Watched a terrific episode of the design documentary series, Abstract, featuring shoe design legend, Tinker Hatfield. (Hatfield designed the iconic editions of the Air Jordan amongst a slew of other shoes for Nike.)
You participated in your first collaborative conversation -- centered around the ideas of the documentary as well as empathy and the "how might we . . . ?" mindset possibilities.
And got a reminder that your empathy story is due this Friday, February 9th.
You will have some time to work on that story in class today -- we'll do a little writer's maker workshop to generate ideas build out possible structures for your stories.
Most importantly today! We are going on a WonderWalk, an exploration of the campus looking for tension points, problem spots, and doing some on the fly empathy interviews so we might better understand the needs of our campus. This is going to lay the ground work for our first major design challenge: How might we improve the Mt. Blue Campus experience? (That HMW is wayyyyy too broad -- hence why we need to WonderWalk and see how we might narrow it down AND design for a particular group of users.)
We will start as whole group and then break into smaller teams, hunt things down, take pictures, video and more. Wednesday, we will unpack our walks -- see what trends exist.
During your WonderWalk, your team must do the following.
1. Create a map that tracks your movements and identifies the locations/spaces/environments on campus where you went hunting.
2. Take photos and/or video of evidence of the problems you encounter.
3. Record at least one rapid empathy interview (audio is fine, video would be great) with a member of the campus community who is facing a particular challenge.
4. Brainstorm a list of How Might We . . .? questions inspired by your walk. The more the better, so I'm looking for at least ten from your group. Don't worry about how good they are -- focus more on the generation.
Wednesday, we'll also experience the beauty that is "Yes/And," the importance of adding more and more ideas, validating contributions of others, and solving by growing rather than correcting and negating (no/but).
FOR FRIDAY: Story of a Design. The RUBRIC IS COMING! I SWEAR! (Today! It might even be here before you know it! The creative constraints were here.
FIRST MAJOR WRITING ASSESSMENT
After the debrief, we will assign your first major writing assessment: A Design Story of Empathy. Storytelling is a
Creative Constraints and Expectation.
Prompt: Tell the story of an individual using empathy to solve a problem.
Show the conflicts this individual faces in the problem.
Demonstrate the extent to which you understand empathy as a tool for meaningful problem solving.
The story may be a piece of fiction of any genre or creative non-fiction about you or someone you know. The goal is to tell a great story.
Use one or more of the following storytelling elements/devices to enhance your piece
- Dialogue
- Point of View
- Symbolism
1st Submission Draft for Feedback: Due FRIDAY, FEB 9.
