Christina Holman | Design Blog

The final poster and prototype, including the flatpack-style box in which all materials are delivered.

Our third and final review went very well: the instructors praised our ability to dive deeper into the heart of our users and present a bold yet still "simple" product for their opportunity areas of improvement. We decided on pursuing the double-decker garden out of all the ideas from Phase 2: the two-tiered structure would allow plants to grow on both the upper and lower layer. The top shelf is tilted upwards at an angle to allow for a larger window (and thus more sun) for the ground-level bed, and the structure is equipped with insulation curtains that would allow for the plants to survive through the cold weather of December and prismatic crystals can disperse light from the top layer to the bottom layer. Promising research shows a potential development in light, strong cardboard (bridge-like) structures that can hold thousands of pounds, which would lower the cost for our product significantly and allow it to be reusable and formed via flat-pack kit. The goal of our produ...

"The goals of this phase are to develop, from the perspective of  experience and interaction design, one to two of your promising conceptual directions into more-detailed proposals for products or services that could significantly better the lives of your users and to do so in a way that effectively captures and communicates your extensive thinking through product or service representations." Phase 3 is the third and final portion of UOCD: in this phase, designers are asked to pursue and fully develop one of the project ideas generated through more co-design sessions, table of requirements, while also specifying and building the final product. The team is expected to fully utilize interaction maps, representations of people and products in the product poster along with models and prototypes of the product.

In general, PLANTS received great feedback on our presentation: we presented a plethora of design ideas for our user group -- some that veered on the  magical  side more than others -- and updated our personas, specifically star maps to indicate emphasis on certain values/project directions. Our ideas ranged from a Garden Co-Op to self-guided interfaces for communal plots to vertical gardening to plot monitoring technology. We created gallery sketches for all of them. We also formed charts that indicated the level of impact-change for the ideas as well as the values of the designers in comparison to the users'. (It is important to identify our own biases in this project.) After taking some of the ideas to users, we marked down their own responses and rankings of values, which allowed us to begin slimming down the project ideas into probable proposals.

Setting a plan of attack for Phase 2 was relatively simple: the team created a table of co-design methods that would be effective for each people portrait/interviewee (aliases), ranging from role-play to story-telling to talking tours. The team also formed a process map along with a chart for goals, execution and measurements of success.