Hello there. As I said in the previous blog post the design process and the Empathize, Define and Ideate phases, the design thinking process is healthier and more efficient way to find a solution to any problem, big or small. These last two parts of the phase, the Prototype and Test phases, are steps that are made to make your solution come to life and to make sure it works. Prototype: Our prototyping phase went two very different ways; one towards reducing morality rates from accidents, and making biking more appealing in Napa. Our first prototype was an innovation of a bike helmet. One that had pressure pads on the inside, to measure the g-forces inflicted on the wearer's head. If the g-force is high enough to cause damage to the head or cause an injury, it will signal to a 9-1-1 dispatch. There are motion sensors to tell if you are unconscious and a GPS so the paramedics would be able to reach you. I'll explain why that didn't work in the test phase. The second prototype was building more roadway for both the Napa River Trail and the Napa Valley Bike Trail. We were designing routes to connect both to each other, and connect those to the Oxbow Commons and the trail further downstream. The River Trail will continue to run along the river, and run through the Oxbow Preserve. It will connect to the Oxbow Commons through a bridge, then continue down to the Napa Valley Bike Trail. For The Bike Trail, it will continue to run beside the train tracks and go through the Oxbow Commons. Then, it will connect to the River Trail and the separate Bike Trail. We will also paint murals further uptown, in between California Blvd. and Pueblo St. To make the trails seem even more appealing to the community, we will run lights along both of the trails, so it will be lit at night. Test: For the helmet, there were a couple of things that got in the way; the how, and how it related to the project. We weren't technologically savvy enough to be able to create a helmet like that, and the helmet's design didn't math up with our problem statement. Our problem statement was to make biking safer and more comfortable, while the helmet was made to prevent fatalities and get paramedics to the sight faster. That's why we had to scratch that idea. The trail connector, however, we will be sticking with. It seems plausible, but there are a couple of constraints that will stop us from doing it. Constraint 1: Cost. It will be very expensive not only to make the trails with asphalt, which is relatively cheap, but also with hiring artists and putting up lights along the trail. Constraint 2: Permission. The River Trail runs along the banks of the river and in between private property. Further downstream, people have purchased land that goes all the way up to the banks of the river. We would need to sign contracts with everyone who owns land in the path stating that they would give up part of their land to help build this. Some people might agree, but some will not.
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The design process is a very creative and extremely good way to come up with solutions for a problem that you're facing, whether it's for an assignment or just solving a problem. There are 5 main steps to the design process are; Empathy, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Empathizing is getting to know the user better, and putting yourself in their shoes to better understand what the problem is. Defining is understanding the problem, then forming questions to help your research. And ideating is coming up with ideas based on the user's needs and the research you found. I'm only going to talk about Empathy, Define, and Ideate. As you can tell by the title, there will be a second part about the prototyping and testing. Empathy: As I said in the beginning, empathy is putting yourself in someone else's shoes, trying to understand what the problem is and what the user needs from the prototype. I learned how to feel how others feel, using interviews and empathy maps to get the most valuable information. I used a note catcher to get every piece of information that our interviewee said. Through that, I was able to see what the organization was trying to do, how they were doing it, and what got in their way. I think the hardest part of the Empathy stage was filling out the empathy map. It was split up into four different categories; Say, Do, Feel, Think. The Say and Do were easier to fill out, because all I had to do was look at her to see what body movements she made, and listen to what she was saying. the harder parts were the Think and Feel, because we had to interpret the information we got from the interview and turn that into emotions and thoughts that she had. Define:
The define process was one of the shorter processes, where we figured out what the problem was after getting the empathy stage done. Each group had to come up with a problem statement, a sentence that defined what needed to be done in the project. The way my team did was we looked through the interviewer notes and found phrases and ideas that were repeated multiple times. This is the problem statement we came up with; "The Napa Valley Bike Coalition needs to find a way to make biking safer, because conditions and the environment can affect a biker's comfort and experience." Ideate: When we first started the ideate phase, we already had ideas forming in our minds after we made the problem statement. We spent about 10 minutes writing every idea that came to our head, no matter how crazy or impossible it was. After that, we had a vote. We voted on the ideas that we wrote down based on which were more feasible, affordable, and effective. Once we narrowed them down to about 5 ideas, we different process to help expand our thinking process. We made constraints based on our research and interview notes, and tried to make changes to those ideas to conform to those constraints. One of those constraints was making a board game. We made a Jumanji-style board game, but instead of giving you riddles about jungle creatures, it gave you tips on the rules of the road, and different ways you can be safer on it. Another constraint was making a solution to the problem from a different time period. We set in the 1820's, and since there were no cars around, bike safety wasn't a problem. Bikes were just invented, so they were the new mode of transportation. We could've made a solution to help bikers from getting trampled by horse-drawn carriages, but I don't think that would've helped. |