locate areas inside the pa building that can be utilised for better communication between students
surveys
to find out what students currently communicate about & why?
extreme user interviews
personal user journey
to find OUT HOW SWINBURNE CAN MOTIVATE STUDENTS TO DESIGN
experience prototype
to find out ways to motivate students to communicate
goal
to open avenues for students to communicate and inspire them to talk about design Research Goals: The purpose of this research is to understand how far design students at Swinburne University need to be provoked before they begin to interact with each other. As design students at Swinburne University ourselves, we have felt alienated and uninspired by the student corpus. There is a clear lack of communication between design students within and across disciplines. Our hypotheses is that a more integrated system of community would help to alleviate this, and thus, this research is an attempt to find the potential to stimulate conversation between students, as apart from the mechanised classroom environment. Research Objectives: 1. 2. 3. 4.
to understand the degree to which students value the intra & inter-disciplinary relationships they form during their time as a student at Swinburne and subsequently to determine the main means of creating these relationships. to determine if students spend much time at the campus that isn’t compulsory, and thus to un derstand the reason why students egress from the campus so soon after their classes are over. to find out what kind of elements students believe would make their campus more enticing. to determine if students at the Design Faculty of Swinburne University believe that their faculty has an identity that defines them as separate to the rest of the University.
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Because our topic was so broad and overwhelming, there was a multiplicity of avenues and solutions that we could have taken. This project required two separate Ideation phases, one to define and orient ourselves to the problem, and the next to expand on our Research results. The first phase began with Brainstorming to find the extent of our wide solution space, and aimed to explore solutions which would: 1. Provoke students to interact with each other and 2. Create a platform for students to engage in a design discourse. This yielded a large number of possible prototypes to test, that would eventually result in a proposed solution for our problem statement. This first phase was particularly important in driving obvious solutions away. Our initial, naive solution was a ‘spin-off’ of the Swinburne University website that acted as a social networking site for design students at Swinburne to communicate. However, after brainstorming, we realised that this only addressed the surface of the problem ignoring the human problems that made this problem wicked, and furthermore did nothing to propose a solution. The second phase was conducted after we had completed the Define stage, and uncovered unexpected areas of exploration, that in turn required us to redefine the problem. After marrying our research results, we were able to use our collated objective as a factual foundation to ideate the much larger solution space.
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Prototype Brainstorm For our prototype brainstorm we tried to utilise the active transition spaces that we had identified in our observations and develop a different prototype to be used in each space. Our intention for the protoypes were small attention seeking ideas placed with the intention to shock students into communicating with each other.
Toilets
- Gramatical error - Visual Games ie. magic eye / tag lines for images
lift
- Awkward conversation cards - Unexpected objects
Admin / foyer - Extend journey
Experience prototype brainstorm
stairwell Hansel & gretel (trail along the ground that leads to a wall with a poster asking you to leave your mark).
entrance
- Awkward entry
corridors level 3&4 classrooms
-bean bags -hopskotch - noughts & crosses
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Awkward Conversation Cards (to be placed in elevator)
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Create a tagline
Hallway Hopskotch
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But then more results came in...
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& we realised we were on the wrong track
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Observation Booklet We created a more comprehensive list of questions and created an Observation Booklet, which allowed us to standardise our observations for synthesis later on. It asked constant questions about the different spaces we viewed, including the physical characteristics of the space, the people who used the space and interaction within the space.
