This week it was reiterated to us that we should not be thinking ‘device first’ when it comes to thinking of our major project. I understand the importance of this as keeping things simple and designing for phone interfaces is tempting, sometimes it is not the best medium for the solution.

At this moment I have started thinking of topics and problems that I could design for, no solutions yet. I want a topic that there’s a lot of information on that I can delve into, and can create a substantial solution with. So far the problems that I am interested in are:

• Childcare in the UK- too expensive, too much of a demand
• Remote working- trying to bring better work-life balance
• NHS crisis
• Income Inequality

Most of the issues I am researching are based in the UK in Ireland as I feel it will be easier to find survey groups and in-person interviews.

Warm Up

To begin the idea generation workshop we did a fun task where we each got a piece of paper, folded 4 times, and a Sharpie. We each drew a head at the top of the paper and then folded it backwards and passed it to the person beside us.

On the section below the head, we each drew a torso, folded it over and passed it along. This process continued until each person’s page had a head, torso, legs and feet drawn, each by a different person.

The idea was that by the time every character had been drawn, you would see a bunch of juxtaposing series of heads, bodies and feet. I think this is great, there’s no pressure for any of the drawings to be very good as they are all going to look silly.

After everyone had finished we stuck our pages on the window of the classroom. This was to challenge us not take our work too seriously and, by sticking the pages where everyone who walked past could see, it forced me to not worry about what people think and have a bit of fun with the idea process.

Everyone’s pages stuck up on the window

Below is my favourite character that we created at my table.

Some of the methods for idea generation we learned were the following:

Method: Worst Way

The first method we tried as a class was to answer the question “How might we relieve stress in a working environment” The answers that were given you could group together as they had a similar throughline.