This project is about trying to reduce feelings of isolation amongst students new to a particular city; in this case Dublin.
Students felt isolated because they didn’t know their new environment, and therefore couldn’t find likeminded people.
Researching academic design papers, I came across the area of ludic design, and decided to try and implement ludic elements to the design process and outcome to help achieve the desired results.
I designed and carried out cocreation workshops with students, followed by semi-structured interviews to try and get an idea of what environments attracted students
I also wanted a better understanding of their feelings of isolation, to see what exactly I could target
Following these research workshops, I gathered the insights I’d learned and began to analyse them. This ranged from affinity mapping data to creating personas to get a better idea of the user in question
This allowed me to have some level of focus on where to take the project.
With the key insights I gathered I found that students wanted a guide to Dublin that didn’t feel like a guide. They want to explore but often lack any external motivation to do so.
They also wanted some element of social interaction with their exploration, and any solution would ideally involve some physical aspect.
The Concept: A physical-digital hybrid solution. Students are given a map at freshers events with locations of story fragments. They unlock the fragments by travelling to the location. Users would meet each other on the street or at social meetups to try and figure the narrative mystery out.
I created low-fi prototypes using google maps, lamenent and home made scratch material. Within the boundary of the Dublin 2 postcode, I had five participants travel for twenty minutes to try and unlock whichever fragments they wanted.
This was carried out with one participant at a time, and each twenty minute period was followed by a Q&A session with the participants.
Students really enjoyed the physical aspect of the map, and found they quickly got acclimatised to the environment.
However they wanted a more social experience, and wanted to have an audio option so that they didn’t have to keep their eyes on their phones.
I then took this prototype and repeated it with multiple participants at once, to examine possible social interactions.
Participants had twenty minutes to explore, then they had to regroup together for ten minutes before going off for another twenty minutes of exploration. This was followed by ten more minutes of soicalising and then a Q&A.
Participants found that socialising was incredibly easy when they had a shared task of solving a narrative mystery and although they were strangers, they bonded quickly.
In the aftermath of the prototype exercises, I continued to iterate on the app and map using the prototyping software Figma. I worked on trying to implement features such as social play and audio that came up various times throughout the exercises.
The final prototype build upon the testing and iterating carried out before it.
The app allowed for clear, succint distribution and storage of narrative content that the users could check up and act upon.
The physical map was designed from scratch within Figma, and covered a small, managable space for students to explore over the period of several weeks.
In terms of distribution, with feedback from users it was decided that XPlore should be a seasonal product, with a new narrative mystery covering a new area of Dublin every Freshers/ Refreshers period in colleges.
Talking to Student Union reps from NCAD and Trinity College Dublin, I was told to highlight Fresher’s goodie bags as a prime way of distributing the maps amongst students. From there, they would have a call to action to download the companion app and begin the experience.
QR Codes that can be scanned to unlock the narrative content.
Different colours denote the different geographical areas.
Season’s dedicated social meetup space shown
Key information laid out for clarity. Which areas are which, what narrative season the map carries and the area on the map.
Landing page for the XPlore companion app.
Camera button for scanning QR codes, plus a settings button
Camera button for scanning QR codes, plus a settings button
Tile that leads to users selecting the culprit in the mystery at the end of the narrative season.
Tile that leads to users selecting the culprit in the mystery at the end of the narrative season.
Three tiles lead the user to the last three narrative fragments they unlocked, reducing the need to try and remember large quantities of info at once.
Three tiles lead the user to the last three narrative fragments they unlocked, reducing the need to try and remember large quantities of info at once.
Simple navigation bar with highlight to denote which screen the user is on.
Simple navigation bar with highlight to denote which screen the user is on.
The Narrative Screen is what will appear on the companion app once a user has successfully scanned a QR Code on the map.
The Character Screen allows users to catch up on the who, what and why without having to try and remember everything themselves.
Clicking character silhouette brings user to character page
Audio player. Every fragment would have audio for accessibility, and to allow users to look around the environment.
Written transcript of the story fragment.
Users can cycle between characters they’ve come across.
A brief summary to catch users up.
Other character’s relation to the character in question.
Characters yet to have been discovered are shown as existing, but without information.
At the end of the project I carried out a final round of user experience testing with the hi-fi prototype. I wanted to see what would need to be iterated on if hypothetically work on the product were to continue on further.
This was done within the same parametres as earlier testing: five student participants, within the bounds of Dublin 2, given twenty minutes to explore, ten minutes to regroup, twenty minutes to explore further, five more minutes to socialise and then a Q&A session
Users found themselves exploring on their own tangents once they got a few QR codes scanned
Users enjoyed conversing and theorising about the mystery with one another, they opened up
Users paid more attention to objects in the environment due to mentions of them in the story fragments
Users wanted more tangible interactions with the environment.
