Design 100 Assignment 3
Bring Information to Life
Team Assignment by...
Mackenzie Alderson
Claudia Bourke
Ethan Hooks
Tuyen Nguyen
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The Design Brief
The Brief was to "Bring information to life", this means that we were tasked the challenge of coming up with a design that focused on solving a problem. My group decided to focus on the problem of "promoting health and wellness". In this particular field, we decided to focus particularly on the spread of germs and helping those who suffer from an immunodeficiency.
Target User
We are designed for a wide range of users and groups. In particular, we are focusing on people who suffer from immunodeficiency. This means that their immune systems find it difficult to fight infectious diseases and cancer. People with immunodeficiency can be born with the disorder, or it can be acquired as anyone can become immune-compromised at any stage of their life.
Our target user also includes people who may carry asthma, COPD, glandular fever etc. We have focused our design towards improving the experience and life of these people.
We decided on this group of users because we know that this is something that greatly affects a large number of the population. A large proportion of the population will feel as though they are putting themselves at risk when they leave their house due to the coronavirus pandemic. We want to be able to give these users something that means they can live life the way they want to and not have to worry about the possibility and not getting all the bacteria off your hands after washing them or touching a surface that is highly contaminated.
For those who don’t have compromised immune systems, our design is not limiting. Anyone can use our design, because not only does it scan and track the number of bacteria on the surface, but it also provides the user with data that shows the average amount of germs per square inch on common everyday items. We hope that this data also gives those who are not immune-compromised an eye-opening chance to see that they can be a carrier of bacteria and when they don’t wash their hands after touching a dirty surface, they are putting those who would struggle to fight the bacteria off at risk. Our design is not only a device but filled with eye-opening data that will hopefully help the people realise the significance of washing hands in order to stop the spread of harmful germs.
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Design Statement
We took a stand with a point of view
Our design specialises in scanning surface areas that contain germs and bacteria to protect people who suffer from immunodeficiency as their immune systems struggle to fight contagious diseases and viruses. It encourages people to take precaution when placed in an unhealthy and dirty environment as well as promoting cleanliness and healthy practices.
There are many strengths in our design. The design was very human-focused we thought deeply about whom the user was going to be and the experience we wanted the user to have. We thought closely at each stage of the design in order to be able to have the best possible final prototype. This meant that we spent a lot of time researching and backing up our ideas to ensure that we designed something that was functional for everyone. Other strengths also include the simplicity of the design, it is very subtle yet powerful which is something I think that users will like.
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There are many improvements that we could make to our design. I think that we should have considered whether all users own smartwatches, are smartwatches something that everyone wants to use. We could have thought more about whether or not the users would actually purchase a smartwatch and then purchase the strap that we created. However, the design was well thought out and would have been something that would be well used in today's society with coronavirus.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the design process. Working in a team for the design was a new experience and taught me lots about my style of working in a team. It was really interesting going through the process of designing with other people. It taught me that everyone thinks differently and everyone has different opinions and it's important to take on what other people have to say! Everyone worked really well in my team and overall it was a great experience.