Wednesday’s class was a bit unorthodox; with plunging temperatures, our session with Milestone Studio Labs was held virtually. The presenters did a great job of synthesizing their approach to problems and making it applicable to the work we had done so far.
Milestone Studio Labs takes a problem defining approach when designing products. By digging deeply into the problem, they are able to understand what the solution should be to a greater degree. Empathetic design can be very difficult when you have never experienced the issues that you are trying to solve. The presenters had us focus our attention on the opportunity at hand: what were the experiences and stories around the problem. This approach kept us from leaping to possible solutions too quickly without fully understanding the problem.
The presenters showed a very interesting example of this when a team designed a solution for a blind woman who had developed tremors. While the team designed a very elaborate hat that would basically do the job of the walking stick, they missed clear opportunities for small improvements in her daily life. A yogurt cup holder was one example of how they had listened and understood the problem, then not overthought the solution.
I think this point will be very important to keep in mind throughout the course. Some problems can have both elaborate and simple solutions. With the focus on affordability stressed during our visit to DRES, I think keeping solutions as simple as possible, even utilizing common materials, would be most effective for our solutions.
Our team worked on framing the opportunity regarding Jenna’s balance difficulties. While she had suggested a possible solution would be a greater surface area of her prosthetic foot, it could be that a strap for her to put her foot under or some other solution could be better. So it is important for our team to keep in mind what the opportunity is and define that as best as we can before we jump to different solutions.
It’s also important to keep in mind that as you create a solution for one opportunity it may be used for others. Although we focused on the application of balance in yoga during class, whatever solution we find may find may have other audiences and uses as well!
I love your idea for making a product to increase Jenna’s ability during yoga. This opportunity may seem specific, but as you said, I am sure there will be a variety of uses for whatever solution you do create. There actually are quite a few yoga organizations for amputees; check out Yoga For Amputees to see if it will give you some more insight to the issues that may arise for those facing a variety of different challenges when it comes to yoga. Good luck on your research!
I also agree! I love how you have pointed out that we have to keep in mind of how our solution for a certain opportunity can be expanded and be used for the general audiences. Without this, this item will be very hard to be marketed and may find itself hard to be recognized by a large audience.