Create a tool or service that would help major trauma patients
the topic of patient information at the Mater Hospital Dublin
project
work,
gained
Design,
I was assigned into a team with two other MA design students and we were given the brief of designing an improvement on how patients recieve information for the upcoming Major Trauma Centre at the Mater Hospital. This brief was delivered by Siobhan Manning, our liason at the hospital who would supervise the work.
In order to try and find a solution, we first had to find out what the problem was. I enlisted the help of the Mater Hospital’s service designer, Alan Coleman, who gave me a contact list for multiple different members of staff and patients who would be willing to talk to my team about the percieved issues around patient information at the Mater.
We have a brief, we have a team, but we have no knowledge of the issue and no knowledge of the major trauma system at the Mater.
Let’s fix that.
Myself and my team carried out semistructured interviews with members of staff from eight different departments. We also interviewed three major trauma patients. Ideally we would have spoken to more, but we didn’t want to intrude upon or confuse unsure patients who were going through trauma.
Finding
The current system implemented for educating patients was insufficient and ineffective
Staff often have to repeat themselves to patients who find it difficult to retain the answers
The current education tools and methods don’t work holistically for all patients
Issues can occur where there medical language is used
One of my teammates and I gathered information obtained from the semi-structured interviews and began affinity mapping them as insights.
We also created user personas based off of this information, in order to get a better understanding of the various stakeholder needs and wants.
In order to fully understand what information is needed, and when it’s needed, I set up a basic user journey map that would cover the patient’s major trauma pathway from injury to returning home from hospital.
Using the info from the interviews I laid out the various locations, departments or time periods involved on one axis and the various stakeholders such as the patient, their care partner, different staff on the opposite axis.
My team and I then filled in the map with the various actions that take place during the major trauma patients’ pathway through the hospital system.
Myself and a teammate took the user journey map we created and began breaking down what possible questions patients might have.
We then began organizing the questions on our assumption of their chronological order, and how much of a priortity they would be for patients.
With these questions laid out, we began concepting the first item in our suite of solutions: the My Journey Booklet. These handbooks would be given to patients upon recovery from surgery. Modular in structure, the book would be filled with information and answered questions pertaining to each patients’ need.
The booklet would provide a go-to information source for patients, so that even if staff fail to give an explanation that helps the patient, the patient can return to the booklet to be clued in.
Clear title, with easy colours taken from Mater Trauma branding.
Empty space that allows for either staff or patient to fill in specific details. Emphasis was raised multiple times in interviews that patients should be given more agency in their recovery in ways like this.
Calls to action for patients to reach out to staff for futher questions
Some basic imagery added to try and break up the text.
Information that might seem simple is still highlighted, patients aren’t familiar with different medical roles.
I then took the breakdown of the booklet’s content and held codesign workshops with hospital staff in order to validate the “My Journey Booklet”
In talking to staff and patients it became clear to myself and my team that one solution wouldn’t be enough. We would need to design an entire system of staff-patient messaging in order to alleviate the issues raised.
We already had a foundation of what the current system looked like with our user journey map. With the co-design workshop we gathered the chronological order of questions asked.
Creating the template for the system in Figma, we laid out what questions patients and their care partners might have at each point of the journey.
I also identified when the My Journey Booklet should be introduced and then when each module should be added to the booklet.
Design something that helps appreciate the importance of Public
Service Values amongst Dubin City Council workers and the public
Master project
Group work, 3 members
Week
Knowledge gained
UX, UI, User Centered Design, Experience Testing, Prototyping
Shane Waring, the lead at Dublin City Council Beta, as well as Darrach O’Connor and Debbie McLoughlin, two administrative officers at DCC, gave myself and a team of two other designers a brief which asked us to design something which would help appreciate public service values.
There was only one issue: We didn’t know what they meant by this. And upon further questioning, each of our liasons had their own subjective views on.
So I took the statements they had made and began forming a list of private individuals and business owners in Dublin, people who I could interview to figure out how they viewed DCC and “public service values”.
I
began interviewing members of the public in order to try and understand how they viewed both Dublin City Council and the concept of public service values.
These interviews involved 9 people with varied identities; male, female, Irish nationals, foreign nationals, individuals and business owners.
I also asked members of my team to research what kind of projects had been carried out previously by city and county councils in Ireland around the idea of improving appreciation of public service values.
My team also looked at projects carried out in other city councils from London, to Beijing to Amsterdam.
I had the team organize findings, which could then be parsed through to try and begin finding Key Insights and design inspiration.
By taking the information gathered from interviews and research, we discovered six key insights
The public don t know what s going on
The public don t know why things happen
Public servants have a siege mentality
Sluggish project work speeds create bad morale
The public only see bureaucracy
There s a lack of a consistent messaging model for the workers and public.
nversing these insights gave my team a list of design principles we could use to measure the impact of design concepts we were going to put forward. These design prin iples were
Create a consistent messaging model for the workers and public
Public need to know what s happening
Public need to know why things happen
Reduce siege mentality among public servants
ive insights beyond surface level bureaucracy
Speed up the pace of project work
We sketched out different potential physical solutions, and questioned each other on how we might test these solutions amongst the public.
