Real design for the real world
A few days ago, we had our third class in contemporary design culture. We had the director of OStoform, Rhona hunt as a guest speaker to talk to us about the work she had been doing. This was the first time that we got a real insight into the things a product designer actually does. Before the class I had no interest of ever working in a medical company. I had a preconceived idea that the only that medical designers do is design surgical instruments which I felt would be boring. That may be a very odd view on things but that’s just what came into my head and I never looked into it any more than that. By the time the class had finished however my views had drastically changed and my mind was opened to the possibilities and the importance of designer’s role in the medical world.
After listening to Rhona I learned how important the research process is before the design even begins and how much you learn from working with the user rather than with only designers. To demonstrate this we were given the task of stepping into the shoes of those who have disabilities by imitating them using material we had lying around the studio. I was the one in my group who got the job and had my arm taped to a splinter which kept it straight and rendered it totally useless. It was very interesting to see how it made everything so much more difficult. As we walked around campus, I found that even buying a coffee from taking my wallet out of my pocket to adding sugar and milk and once I had the cup in my hand then I had no free hands to open doors which often made me fall behind the rest of the group. When we had finished walking we came up with solutions that would help someone with this type of disability and I was amazed at how much easier it was to come up with solutions after being in their situations.
As we came up with our solutions it was interesting to see that the things that we came up with were relatively cheap and required little materials just to make the life of the user that little bit easier. If we were to come up with solutions with out doing any of this research its very obvious how narrow minded our solutions would have been and more than likely tech orientated.
If you think about it logically, everyone is an expert at what they do in their everyday lives especially in the case of those living in poverty. Designers who submerse themselves into their culture and ways of living can learn far more in regards to making their living easier, there’s no assumptions to be made when carrying out this method only facts and examples.