transition space, waiting, talking, move quickly, students in their twenties, elevators, walking in & out, walking up & down, walking through,
stairwell,
walking around, ran through,
gossiping, enquiring, doors, stairs
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Interviews The interviews provided interesting insight into students’ perceptions of Swinburne University, and underlined major weaknesses in its organisation structure from a student’s point of view. The participants showed a mutual concern for the lack of a design friendly environment, revealing a consensus that to the student body, the Swinburne Design Faculty is low in prestige and dignity. The interviews emphasised the want and need to create atmospheres that are inducive to social connectivity and a wider design dialogue. However, students first need a reason to talk. Suggestions to do this included ways to promote the university and its students, through making student work accessible to other students and to the general public. It was made clear that up to now, students have lacked the avenues to present their work. This has resulted in an abundance of hidden talent and creativity that isn’t being recognised- in short, the students feel invisible. The interviews also underlined a lack of identity that students face. The participants indicated that although the university has unique and admirable qualities, these aren’t being synthesised and presented as a readable and unique identity. Rather than being the ‘National School of Design’ that is inspirationally displayed at the entrance of the design building, the Design Faculty is promoted to its students as just another part of Swinburne. There was a strong desire to embrace the faculty’s defining positive features. These include its professional and practical approach to design teaching and more importantly, its advantageous and enviable location. These are major points that could be leveraged to create a Swinburne Design identity. The interviews emphasised that it is imperative that the creation of a creative community was linked firstly to the students’ work and achievements, and then secondly to the university’s location.
Events Posters Exhibitions
Prahran Creative community
Chapel St
Engineering & Business focussed The School of Design Industry based
Scattered Seperate
Embarrasment Just another University
Relationships Friends
Collaborate
Self Promotion Social Group Forum Something to say
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Survey Results
Students want something that - Causes them to interact - Inspires them to design - Allows them to learn from other disciplines - Improves the look and feel of the PA building - Allows them to view or showcase student work - Utilises the active transition spaces that we have identified
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Defining Interactions
The survey participants encompassed the Industrial, Communication, Multimedia and Interior disciplines. Disciplines that used more physical projects seemed to interact more with each other (Interior and Industrial), whereas disciplines with virtual based work (Communication and Multimedia) seemed to interact more with each other. Interior Communication Industrial
Interaction in different codes of design
Multimedia
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Many Post-its Later
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r... Mind Mapping Session After looking at all of the results from previous research we began a full scale Mind Mapping / Brainstorm session in the hope of being able to find out the core root of the problem and a way of solving it.
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Our results leads us to re
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More likely to collaborate
Interior Communication Industrial Multimedia
Physical Project Virtual Project
Fulfillment value less the opinions of design peers
Less likely to collabora
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Confidence
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problem definition
Problem The university as it stands today, has 2 separate types of
students, the ones to thrive of critique and feedback and therefore gain confidence in their work and the students who need to be given a reason to collaborate. Without avenues to allow these students to participate they will not actively look for peer feedback and interaction themselves.
re-defining our problem
value more the opinions of design peers
ate
A Large Portion of students design and think reclusively, which negatively affects the entire student corpus. These students need a way to integrate into the student community to create a more confident and proud student body
hrive on critique & feedback
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Way to solution We identified a gap between confident students who thrive off multidisciplinary feedback and those who need to be given a reason to collaborate to be our wicked problem. Interior
More lik collabo
Communication Industrial Multimedia
Physical Project Virtual Project
Fulfillment
Less lik
value l of
Confidenc
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Way to Solution
kely to orate
kely to collaborate
value more the opinions of design peers
less the opinions design peers
Thrive on critique & feedback
ce
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Wicked Problem Scope We understood that our scope was a vast space that incorporated the managerial, architectural and social experience of Prahran Campus. These systems are constrained by the wider organisational structure of Swinburne University although due to our own time and resource limitations our solution could only be a small part of a much bigger solution space. We displayed this by displaying the systems within a messy space that displays our organisation and time constraints, our recommendation is a small section of this visual solution space.
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W
Wicked Problem scope
Organisation
Our Solution
Social
Architectural
Management
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Ok so we need something that address all the points identified in our problem statement.
Alright i think i might have an idea...
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Solution Discussion
& it needs to be realistic, something that could actually be used.
