This weeks class was affected by the severely cold weather the midwest was receiving so unforunatly we were not able to meet face to face with the guests from Milestone Labs. Fortunately, Vishal and Charlotte were able to work fast and set up a video conference which worked smoothly!
Luckily I had the chance last semester to talk to Michal Kabatznik about a project I was working on in my disability design course. Not only did she find the time in her busy schedule but she also had great insight and helped me develop my idea further.
Talking to two members of the Milestone Labs team was a great opportunity for students to learn about the design process or refine what has been taught to some already. Particularly they helped us figure out our “Opportunity Statement”. I love we refer to this as the opportunity statement rather than problem statement which is typically what it has been referred to in the past 4 years in my college career. Opportunity statement makes things more general and instills more open ended-ness not simply one solution to a “problem”.
“The Lab utilizes uniquely developed methodologies that encourage collaboration, creative thinking, in-depth problem solving and more. We incorporate design, digital fabrication, rapid prototyping skills and know-how of the product development process. We believe in ‘nothing about us, without us’ – the user should be at the center of the problem-solving process, allowing for empathy and giving a fresh perspective to solving a challenge.” https://www.milestone-labs.com
This last class was a pinnacle point for my team in terms of brainstorming. The worksheet really helped bring everyone’s voices forward, although we were not sitting in the classroom face to face we were able to discuss through video chat and bounce ideas off each other in our google document. We concluded that we need to make the wheelchairs and their replacement parts more feasible and easily accessible for the users.
As we started to really begin to dive into our projects the weather decided to do everything in its power to slow down our innovation. Luckily, our class was able to meet and work with Milestone Labs to further develop our projects. I was really excited to put our ideas in front of the eyes of some professionals. As last week got underway our group was able to discuss and organize our wild ideas into three separate groups. We decided to break our project into a protection pad for Jenna’s knee, a waterproofing sleeve, and a stabilizing footplate. After talking with Milestone Labs, we decided to narrow our focus and place most of our efforts into the protective knee pad. With this direction, I really believe after talking with Jenna we can really make a tangible difference in her everyday life as well. Looking forward I believe that it is very important for my group and I to place a timeline, so we can start prototyping our design for Jenna to test out. I’m excited to see what our project has in store moving forward.
My name is Ryan Kane, and I am a senior graduating in the spring of 2019 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Gies College of Business. I have a double major is both Supply Chain Management and Information Systems and Information Technology.
This week we didn’t have actual class due to the strong snow storm and extremely low temperature, but we had an online class instead.
For the pre-class section, I go through the HCD online courses. I found that I should work on different angels when I face to some problems. Since I haven’t got the chance to meet with my group member, I’m not familiar about our project. I hope that I can learn more about and contribute more to the our group project. We’ll probably meet before Wednesday’s class.
During the class, I learned about lots of teams’ goals, inspiration, and their projects. I was really impressed by such a lot of amazing perspectives. Seeing lots of classmates holding lots of great ideas and their passion, I feel really confident about helping others by making efforts to reach our goals. I’m really glad that we have Milestone such a great guider for us to provide feedbacks and improve our projects. We should focus more on our targeted group in the following weeks.
I’m really confident about making our project better and better. I hope that we can come up with more ideas after we had the group meeting. Since I joined this course a week ago, I hope that I can figure out everything about our project and this course. I’ll cooperate with my group member and try my best to help them.
Because of the cold day, we met with Milestone Labs and the rest of the class virtually. They were still able to go through their presentation with us through sharing their screen, as well as we were still able to meet with just our teams through virtual break out rooms.
My group chose to highlight two of the experts, Ron and Ryan. Through our presentation we didn’t have that big of a solid grasp of an opportunity area, and wanted to engage in more conversation. Luckily we were able to listen to some of the answers Ryan gave to the questions Adam asked, which ultimately helped us decide on our opportunity area.
Ryan talked about how he wasn’t really able to do video interviews, as there was no way for him to set up a heavy camera by himself. This made us thinking about and attachable tripod to the wheelchair that could assist in an interview setting. This insight helped us think in an even broader sense of multitasking. The final opportunity described in one sentence is listed below:
How can we can improve the ability to multitask for people with limited mobility in their arms or are in wheelchairs.
Getting to this statement is really exciting because we weren’t really sure of a set opportunity area in the beginning of class or even when we were presenting. It was interesting to see what other groups were able to come up with as well, and how groups have chosen to focus on different areas.
Going forward I think we should interview the experts to see in what situations they multitask, as well as do research on common multitasking situations. We can also do research on tools that are used if someone can’t use their hands, as if a wheelchair user is using their hands to move forward, they won’t be available to do other tasks.
I am excited to keep working on this opportunity and see where it leads us!
After having the chance to meet with my team and discuss who we wanted as our mentor, it was an easy decision. Arielle was someone who each of my teammates connected with throughout our visit to DRES. With her experience as an athlete and starting her own business with the creation of racing gloves through 3D printing, she makes a perfect mentor for this project. After speaking with her more we understood that there is opportunity to improve the racing chairs. Creating wheels that have different handrails with better grip would allow for the gloves Arielle makes to fit with the wheel creating a more efficient stroke. As you can see in the photo below, hand rails for racing chairs are made of rubber, becoming slick with any undesirable weather conditions, such as rain or snow. This could also improve racing in normal weather conditions as well just by increasing the ability to hook the glove onto the wheel.
