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Disclaimer: I was in Arizona this week for a school-sponsored trip for my minor and couldn’t make it to class. Instead of talking about my experience at DRES I’ll be talking about my previous experience with human-centered design and my thoughts on the videos and readings we’ve looked at so far.

Background

Coming into this class, I really didn’t know what to expect. I had some exposure to inspiration and ideation phases of the human-centered design process in another class but was interested to learn more about the implementation phase and to see how all these principles applied in a physical maker space. As I was going through the material on the methods for the inspiration phase, I was struck by how thorough the techniques were for digging deep to the root cause of any problem. Using the “Five Whys” seems like a great way to fully analyze the situation. I realized that this step was foundational in solving the true problem instead of a byproduct of the problem. Realizing this helped give me greater context for a similar class project I had worked on a year ago.

Learning from the Past

In a previous class, I worked on a team that was tasked with finding a solution that would improve the porta-potty user’s experience. We learned about the human-centered design process and then started by finding out more about the user experience. Instead of actually interviewing or going to use a porta-potty my team sent out a survey asking about the pain points in the porta-potty user experience. This lack of personal contact with our respondents inhibited us from using the “Five Whys” method to dig to the root of the problem. We ended up finding that smell was an issue and decided that a spring-loaded flap to seal off the opening would be a good solution. The final class assignment was to create a prototype of our product (shown below).

Takeaways

While it was great to go through the inspiration and ideation phases of the human-centered design, we did not go through multiple iterations of our product and were not forced to think about the viability of implementation. This led our group to create a solution that would have struggled as a workable solution outside of the classroom. In this class, I am excited to learn from my mistakes in my last group project. This semester, I plan to take a more critical approach to gather information from our user group, iterate multiple times on our product through quick 3D prototyping, and develop a product that has viable implementation prospects.

After looking through the website for the digital making class I was excited to apply to join the class. The thought of entering in a maker space after volunteering in a fabrication laboratory during high school was exhilarating and nerve-racking. Although I had previous knowledge that this class was not limited to certain majors, I was not expecting to hear about and meet people from so many different backgrounds. It is rare to work in such an interdisciplinary group. I am excited to see how I will grow professionally and academically in this course.

For our first day of class, we were greeted with an assignment and experts/mentors. The goal of the assignment is to work in groups of three and four to create an idea for enhancing our expert users lives. The design method and process that we will utilize in this class is very different from what I’ve used in the past. Usually, I would think of the design process as a system of steps that are repeated until a final product is produced. These steps involve identifying a problem, designing a solution and prototyping until a final product is reached. However, in this class, we will eliminate identifying the problem out the process and replace it with finding ways to enhance our experts’ lives. This approach ties into other techniques we have learned so far that focuses on human-centered design.

A meeting with the experts and tour of the DRES facility was planned for the second week of class. During the tour, we had a chance to see where the athletes train and we also got the chance to go into the maker space that one of the experts utilizes for her business. Towards the end of class, we engaged in a group interview with the experts and mentors. This part was particularly interesting because it is common to hear people talk about themselves however, it is less common to hear people be vulnerable about issues that they struggle with. While taking notes during the interview I became conflicted with feelings of anxiety. I felt as if the expectations were high. Some issues/concerns that the experts brought up, such as affordability and insurance, were major. However, looking back it is clear that designing change has a lot to do with being comfortable with uncertainty and trial and error. I hope going forward to channel the confidence to take risks and push boundaries throughout the semester.

Our visit today to the DRES facility was very enlightening as far as design thinking for the wheelchair industry. I think the overarching takeaway I had was that there is not a lack of innovation or even accommodation. Many of today’s problems are centered around accessibility, and mainly affordability. We were poised with the challenge of thinking how to have wheelchairs and components inexpensively find their way into Africa while accounting for the harsh terrain found there. The make this a cost-effective solution requires a lot more than simply donations. The cost to ship and transport the chair make this sort of effort almost not worth it.

Through my discussions with Ron, we ultimately concluded that there are 2 overarching possible projects I’d like to explore. An IKEA styled wheel chair could be the solution to both accessibility and affordability problems. If the components were able to be sustainably reproduced, then the locals would easily be able to repair and edit the wheelchairs however they would like to. The IKEA styled mechanics would also allow the chair to be compactly shipped in a box or a small container on a largo cargo. If the local regions received the wheelchairs could then be exposed to technologies such as 3D printers, then they could maintain the wheelchair themselves for the remainder of its longevity. Creating this solution would eliminate the issue shipping heavy and preassembled items.

The other solution we thought was creating tracs for the wheelchairs, so they could more easily traverse terrains like snow, sleet, dirt, and sand. Many transportation vehicles already possess this ability so drawing inspiration from something like a bulldozer could lead to a possible solution. Early issues we saw was the installation and removal of these tracs. The wheelchair user would have to easily be able to ride up onto the tracs and then somehow safely attach them to the wheels. Although this may not be feasible to focus on in this course because it would be quite difficult to engineer such a device using 3D printed materials or Arduinos.

Although I also came to realize that the most feasible business case would be to gather data on which component of the wheelchair is most prone to repairs and simply 3D print those parts. In low-income areas, we can simply send the software file, so they are able to print it themselves locally. Innovating simple solutions to large problems is what we’re striving for – especially for a demographic which is oftentimes so overlooked.