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Our part of the solution Realising the scope of our problem we decided to only focus on small key aspects of our original goal and with this in mind we developed a small pop up style stands that could be placed in our active transition spaces, on the stands we could have a large A1 breif on a back board for people to view with real life projects sourced from actual clients that give a quick overview of a project, what disciplines were needed for the project and what some of the benefits would be towards doing a project like this. We would then have a page on the stand where people could write down there name / student numb / email address & discipline if they were interested and then once enough people have signed up the collaborative process could begin. Once projects are finished we would locate an area in the building to showcase the finished result this would give people a chance to view other peoples work and would hopefully inspire them to either get involved or to design. Depending on how popular the idea was we could start of with one breif on one stand located in reception then move on to adding another stand with a different breif in the stairwell and keep adding more if the demand is there.
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Benefits - Gives students a chance to meet and learn from other disciplines
- Gives students something that can be used in their portfolio or showreel for when they leave university - Gives students a chance to display their work - Gives the PA building a more designerly feel - Works to inspire and get students actively involved in design
210cm
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We used the prototype stage in conjunction with the Empathy, Define and Test phases. The first phase was to gain empathy and to understand the potential of the transition spaces that we specified to use. These included ‘Awkward Elevator Conversation Cards’ and ‘Toilet Sitting Duck Cards’. These aimed to be conversation /interaction initiators, and also aimed to create hype and mystery around our project. This phase was purposefully at the pre-solution stage, and worked as a stepping stone to assist our Ideation stage.
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If you had the opportunity to work on real life briefs with designers in other disciplines would you be interested? The second prototype phase was solution-orientated, and was a preliminary investigation and test for our final proposal. We made a plinth out of found office materials and set it up in the most commonly used space in the PA building: the entrance foyer. The plinth was accompanied by a leading question and a survey-style 2-part response (participants we asked to identify their discipline and then to answer a simple yes-or-no question). This prototype was a study in how successful a pop-up stand which advertised real-life collaborative design opportunities could be in our active transition spaces. The results were unanimously positive, which inspired confidence in our vision and
All participants answered yes
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Participants 19 - Communication 11 - Industrial
9 - Multimedia
8 - Interior
4 - Film & television
Our prototype determined that
- There was a want & need for a concept like this - There were many willing participants - The transition space like the reception area were effective in displaying information
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CONCLUSION
To locate areas inside the pa building that can be utilised for better communication between students
to find out what students currently communicate about & why?
go
to open avenue to communica them to talk
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to find OUT HOW SWINBURNE CAN MOTIVATE STUDENTS TO DESIGN
to find out ways to motivate students to communicate
oal
es for students ate and inspire about design
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Tackling the larger aspects of our problem As our aim was to develop a realistic solution to our wicked problem we realised that solving the issue completely was unrealistic with the constraints we were under such as time and money. If given more time and proper finances the areas we would look towards for improving our solution and creating a more substansive solution would be the areas stated earlier in our wicked problem statement which are Social, architectural and management.
Social - More resources invested in the creation of clubs - More projects encouraging student interaction
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Management - More intimate class sizes - Curriculum projects working on a more real life / workforce related style that use real breifs and require interdisciplinary interaction A less business orientated model for the design school
Architectural - Spaces that facilitate multiple functions - For all students - Equipt with materials and resources for all students - Spaces that encourage social interaction - Student Lounge - Games Room - Classroom layout - Spaces that inspire design - Exhibition walls Spaces that would work in cohesion with Prahran for staying power
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Summary As we progressed through the EDIPT process we realised how large our scope actually was, and also begun to understand the severity of our initial concern. Our study brought up issues of student confidence in a campus that is devoid of an identity. Although the possible solutions are expansive and daunting, we believe that we have provided the building blocks to begin to comprehend and tackle the problem. Swinburne design students want to collaborate and learn with each other. Now we just need the avenues to do so‌
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EDIPT Model sourced from Stanford University Institute of Design 2010, D.School Bootcamp Bootleg, Stanford University Institute of Design, <http://dschool. stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/BootcampBootleg2010v2SLIM.pdf> Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or queries....
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