The team came to the conclusion that one design solution would not be enough to address the brief’s stipulation that the outcome service both council workers and the public.
To address this, and to measure the impact of the concepts, I created a checklist using the design principles we had gathered. I tested each design concept using the checklist. The concepts which ticked off the most principles and which balanced the workers and the public would be developed further.
The first design solution we developed was “DCC Hubs”. These would be areas set aside in local Dublin City Council offices where local projects could be held in showcase before implementation. These spaces would give both council workers from different departments and the public a chance to see what work is being carried out and why it’s being done. Informal feedback could also be given to the council at these events
The second design solution was to create signage and banners that could be placed in public spaces. This signage could give passersby a call to action to scan a QR code to visit the council’s website to see projects that the council are working on.
The third design solution was to create pins and badges that could be worn and distributed by Dublin City Council workers. These act in a similar method as the signage, but are more mobile and distributable.
This solution also creates a mobile visibility of the council amongst the public, and would play on team psychology to try and bridge the gap between and aggrieved public and a public servant force that feels under siege,
After creating these design solutions, I felt that my team needed to run them by subject matter experts in order to either validate or criticise the choices
These SMEs told us that they felt we had more than achieved the assigned brief and that we had hit upon the principles we had set out with the suite of solutions we developed.
I organized calls with our three liasons in Dublin City Council, as well as two officers from councils in Cork and Limerick that we’d been introduced to
oing forward they suggested that
More research needed to be conducted
We should investigate potential spaces around Dublin for the Hubs We should start experimenting with public facing workshops and exhibitions in localities.
Design a service package that supports communication between staff and patients at Mater Hospital when patients are to be transferred to St. Mary's Hospital for rehabilitation Master project
Group work, 3 members
Week
Knowledge gained Service Design, Branding, User Interviews, multi-disciplinary teamwork
St Mary’s Hospital Dublin is a rehab hospital based in Phoenix Park. It’s reputation is so poor that Dubliners will more often than not hold up beds in the Mater Hospital rather than go to St Mary’s for rehab.
Being placed into a team with a German service designer and a Mexican medical device designer, none of us had any idea why St Mary’s had such a poor reputation.
To alleviate this myself and my team organised interviews with staff from the Mater Hospital and St Mary’s Hospital, as well as patients at the Mater. As the only native English speaker on the team, I acted as the interviewer and gobetween for our team and these interviewees.
From these interviews myself and my team organised the information into key insights. Dublin-based patients thought of St Mary’s as a place you are sent to die, due to it’s past as a TB hospital. They also felt like they were being locked away, and didn’t know why they were being sent away.
From these insights, myself and my team began concept prototyping. The first step in this was to build out a service blueprint, so that we had a top down view of the existing rehab transfer system.
By creating this blueprint we could pinpoint where information was needed and who might be in the best position to deliver it.
We decided a rename would be necessary to separate ties with the past. I pitched this rename to highlight the fantastic location and the phoenix like transformation of its patients.
For typography we decided on Gill Sans, a classic sans-serif font with common usage in the UK
A colour scheme using the highcontrast pairing of yellow and navy. The yellow acts as a calming, bright colour; for a brighter take on St Mary’s. The navy is a take on the blue that makes up much of the Mater Hospital branding. Connected, but different a la St Mary’s and The Mater.
A second design solution we developed was a standardised FAQ framework.
The FAQ acts as a clear information source for patients, but perhaps more importantly it acts as a communication guideline for staff, reducing the stress involved in trying to answer questions and convince patients to transfer on the spot.
A third design solution we developed was a new website for St Mary’s Hospital. An updated, cleaner, more visual website could help inform patients’ care partners on the benefits of a transfer.
A basic navigation bar across the header of the screen, for quick access to different site screens.
A video at the top of the landing screen showcases a patient’s experience in St Mary’s and reinforces the visual first presentation of information.
Users can view images and videos of the different parts of the hospital, to try and give visual insights
An FAQ section, similar to the framework laid out earlier, to allow for family at home to have their questions answered.
Our fourth design solution was a brief info video showcasing a rehab patients’ experience, the St Mary’s facilities and the surroundings. This video could be shown on the iPads that are already used to try and Google info for transfer patients.
Upon talking to her I found out that the
While working on further projects at the
Various film and television
Over the course of my four years at the National Film School of Ireland I wrote, directed, produced and shot multiple different projects. Doing so required not just technical skills, but research, concepting, project and time management and teamworking skills. These skills continue to be used in my design work.
are videos which showcase this work, firstly a showreel of the majority of screen work I’ve worked on, and secondly the major (or thesis) project I worked on, which awarded me with a First Class Honors upon graduation.
Major TV Project: