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[desn2002-a3]

Problem Solving

Problem solving is one of the main aspects of Design Thinking. In human-centred designing, the first step is to understand the scope of the problem, and to be able to apply empathy to the stakeholder’s situation in order to develop a sustainable solution/s for their wicked problem/s (Brown and Katz, n.d., pp.92–95).

I faced a lot of difficulty in determining what items to include on my checklist posters as I felt like I wasn’t qualified enough to determine what other people might or might not find important. I was able to find a comprehensive checklist from Westpac that I ended up using for my posters as it included a lot of items I never even would’ve thought of in the first place.

Due to our group’s constant communication and ease of delegating tasks, there was very little I had found difficult throughout this project. There were a few issues in the last few weeks of our project, however, that was mostly due to miscommunication of tones throughout messages between some of our team members, particularly due to stress related to other assessment tasks we all had to complete alongside this one for our other classes.

I found developing prototypes for the checklist posters and pamphlet to be quite easy and simple to complete. I have designed posters in the past, and due to all the research I put into their development before beginning to design them, I was able to create a design following the five phase of Design Thinking (Thomas, 2018), that was easily recognisable, legible, and aligned with our company’s style guide and colour palette.

References:

Brown, T & Katz, B 2019, ‘The new blueprint’, Fortune, vol. 179, no.3, pp. 92–95

Thomas, P 2016, April 10, ‘“What’s the difference between Design Thinking and making?”’, , Medium, viewed 14 June 2020, https://medium.com/@parkerthomas/what-s-the-difference-between-design-thinking-and-making-614cb089bc5e

Other References (that helped in my research):

Brown, T & Wyatt, J 2003, ‘Design Thinking for Social Innovation’, Stanford Social Innovation Review, vol. Winter, pp. 30–35

[desn2002-a3]

Personal Responsibility

I was tasked with the research and development of hand-outs and posters to coincide with our Community Centre and proposed Community Days. For the second assessment focusing on prototype making and testing, I was in charge of setting out and compiling all the information from the other team members for the Prototype Report Cards to include in our final presentation.

In the initial research stage for our group, I focused on secondary research (Esposito, 2018), by finding and analysing the posters and checklists of already-established companies and organisations such as the Rural Fire Service and the NSW SES. Through this I was able to determine what styles of posters were the most eye-catching, and what items were the most important to include on my checklists.

For the second assignment, we focused more on the actual prototyping of our ideas and sending them off to be tested to determine whether they would be appropriate solutions to our wicked problem. We all implemented different Need-Finding tools (Software Design Experiences Need Finding Tools Anatomy of a good need finding tool, 2007) when testing our own prototypes, but I stuck with a survey for the checklist posters I developed. I conducted this survey through Microsoft Forms, and provided a link to a few different groups of people for constructive feedback.

This process is incredibly important for the human-centred design process that is fundamental in the theory of Design Thinking. The aim is to go out and figure out what its is exactly that your stakeholders want and to intentionally develop a sustainable solution for them (Solomon, 2012).

I worked on the majority of the visual prototypes for the project, specifically the checklist posters, the pamphlet, and the style guide that was also used on the website. I have previous experience in designing posters and I am quite good at analysing different aspects of a design and replicating them in my own work, so I was able to pump out a few iterations for our posters quite quickly. Despite this, the rest of my group are quite skilled in graphic design and illustration and could have also produced a number of poster designs in the same time I did as well.

I can’t say that if my position in the team wasn’t filled the items and research I provided for the team would have been neglected. We were a well-rounded team and shared many of the same skills in graphic design due to all of us studying Visual Communication Design, so they would’ve ended up delegating these tasks to another member or sharing the load with each other.

The biggest strength of our group was that we all could have completed every single task we set out for ourselves without much difficulty or intervention. As a result, I don’t think that in my absence that there would be very many, if any, gaps in our team that would have been neglected.

References:

Esposito, E 2018, October 22, ‘4 types of research methods all designers should know’, , Inside Design, viewed 14 June 2020, https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/research-methods-designers/

Software Design Experiences Need Finding Tools Anatomy of a Good Need Finding Tool. (2007). https://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs447/docs/NeedFindingCribSheet.pdf

Solomon, A & Kelly, D 2012, September 22, ‘Design Thinking for Social Good: An Interview with David Kelley’, , Boing Boing, viewed 14 June 2020, https://boingboing.net/2012/09/22/design-thinking-for-social-goo.html

Other References (that were useful in my research):

Field Observations with Fresh Eyes - Tom Kelley (IDEO). (2011). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvkivmyKgEA

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Turn Frustrations Into Delight: The Empathic Design Method | Clara Gaggero Westaway | TEDxNewcastle. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKCVJpWd_8g.

[desn2002-a3]

Process & Development

Our group developed the community initiative Ashes & Co that sets out to help create a solution for the wicked problem around fire safety and preparation. Our main goal was to develop an organisation that would host event days at local community centres in rural and at-risk communities that would provide a safe and inviting environment for teaching people how to prepare for natural disasters and creating sustainable solutions to help rebuild impacted communities.

Our proposed idea started as just a way of bringing general awareness through institutions that were already present within communities, such as fire stations and learning centres for children. However, after our first presentation, we decided to expand upon these ideas based on feedback from our tutor and our discussions with others, to develop an alternative solution (Brown, n.d., pp.84–92) that also focused more on community engagement.

We then started focusing more on developing an idea for a central hub for at-risk communities to gather to learn more about fire safety and prevention through informational panels, hands-on demonstrations taught by volunteers associated with fire-safety organisations, as well as activities that can involve children in the learning in a fun and engaging way.

We believe that implementing a hub for natural disaster education and resources such as this community centre and regular community days, will have a brilliant impact on rural and at-risk communities. Having a designated, year-round hub where people can gather for information and resources will significantly improve the chances of a community being prepared and aware of any emergencies a lot sooner than communities that set up temporary spaces for people to gather only in emergencies.

Having regular community days will also help promote better relations between the community, and allow for people to easily reach out to one another in times of need due to already having formed those bonds in a safe and fun environment. They will also help improve school-aged children’s level of education around fire safety and prevention by including them in the learning in hands-on and fun way that are known to be engaging to youths.

Our company focused heavily on making sure we could incorporate the UN Sustainability Goals within the core of our work and beliefs. As a result, our project can be linked to two of the sustainability goals: Number 11 and Number 13 (United Nations, 2024).

Sustainability Goal Number 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe resilient and sustainable (United Nations, 2024a). This UN goal alsigns with our own goal to create resilient and sustainable communities that are prepared for, and have the community resources to successfully recover from natural disaters, bushfires in particular.

Sustainability Goal Number 13: Climate Action aims to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (United Nations, 2023). This UN goal aligns with our own to position our stakeholders to recognise how fundamental action is when reducing the impact of climate change and the frequency of bushfires within their communities.

References:

Brown, T 2008, ‘Design thinking’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 86, no.6, pp. 84–92

United Nations (2023). Goal 13 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs. [online] United Nations. from https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal13

United Nations (2024a). Goal 11 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs. [online] United Nations. from https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11

THE 17 GOALS. (n.d.). Sustainable Development. Retrieved June 14, 2024, from https://sdgs.un.org/goals