My first blog update! Every time there’s a deadline in the (somewhat) far future, I tell myself that it’ll come much sooner than expected and yet somehow it still arrives even sooner than that. The last three weeks feel like they went by so quickly but if I think about the progress I’ve made, three weeks sounds about right. If I could use one word to describe what I’ve been up to it would be: “lotsandlotsoflearning”. No, but really, I’ve spent so much time reading, listening and Googling. I’m in the Local Communities stream and I’ve made it my mission for the past few weeks to really understand the brief and carefully narrow down the design challenge. The design challenge (How Might We question) I frame must be related to local communities (obviously) and Food and Plant Research (the stream partner). As soon as I read the stream brief I clocked the fact that I was going to have to do a lot of my own research because it was very broad brief and I didn’t have a lot of pre-existing knowledge to help get me started. My goal for the first few weeks was to understand the different design challenges related to local communities and food/plants, and how I could frame a realistic design challenge for a 12-week project. As much as I would like to, I don’t think I could solve something like world hunger in 12 weeks.

Honestly, it was pretty hard at first. A lot of my time was spent like this:

Staring into space thinking about my how might we question. I knew I wanted to do something related to food sovereignty because I knew how beneficial it was to building resilience in local communities (more healthy, economically and environmentally sustainably produced, culturally appropriate, and accessible foods). What was a hard pill for me to swallow was that all the research I did told me that I can’t solve it by myself, much less in 12 weeks. But fear not, that did not keep me down for long. Something I’ve learnt about being a designer in the past few years is that being a designer often means being a facilitator. Meaning, a lot of the time my role is not to "solve" the problem, but to help and empower the users, stakeholders and humans at the centre of the challenge solve it. I can’t remember where I saw it but I once read that human-centered designers believe that the users hold the key to “solving” the design challenge. This really resonated with me and I thought about how my role as a facilitator could apply to advancing food sovereignty in local communities. All of the research I did pointed towards the need for collective action amongst different stakeholders such as public institutions, iwi and businesses. But, a lot of my research also noted the fact that these stakeholders have trouble collaborating which in turn means that no progress is made. So, then…

How might we facilitate co-design amongst key community stakeholders to advance food sovereignty in Aotearoa New Zealand?

This was a real eureka moment for me and allowed me to frame the design challenge in an impactful but still feasible way. So, that’s where I’m currently at.

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Tools and technologies and their strengths and weaknesses

The design methodology I have picked is IDEO’s human-centred design methodology from their Field Guide to Human-Centred Design. Here’s a screenshot from my Miro board of the IDEO methodology mapped to the project timeline:

The human-centredness of this methodology and its tools are hugely beneficial for helping me address my design challenge. Each tool is also carefully explained and laid out. It is also a tried and true methodology with case studies to support its impact.

Many of the tools rely on communication and interaction with the end users. As much as I would love to do so, I can’t because of the need for ethics approval. This creates gaps in the methodology that I will have to make up for with things like extra secondary research. Here’s a list of the tools I will and won’t be using:

Although I’m still in the early stages of the design process and am far from finalising a concept, a few technologies I’m considering using are:

• 3D modelling/printing (because I have experience with it)

• Adobe Creative Cloud (for impactful branding and aesthetic appeal)

• AR/VR (very useful for adding interactivity to designs)

• A projector (random potential idea I had about protecting images onto a table)

• Printing

A weakness of these technologies is that they’re all pretty time-consuming especially if I try to make something high fidelity. 3D/paper printing will also create waste.

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Current Challenges

My current/next challenge is brainstorming and iterating ideas – the fun stuff! But, I’ll have to do even more research on the topic of food sovereignty and also look into what kinds of tools, designs and experiences facilitate collaboration and co-design. I’m anticipating even more learning and reading in the next couple of weeks. I also expect to be using my problem-solving and critical-thinking skills to bring everything together. I also need to conduct research on potential tools and technologies I want to use to prototype. As I go through this process, I need to remain diligent and open-minded. I will also utilise brainstorming and ideation tools IDEO provides in their field guide. I’ll also make the most of my connections in class by talking to Ayla, the other stream leaders, the other design lecturers, my peers and the design technicians.

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What part of the project has made me smile/happy?

I’m happy to be taking a design paper again. I was only taking law papers last semester because I had finished all my design electives and done DES 300 the year before. It was pretty stressful having a semester full of law and it sucked not being able to shift my attention to design when I was getting sick of law. It is also so great to see my design friends and classmates again. It’s our last semester together and I really want to cherish it.

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What part of the project has made me sad?

When I was in first year, I was really optimistic about creating something absolutely revolutionary for my capstone project that would shake the world. Obviously, in hindsight, this was a naïve thought given the amount of time, skill and resources I have. But, it is always a little sad to realise your dreams are unrealistic and overly ambitious. I’m still excited to create something awesome, but I’ll be thinking more realistically and setting achievable goals. I can leave the revolutionary stuff for later on in my career!

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P.S If this font + background colour combo is too hard to read please let me know! I am all about designing for and listening to the user 

Bonus pictures of my Miro board as a WIP snapshot and what my desk looks like while I work on my board (and listen to Animal Crossing music)

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