Design Methodology Entry 10
Catching Up
I am a week behind on my medium entries, and have not posted on here about my most recent changes that are directing this project. I will use this week to re-state what my topic and plan is. I am slowly making things much more clear, and am beginning to see the content opportunities and potential to make a really fun project. I am feeling a lot better after talking with several people about the burn-out of this whole semester. (between this class and others) I chose this project area, because it is exciting to me. I chose my audience because they would be fun to design for. I even put in my design manifesto that I was not allowed to have fun. So I am excited about this week and the “making” that I will be doing for the visual presentation. I hope to just sketch and make fun things!
Back to the point on the post…
My most recent problem statement :
Queen City Quest is an interactive EGD experience in Mt. Airy Forest that educates and excites young park go-ers about plant life.
My most recent audience :
I decided that I am focusing on kids ages 8–11 as my audience. This of course would also need to consider their parent / guardian that would most likely be accompanying them in the experience. I chose to focus on this audience (I was wrestling with this versus older/general park visitors) because A)I think that kids would be the most fun to design for. I want to have fun designing this, and I love the imaginative, colorful, and boldness that can be achieved in designing for youth. I hope I can make something that is just fun to look at. B) I think that kids need to hear this the most. Connecting to nature and the the land you are on is really important both to culture and mental health, and I think if kids can know about that early on, they will foster the most appreciation for land and will care the most about taking care of that land.
Newest ideas to explore :
Last week in the meeting with DJ (you?) we discussed the idea of how nature exposure impacts mental health. I think that’s a really important idea, so I have been working to add more sources that focus on that idea, and think it will be a good element to add into my panels. What I am thinking right now (and I will show this in some of my sketches) is that each panel could have different sub-sections. So the main part would talk about the feature plant, one could talk about connection to nature, the parks, or conservation, and maybe one could talk about the whole experience. Still working that part out, but don’t expect that format to be 100% solid until the spring once I can work on a content script and iterations.
Update on research :
I am meeting (finally) this week with Cicny Parks graphic designer and florist! The designer says she wants to direct me to a few other parks for some good examples, so I am looking forward to finding more benchmarks there. And talking to the florist will be really good for me, especially while narrowing down which plants I am going to focus on. I have decided not to focus on a specific type of plant (ie trees or pollinators). I just feel like that is unnecessarily cutting out potential plants. Of course I would not make a panel for every single plant they have, but there will be certain plants with a noteworthy history or story, so I will choose a variety to use as location points. Hopefully talking with the parks will help me narrow that down, but I did give myself some time in my schedule to solidify that choice by the spring.
Thank you :)
