Throughout the semester, to complement lecture content, seminars and tutorials, we will complete group tasks. These are designed to help us shape our major projects and hone our collaboration skills, which are key to being a successful designer.
This week’s group task was to take a current zeitgeist topic and formulate a solution that would make a difference. The nature of zeitgeist topics means that by nature, they are multi-faceted and require a wide range of different interventions to solve conclusively. For this reason, we would focus on one aspect of the issue rather than an overall solution.
Our group decided to look at Immigration, Refugees and Borders as our topic, which is something we see in the news on an almost daily basis. This issue has become a hot topic politically with polarised viewpoints, most of which take the people who have been displaced out of the equation.
For our solution, as a group, we decided to focus on the people caught up within the current asylum system and their skills. We know that people who claim asylum can be highly educated with key skills that could really help society here. However, while they wait for their asylum claims to be processed, they cannot work or utilise their skills at all. They may not have evidence of the qualifications they have earned in their home country with them, or those qualifications may not meet the standards required in the UK.
We proposed a service that facilitates people within the asylum system to undertake skills assessments and evidence their capabilities. They could also, if required, complete any professional exams to become a registered professional in the UK. Once they had completed these tasks, they could be offered work placements where they could earn money to help set them up in the UK if their asylum claim was accepted.
We used tried and tested UX techniques such as empathy mapping and user journey mapping to help us develop a solution, ending with some lo-fi wireframes of how the initial stages of a web application to handle the assessments could look.
I enjoyed this group task; for me, UX is about problem-solving and people. This task allowed me to work alongside my classmates to discuss and ideate a solution that may not solve the whole problem. However, it would open up opportunities for people currently trapped within the system. It was also great to be back working in a group after the solo tasks related to my dissertation and to be back to designing solutions.
This week’s group task focused on Speculative Design, designing solutions now to solve or mitigate future problems. Much like last week, we were asked to take a zeitgeist topic, this time my group chose Climate Change.
Our first task was to consider what the world may look like in twenty-five years. We decided to tackle the issue of increased flooding and a drainage system ill-equipped to handle additional rainfall. We created a timeline from 2025-2050, which represented the probable outcome if nothing was done, to illustrate the need for action and to set the scene for a solution.
From here, we were able to map the different stages a solution could take, from initial reactionary items to solve immediate issues, through preventive action to prepare for the future. Our main aim is to mitigate any additional flooding and move water to where it can be utilised.
We also looked at the potential for AI to be part of the process, initially gathering data and building pattern recognition, before putting this knowledge to use by helping prioritise water system repairs, plan infrastructure projects and control the flow of water through the system.
We created lo-fi illustrations of how this could be implemented within the existing water network and what larger-scale projects may need to occur.
Similar to last week, working in a group was something I really enjoyed, discussing the issue and developing solutions. I found speculative design an interesting concept; being able to prevent problems rather than designing for the issues that already exist is an appealing way of working for me. I feel that this task opened my eyes to the possibilities offered by speculative design, and this will help me as I continue to generate ideas for my major project.