The potential issue with this solution is the possibility of increasing friction. Adam, Arielle’s coach, mentioned adding a complex texture to the wheels may be a great solution, but it is important to be aware for friction to be created between the gloves and new wheels. In order to avoid creating a less efficient handrail, we will have to go through multiple rounds of testing. Luckily, there are great resources at DRES and we will have the opportunity to test out the facilities that the athletes use during their training sessions. With all of that in mind, I am excited to pursue this opportunity in hopes to find a solution that can aid Arielle’s current gloves to create a better experience for the racers. Unfortunately, we were not able to meet in person due to the weather, I look forward to working with my team, Adam and Arielle in the upcoming semester.
Additionally, Arielle mentioned creating an app that would take pictures and create measurements of the hands to help her current business. This may not result in an actual product, but if we may have the opportunity to walk through mockups for an app to streamline her business. This may not be our main focus throughout the semester, but their is potential for learning, improving, and creating new opportunities outside of the classroom
This week was a little different from the previous weeks. Illinois experienced one of the coldest days ever. Therefore, we didn’t have class in person but instead online. The class was also different because we had guests from Milestone Studio Labs. The guests were present in class to hear our presentations and mentor us through the process of formulating a plan for our team project.
The presentation from the representatives of Milestone Studio Labs was interesting and different. From their perspective innovation is created by everyone and as a result, it takes on different forms. Some of us may go throughout our day without knowing that we are innovating to accommodate for some of our everyday needs. The design process in my opinion can be stressful because at least for me when I go through it I am always trying to find the next big idea. The exercise and presentation from the representatives helped me to realize that sometimes the “next big idea” can be something very simple and small.
My team was deciding between three projects to potentially work on and one mentor to work with, Ron Malik. After receiving feedback about our presentation, we decided to hone in on one of our ideas which is to create a D.I.Y. IKEA-like wheelchair. Since this project has such a wide scope and we have so little time we decided to reframe what aspects of the wheelchair will be D.I.Y. From listening to Ron and doing a little of our own research it became our goal to focus on the aspects of the wheelchair that is expensive and or most replaced. Like IKEA we also wanted to ensure that our product has an element of customizability for ascetics.
The suggestions from the representatives were very helpful. They emphasized how our main problem could possibly be the scope of the project. However, they seemed to really like the idea and encouraged us to refine our initial idea into smaller practical pieces. Looking forward is it clear that we have a lot of work ahead of us. Like I stated in my previous post, ambiguity is going to be something that we have to be comfortable with. Luckily we are all working in teams and we get to encourage each other throughout this journey.
Class this week was a
little out of the usual as due to the dangerously subzero temperature as a
result of the polar vortex, we had to have class through a different medium rather
than in usual in-person sessions. Professor Sachdev demonstrated to us on how
technology can solve problems even those imposed by mother nature by hosting
class online through video telecommunication software.
Professor Sachdev happily greets the class.
However, pre-class activities were delivered through the usual
method on our class website. From the videos on HCD, I learned that it is
important to record the elements that inspired us during our creation phase as
it would be helpful and useful to have references in the later stages. Perhaps
I was too caught up in the mentors’ amazing individual stories that I forgot to
take notes. Whatever the reasons were, I now know better and will for sure remember
to use all the tools at my disposal to record the moments and elements that
will inspire and guide my team in the future.
For our lecture this week, we were fortunate enough to be able
to have consultants of Milestone Labs to help guide us on transforming our
ideas into actual plans for our projects. The session was indeed interesting as
the consultants encouraged us to brainstorm throughout the class and eventually,
we were told to join breakout sessions with our team to further discuss our ideas
based on the pre-class videos and the materials presented in class. My team and I decided to settle on our Yoga
support extension based on Jenna’s personal story. Due to her unique situation,
she found it challenging when performing certain poses during her yoga class
and a simple detachable attachment would solve the problem and help her find
balance while performing those poses. It was reassuring to her the consultants
praise our idea even though it was a simple one.
I know that the extent of our idea may only be applicable to a
small group of individuals in the world. However, this does not change the fact
on how much value it can created for these individual users and add to their
experience of life overall. Furthermore, I can see this project only being a
starting product for a line of other gadgets that can be modified and crated
for individual users to assist them in different tasks. I know that myself and
my teammates are thrilled to work with our mentors for the rest of the semester
and work to make our idea come to fruition.
Week 3. This week to me is kind of mind-blowing. Starting from the pre-class readings, I started to feel regret of the previous group interview. With the time constraint, I did not get a chance to ask more in-depth questions as I would like to have a more in-depth understanding of the mentors’ experiences. I did not capture most of the things I see through photo during the site visit. Prior to reading the HCD reading, I did not notice the importance of capturing the things I see, hear, feel, smell and taste during the site visit. But I think there things that I did well from the previous week that allows me to define the opportunities from experts’ experiences, including listening patiently and taking good notes of mentors’ inspiring experiences that I heard. When there is a chance for us to have a more in-depth interview again with the expert who we are working with, I would start to apply the techniques I read from the reading to deepen my understanding of the situation and better define the opportunities available.
