Minor Project : Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind
Timeline
⇢ Week 1 + 2
We were proposed the assignment guidelines of the assignments throughout this module and we also formed groups. Then were given the google sheets for the different projects to choose from.
Topic chosen:
Cooling the heat, Healing the Mind
Team members :
Khansa Raudlatus Syahiidah As-Sajad (0374511) (team leader) - UI/UX
Erin Samantha Fenner (0381696) - Graphic Design
Feilycia Joy Kurniawan (0373400) - UI/UX
Edlin Raihana Binti Mohamad Firdaus (0359096) - Digital Animation
Brendan Fedya (0376283) - UI/UX
Subhana Salim (0375936) - Entertainment Design
Project Brief Client:
Clean Technology Impact Lab Client’s name: Dr Praveena Nair Sivasankaran (Praveena.Nair@taylors.edu.my) Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind (CHHM).
Project Summary:
The Cooling the Heat, Healing the Mind (CHHM) project addresses the growing challenge of heat stress and mental wellbeing among outdoor workers. Rising global temperatures, intensified by climate change, are creating unsafe working conditions and increasing psychological strain.
The SDG goals it aligns with:
SDG 3 (Good Health & Wellbeing)
SDG 6 (Clean Water & Sanitation)
SDG 7 (Affordable & Clean Energy)
SDG 8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth)
SDG 13 (Climate Action)
This project invites TDS students to integrate design with innovative solutions in order to come up with sustainable prototypes that could help tackle heat stress.
⇢ Week 3
In week 3 was the consultation with our client. We spent the week coming up with questions to ask the interviewer. Consultation was focused on explaining the project brief, expectations for the coming assignment and a Q and A session. This week we were assigned our "Task 1 : Project Proposal" which requires us to come up with innovative ideas which will be presented to the client by week 6.
⇢ Week 4
Week 4 we started working on the Figjam board for ideation, and mapping out our idea.
Initial Brainstorming
Main design ideas we came up with are :
- Cooling Vest
- Portable Cooling Patch
- Cooling infrastructure on site
- Smart insulated water bottles
- Electrolyte Supplement
- Health App
- Cooling Hat/Sweatbands
- Promotional material on Instagram page
- Infographic poster with SDG alignment
- Blueprint style poster of our proposed innovation
Then we began coming up with relevant user personas that fit the criteria of the project.
These were our inclusion and exclusion criteria:
Inclusion:
- Expose to heat 3+ hours in a day
- Have felt heat illnesses
- Have been in the field for at least 1 year
Exclusion:
- Spend daily in indoor areas
- New worker / student
- Spend less than an hour outside
Based on this we came up with suggestions for our target user profiles
Target Profile Ideas:
Construction Workers
Security Gardener
Food Delivery Drivers
Agriculture Students
Tour Guide
Outdoor Vendors
Farmers
⇢ Week 5
After we have understood the eligible targeted audience for our project, we started discussing further on 2 profiles for our research. Initially, we can up with security guards as one of our targeted profile, however, as we tried asking them for interviews, we ended up with 1 rejection and another was due to language barrier. After this, we tries approaching a grab delivery driver, but we got rejected again as he was busy working.
Thereafter, we consulted this to Miss Wong as we had a change of targeted audience then what we have told her previously. We told her the reason, and she approved, allowing us to continue working on our next step.
Finalized Target Audience
⇢ Week 6
After all the consultation we did, week 6 was our first task submission where we had to submit a proposal of our project. to present an innovative concept that introduces unique solutions in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, UNSDG / Client’s project for the intended target audience.
- We were to conduct user research on our target audience from a human-centered perspective to understand their needs to form insights into their actual problem. The user research consists of interview, observation, or survey to further understand the problem space from the user’s perspective.
- Supported by empathy research with analysis reports on product or service functioning and effectiveness, technical advances and obstacles, aesthetics, and enjoyment of design.
- The needs you have identified via your target audience research must be met by the suggested solution. All of this data must be shown on a Figjam board (or any other team collaborative white board) and one or more slide presentations.
Required contents for project proposal:
1. Executive Summary
An overview or synopsis that explains the initiative and garners support. The "elevator pitch" is what it is. Explain to the customer why you are taking on this project, what the problem or difficulties are, how you plan to succeed, what success will look like, and how the UNSDGs will be handled.
2. Background
An overview of comparable initiatives in the market or globally. Set the scene and explain why it's time to start working on this project. Demonstrate to the client how previous projects did not live up to expectations.
3. Solving the Problem
Describe the issue you hope to resolve and the reasons you believe it's critical to do so.
4. Design Thinking Phases
High-level user research and empathy studies were carried out using supporting resources such surveys, interviews, and observations. For the user personas, each student conducts at least one interview with the intended user.
Every interview must include an audio recording (if desired), a consent form, and an audio transcription.
Every interview must include an audio recording (if desired), a consent form, and an audio transcription.
5. Resources (if any)
Tell your client what you need to succeed, which may include funds, supplies, personnel, and 4IR-related technology. 4IR Technologies: (5G mobile networks, 3D printing, 4D or 5D printing, cutting-edge materials etc.).
6. Budget & Timeline
Produce a schedule for all the deliverables, milestones that once achieved, will let you know that the project is on track.
