Observation, sketching and insight development form a core of design practice. P1 warms us up with these skills.
Make sure you've familiarized yourself with Project 0 and gathered any necessary materials.
Every day for five days, go to a different eatery on and off campus during the height of the lunch rush. You do not have to eat there, but you do need to note (in your sketchbook) the flow of people and any problem areas or areas of opportunity. overwhelming.
Suggested drawings:
You also need to talk to one or two people each day, take notes of what what they are saying, and then sketch their mental model of how they think about lunch.
Some tips:
Where to go:
Bring your in-progress observations to the first studio (Wednesday/Thursday).
Review the notes and sketches that you took from your restaurant visits and synthesize them into a point of view on the lunch rush. You should start on your own using techniques learned in CS147 and then we will do more synthesis together in class Week 2. What are the unmet needs during lunch? What are the deeper needs that your initial observations reveal? Why are people behaving the way that you saw during the lunch rush? Clearly define the problem that you think should be addressed.
Insights should be INSIGHTFUL:
Examples of weak "insights" that are too high level/logistical/not insightful:
These are all observations, but are not deeper needs. Each of these observations has a deeper level of why which leads to a need. Dive below surface-level "armchair problems” (that could be brainstormed without leaving your armchair to actually do needfinding).
Ask yourself why this is really happening on a personal, emotion level. For logistical problems you observe, dig under the surface to explore the long term and short term impact on the people involved, how it might fit in with the larger context of their day and their goals, why they might especially feel annoyed about a logistical problem other than just ...it’s annoying. Deliverable will be a short (250-500 words) problem statement of your top insight on the problem with lunch. Include any relevant images. Do NOT write about solutions.
If you're having trouble coming to a conclusion, try making a fishbone diagram!
For Studio A, Week 2 Bring an initial set of insights with you to studio and all of your sketches / notes. We will synthesize them further.
DUE: 4/13
One PDF with the following:
Submit on Canvas.
We will be very generous in our grading regarding sketching quality (since you are new) but we do want to see complete thought out work.
Category | Scores | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Observation 7pts |
[1 / 7pts]
Observations are very limited in volume, do not have a point of view, or are not captured in sketches
|
[3 / 7pts]
Observations are limited in volume, rarely have a point of view, or are not effectively captured in sketches
|
[5 / 7pts]
Observations are moderately diverse, occasionally have a point of view, or are moderately effectively captured in sketches
|
[7 / 7pts]
Observations are diverse, take a point of view, and are captured effectively in sketches
|
Synthesis 7pts |
[1 / 7pts]
Problem statement is unclear or inappropriate
|
[3 / 7pts]
Problem statement is questionably grounded in the observations
|
[5 / 7pts]
Problem statement synthesizes the observations into an appropriate, but not entirely novel, point of view
|
[7 / 7pts]
Problem statement synthesizes the observations into a novel point of view
|
Documentation 7pts |
[1 / 7pts]
Documentation is vague, opaque, missing
|
[3 / 7pts]
Documentation is poor. All components are there but many are confusing. Many statements are not well supported or presented without any explanation
|
[5 / 7pts]
Documentation is uneven. Some areas are well documented and clear while others have minor problems in formatting, content, or polish
|
[7 / 7pts]
Documentation is extremely clear. All pictures are captioned and/or annotated. It is easy to read and understand what happened and the arguments are well supported. There are not typos or grammatical errors. It is a joy to read
|