Milestone Labs Workshop
With the extreme weather of the past week, unfortunately, our face-to-face class time is canceled. Instead, we had an interesting online session. I really love how the consultants from the Milestone Labs guided us through the steps for design thinking to inspire us to get to our final opportunity statement. Starting with the discussion of the unmet social needs, I was shocked by how we, people, are so creative in overcoming the small problems that come into our lives and how simple the solution can be. Without complicated technology, each one of us can find a very simple solution to the challenges we faced during our daily lives. During the brainstorming session, I thought of something that I usually do when I am drinking hot water with a glass. I did not have any cup holders at home. When I wanted to drink hot water or tea, the cup got very hot. To solve this problem, I just grabbed a tissue to serve the purpose of a cup holder. The tissue absorbed some of the heat, so my hand did not get burned when I was holding the cup. I was so shocked when I thought of my real life example. I never realized, prior to this class session, that I was so creative in the way of making simple solutions to overcome my daily challenges.
After the brainstorming of unmet needs, we shared our desired mentors as a team. Before class, we were struggling in choosing a mentor and narrowing the opportunities down to one. During the presentation, we were inspired by the consultants from the Milestone Labs who seemed very excited about our idea of making a product that improves the balance of people with a prosthetic leg for recreational use, particularly in yoga, that can also expand to daily usage. Therefore, we went forward with defining this single opportunity. Going through the opportunity worksheet, we finally got to a single sentence opportunity statement:
To create an extension for prosthetic legs to increase balance, particularly in yoga.
Our idea of getting a surface area extension to help with balancing with the prosthetic leg is new that I did not find any related products online, but I found some benefits of doing yoga to people with prosthetic legs (you may click on this link to view more information regarding the benefits). With the benefits of yoga and our product to help make the more practices in yoga possible for people with prosthetic legs, we can encourage people with prosthetic legs to practice yoga and gain confidence in working out. I am excited with the opportunity we defined, and I hope to bring this idea to reality to encourage people with prosthetic legs to practice yoga and other excercises.
I am a student who’s currently studying accountancy and management of information systems. I am graduating this year and entering the MAS program at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I love programming and accountancy as much as I love taking photographs and learning how to play the Rubik’s cube. I love trying out new things and learning new skills. Learning how to make accessible designs utilizing digital making skills is one of the new skills I learned.
This week we had one of the coldest days of my lifetime. We experienced the polar vortex. Temperature dropped so low that the Chancellor of the University canceled classes campus wide. Being the doers we are, the cold front didnt stop us from innovating. We held course digitally and got to get to know the creatives at Milestone Studios. They told us a bit about what they do. Each team was required to present the areas of opportunity gained from our mentors stories. Each team was given feedback and later went into an extensive brainstorming session.
We broke into breakout sessions with the mentors we met the week prior. The task was to really hone in on the problem statements. We did this by completing the challenge sheet provided by Milestone studios. After this activity we had a clear vision of specified areas we’d like to innovate.
My team and I were very moved by Jenna’s story. We really want our design to be driven by affordability and accessibility. We decided to move forward with the idea of designing a shoe tread that gives prosthetic users the ability to safely walk through snow, rain, and other inclimate settings. A tread for all terrain. Jenna stressed the complications of using her prosthetic even further. She was really behind our idea. The thought of a detachable thread for prothstetics could make all the difference for its users. Our opportunity statement is: “To create detachable tread attachments that can be used to travel in a variety of terrains.” Our device won’t be limited to just snow but all inclusive for users to maneuver through sand, uneven ground, and pretty much any terrain as previously mentioned.
I personally feel that we can create rea value for people with this potential product. Nearly every single one us of have experienced the inconvenience of issues with daily mobility. We all face a multitude of difficulties that surprisingly could benefit from such a product like the one we are developing. We have to do more research on a few things, and possibly some case studies, but we are in a good place. We plan to meet and get a few concepts down on paper. We’re designing with the user in mind and at the forefront. In the weeks to come we’ll work towards having fidelity models ranging from low-high. I’m excited for the future potential applications of this device we are developing.
It was so unfortunate that we had such cold weather last Wednesday, since Milestone Labs had come in to speak to our class. But despite the weather, we were still able to have a productive class via Zoom online. It was great to hear from Milestone Labs a second time, as they had video chatted with us previously in Disability + Relevant Design. The work they do is both inspiring and incredible. They seek to find super simple solutions to help people that have various physical limitations. What I enjoyed most about their presentation was how they talked about the evolution of glasses from being just a piece of assistive technology into something stylish and fashionable. It’s such a different way of thinking of something we take for granted every day. It got me thinking about what other areas of design can be improved in such a simple and seemingly obvious way. I would love the chance to explore this idea further!
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