Group Assignment :

Each student chooses one big question ( I choose “How to save floor space” ) then make a group of 6. Our group contains 2 from social design, 2 from environmental design, 1 from UX design and 1 from food design and branding. We have 3 days from scratch and at the end of the project, we have to present a final product's scenario with a prototype. This project is assigned to be hand-made, so we can focus mainly on the “methodology/ideas” rather than crafting a fancy presentation. Importantly: the solution should be “Frugal”.

• Step 1: Looking for 3 strategy
• We start with idea throwing. Whatever that comes to one’s mind will be noted on the chart. We end up with a text cloud here. Then we realized the “floor” can be anywhere, not limited to a residence. We try to think about outdoor space like a footpath or bus station and indoor space like a shop. Here we discuss the person too, who are the people in this story. Are they students, elders, shop owners…. not yet decided We come up with 3 ideas on “I am _____ I want to save some space on the floor in order to _____” format. Which issmall apartment residence who wants to invite friends over (which is not so ambitious)a shop owner who wants to have more space in his shop so he could provide more activities for his business (which is very conceptual here).the citizen who wants to have a space that makes them feel welcomed >> town board that want to make use of unused space to create a community for its citizen >> (which is too ambitious for 3 days project)We make a long discussion on why one’s wants to choose in a direction. On my observation, some people want to go on challenging topics and those who want to go on a project that we can relate to / have a real user that we can ask for an opinion. We then end up in the “let the user decide” value, which is… small apartment owner. We need to have 2 axes here: speaking about limited space experience, we throw problems we face. The first time everyone goes into an idea about the “Laundry Experience” where students don’t want to spend money on drying machines then they just put it around the room. We have lots of ideas about how to dry the clothes in limited space such as make an extra structure off the window, make closet have aa drying unit, etc. Another problem we pick is about there is no place to invite friends over. We discuss a lot here too. We end up with "student inviting friends".
• Each of us has homework to research about existed ideas/products that save some space in a small room and put it on FramePad so we could avoid making the basic ideas and to make something more unique/better/funnier.
• Step 2 : Developing the solution and user study.
• After all the references, we throw ideas again. From the ideas, we extract that we can see various mechanics like folding/scaling/lifting/hanging/multi-functioning/modular structure/etc. We also have choices of materials like wood, fabrics, fishing net. We will come back later on this idea because we found out that there are 2 kinds of the proposal :
• Save space by modifying the student’s room structure like change the old bed into multi-function / change the wall structure / create the permanent structure.Save space by leaving everything remains as it is. We could add something that profit from the space in the room (floor/air).
• We choose the second way because it’s more frugal. Then we divide into 2 teams, the first team to develop a product or solution that saves space without changing the room structure/big furniture. the second team so user research to create a persona. I’m in the persona team so me and Alicia interview 4 students who live in 9 sqM room in Chanzy Residence. There are so many interesting stories and common point (like they have a big common room, but everyone still wants to have a friend over because there is some topic that is better to talk in private space). We come back with 4 personas while the rest of the group has 4 ideas of products.
• A swing that you can sit on and store things on the airA foldable bar table with a fishing net that you can clip it anywhere in the roomA carpet that you can stuff your things inside and sit on it
• A resizable lounge that you can store things and make it like a bench
• Everything is cool. We invite the users (Students who live in Chanzy) to give some opinions on each product. They ask and give very useful insight like “I don’t want people to sit on my bed” “A rug? Is it clean to sit on?” “I’m a small person so I prefer something easy for me”. We end the day by letting the product designer work more on feedback we’ve got. Alicia will work on combining 4 personas into one and I’ll do the user’s journey.
• Step 3: Prepare for the presentation
• The idea that wins the user’s vote is the carpet idea. So half of us will go to the workshop to work on a prototype and the rest of us (contained me) will create a poster for the presentation.
• We make a draft layout on paper where we discuss the information, where to put it, how to tell it in storytelling, etc. After moving things around for a while we all agree on a layout.
• We do photography of our friend having problem > looking for a product > take it from store > prepare the stuff> have a friend over > finish and store it. Then we use these pictures as drawing reference. While I and Maxime work on drawings, Alicia will work on typography. Crafty time.
• The prototype team comes back with a cool model. We’re happy and have time for lunch. Then we could make 3 rounds of presentation rehearsal.
• Comments we got as the first group who presented : It’s about how to present more smoothly using wall’s space, we should address on how frugal it is (some message must be repeated) and we should have only one name so people can remember (now it’s like Some Space: A Magic Carpet). Right now we are happy with ourself and everyone looks satisfied with the teamwork and time management.