Ideation Phase
With hours and hours of interviews and market research, our project turns the focus to action in the ideation phase(※1). It's time to get to work on our central question: how can wearable technology improve the health routines of people?
On the heels of a spirited research phase, they began seeking direction for their newly-gleaned insights (※2) by identifying points of inspiration to inform design decisions and continue to spur discussion.
※1 Ideation - The idea generation process based on the hypothesis that designer found out in a research phase. The process of forming product concept, function, and shape of products.
※2 Insight - An unrecognized fundamental human desire or value that results in seeing consumers from a fresh perspective.
From Insights to Concept
Armed with insights spanning from negative associations with medication to the human desire to interact with strangers to technology's ability to produce therapeutic stimuli, our teams worked to develop solutions that keep their audience's needs front and center.
One of the teams personalized their approach by involving friends and family members who manage varying degrees of hypertension in their interviews, from whom they learned that nearly half the people diagnosed with hypertension aren't managing it properly. While the other went a different route, reading both fiction and non-fiction in their research on the way to forming strong ideas about social capital that motivated them to "design a device that doesn't require its users to be attached to a smartphone app."
To encourage this people-first perspective, Professor Kiersten Nash says she "never refers to users as 'users' in order to emphasize their agency in the design process."
Student conduct design and concept development in parallel
Feasibility analysis
In parallel with concept development, students conduct prototyping for feasibility analysis of technology. They research which technology suite their concept and create mock-up.
Students testing various sensors
For more about the teams' adaptation of technologies and efforts to employ new tools just within reach of the horizon, continue on to part four of this series.
