While ago, I successfully finished my second project in my studio class. The previous project was a solo project but from this project, it was a collaborative project. For this particular occasion, I had the opportunity to team up with H, a former product designer in Jakarta and S, who was a car designer in Shanghai. By including me who was working in Tokyo, we became the Asian squad. Both of them are really nice individuals.
Design a Product as a Solution
The previous project was about visualization, but this time it was about designing a product that will be a solution for some kind of problem. Just like the previous assignment, since there is not that much time, our team had to work rapidly. Given that I had a very hard time managing time with the previous project, I wanted to ideate, prototype, and iterate as many times as possible. As a start, our team had to agree upon what problem we were going to address. After several discussions, we decided to design a product that prevents infants’ death during sleep.
The project turned out to be something very interesting after this discussion. What was most intriguing for me was the fact that how everyone approached the problem was tremendously different among the team members. Maybe it’s due just to my personality, but as someone coming from an advertising agency background, under a tight deadline I tend to “jump” to a seemingly-right conclusion to finish the project.
Discussion after Discussion
But my teammates, H, and S, as they both have a product design background, did not allow that. “Who are the stakeholders?” “What does the target feel?” “Is that design really a solution?” They would both repeatedly ask those questions to me. Since I have a daughter and I was the one closest to the target user, I communicated extensively with my teammate and had numerous discussions.
One might consider this a cumbersome situation which would halt the process of moving forward, but I actually think this was very good and in fact, a necessary process. By having the time to discuss with the teammates what the core issue is about this problem, the collective understanding as a team builds up, and this actually accelerates the speed of the team. As the project reached its final stage, the understanding of this tacit knowledge of the problem domain is crucial. Without this, the project would have probably failed.
The Final Presentation
For the final presentation of this assignment, we ended up designing a “smart infant onesie” with affordable sensors attached which is capable of detecting the respiration and the orientation of the infant. With regards to the prototype, we provided two prototypes: a functional prototype which explains the utility of the product and the formal prototype which represents the ideal form of the design.
Another essential factor in this studio class is that the project does not end by merely designing the product. At the end of the project, the students are required by the instructors to present the prototypes designed and need to explain the design in various aspects. The technical feasibility of the product is a must, but also questions will be asked regarding environmental, societal, and human impact both in qualitative and quantitative terms. I’ve never considered my solution that thoroughly so this was a great learning experience.
Just like always, we ended up doing most of the work last minute, but thanks to the extensive discussion we had as a team, we were able to allocate portions of work based on our skill sets, and we were able to complete the project successfully. I was really relieved that we all managed to pull off this assignment…