During the interview part in our project, not all members got to interview 1 people due to the difference in schedules we all have. However, those who did not do the interview were given the task to transcribe the interviews that has been done.
⇢ Task 1 Submission
⇢ Week 7
In week 7, we took our user profiles that we made and the affinity diagrams based on the answers to our interview and started to prepare our user profiles, Point of View statements, How Might we statements based on the interviews that we did with the students and the vendors and finalizing our ideations as our product.
Our finalized ideations included:
Our finalized ideations included:
- A drink supplement that helps with hydration and provided electrolytes to users
- An inner wear with built cooling pods to combat the heat
- An app that's compatible with the inner wear for temperature tracking purposes
⇢ Week 8
In week 8, we continued working on our slides and finalizing any loose ends to show on our 2nd clientele meeting as it was Self-directed Learning Week.
⇢ Week 9
In week 9, we voted on the three ideas we were going to proceed with for the ideation stage. Out of the five options, we decided to propose something wearable, something consumable and an app based ideation. After, we made a few sketches and put them into our presentation slides as well.
At the same time, we focused on preparing our presentation slides as well doing mock-presentations to check on timing and flow for the actual day.
⇢ Week 10
In Week 10, we presented our second-phase presentation and recieved feedback from Dr.Wong and Dr.Praveena on how we could better focus our ideas for the next phase; prototyping.
We were advised to focus primarily on our wearable ideation; the cooling shirt, and only proceed with the application if there is a need for it. We also took notes on the other groups ideas and how they presented their slides.
⇢ Week 11
This week's consultation mainly talked about the changes about our slides that we need to change. Dr. Wong gave us feedback on the slides and how it supposed to be fixed such as: adding student information, client information, mention the design thinking process, highlight the most important "How Might We"s and other minor changes to the presentation slides.
Before making the physical prototype, we bumped into some trouble picking the materials, as we weren't able to find the exact materials we needed. So after discussing with each other, we settled on bamboo mesh fabric as our material. Bamboo mesh is very similar to polyester mesh fabric. The main difference is that bamboo mesh is more lightweight and more cooling which are more beneficial for our project, but the downside is it is less durable comparatively.
⇢ Week 12
During class, we showed Dr. Wong our prototyping progress. The actual shirt prototype was still in the process of creation. Additionally, we showed her our progress for our application. She gave us feedback and told us to make some minor tweaks.
After class, we discussed futher regarding our final prototype and what changes we were going to make. Afterwards, we divided the work us between the six of us. Edlin was in-charge of the actual physical shirt prototype while Feilycia and Subhana worked on the mascot and shirt design.
Shirt V1
Shirt V2
Physical Prototype Progress
⇢ Week 13
Brendan and Khansa continued working on improving the application interface while I worked on the advertising poster for our COOLTEEZ.
⇢ Week 14
n this week, we focused on finding our testers to test our products. We managed to find four testers; 1 vendor and 3 students. Brendan, Edlin and Khansa did the user testing so Subhana, Feilycia and me transcribed the user testing audio. At the same time, we were working on improving and finalizing our slides.
Week 15
The day before our final client presentation, we had a group meeting where we rehearsed our entire presentation flow.
On the actual day, our presentation went smoothly and we received good feedback from the client. We were advised to go for more of a B2B model rather than a B2C model. We were told that this was a feasible idea and we could work with business like CIMB for projects like PPR (Projek Perumahan Rakyat). We received compliments on our presentation style and flow as well.
⇢ Reflection
⇢ Experience
The minor project was pretty challenging as the concepts that we chose for this project had a lot more engineering aspects than I had expected. Although, this was my first time tackling an actual real-life problem with Dr. Praveena from the Clean Technology Impact Labs and navigating NDAs. This project has us go through the whole design thinking process and having gone through it more in-depth, I have a more deep understanding of the concept itself. From interviewing vendors in an event to creating an actual physical prototype and application was so interesting to go through despite the tight timeline.
I have had experience in creating physical props within the Performing Arts Community but this is the first time where I was able to apply my knowledge of science and my skills in crafting within actual prototypes.
I have had experience in creating physical props within the Performing Arts Community but this is the first time where I was able to apply my knowledge of science and my skills in crafting within actual prototypes.
⇢ Observation
It was interesting to see that a concept that would apply to people who work outdoors could apply to so many types of occupations and people. It was also very noticeable that within these teams and group projects, its important to discuss and come to a consensus and that improvisations are very important when it comes to last minute changes/problems arise. It was also very motivating to see to it that tasks could be split up base on our strengths and that helped the team gravitate to choosing more skills that they could try out for the team and add more skills within their strength.
⇢ Findings
My understanding of the design thinking has deepened and made me realize how important it is but at the same time, it showed that sometimes you have to revisit and change a few things in the past to move forward with momentum. I discovered that effective design must strike a balance between practical viability and user needs, as demonstrated when we had to concentrate mostly on the cooling shirt rather than spreading ourselves too thin over other concepts. Working with a genuine client taught me how to properly communicate progress and manage expectations. I also learned the value of conducting in-depth research and empathy work; even if scheduling conflicts prevented me from conducting interviews myself, transcribing other people's interviews provided me with insightful information about the requirements and problems of our users. Most significantly, I discovered that design for social good necessitates thinking beyond aesthetics in order to develop solutions that actually address SDGs like public health and decent jobs.
8.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment