Macro Unit Week Five

Brief: Design a way for people to manage complex risk together

Methods: Prototyping, laser cutting, video editing

Team: Mo Bekkouri, Roshni Suri, Yanxu Chen, myself

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Brainstorming around our key points, we started prototyping around the idea of connecting people together where they already are – at home. We were working with the idea of indirect communication, an invitation to your fellow occupants of the building. We mocked up a rough version of our idea to take home and test, so we could see what outcome we might have from this design.

Prototyping the door tag. Images by Yanxu Chen.

The doortag in testing. Images by Yanxu Chen, Anushka K, by author.

Positive experiences from the tests fuelled our intention to continue with production, designing the graphics, selecting the materials and drafting the written content.

The toolkit in full. Image by Mo Bekkouri.

The pack was designed with a toolkit-style pack in mind, giving a more rounded and complete feel to the set. We included a door tag and chalk, the information leaflet and comment card, and a keyring of the logo. Each of these elements had a specific purpose, and would not have worked independently from the kit.

The intention with the presentation was to situate the audience within the environment we had been working, by asking questions of their experiences, and thinking about how other's may have had different experiences, before introducing the scheme to them.

Audience questions. Image by Munira Kazi.

A short promotional or educational video introducing the toolkit in use. Shot and edited by Mo Bekkouri.

The feedback from the project partners was positive and they were impressed with the scheme we had come up with, particularly considering where we had started, there had been a series of challenges along the journey. We also advised our consideration for the expansion of the scheme to interface with rental housing references, health insurance schemes or a social credit of some kind.

The tutors were more critical, saying that it was taking an easy path, and there were many ways to exploit the system, or many ways in which it may not work. To an extent I agree with them, there were flaws with our design, however we also acknowledge that we cannot design for every person or every situation; there is no such thing as a universal design. So, we accepted that it wasn’t perfect; particularly after such a condensed design period.