strongertogetherwithbass

[strongertogetherwithbass]

References

Brown, T., & Wyatt, J. (2010). Design Thinking for Social Innovation. In Stanford Social Innovation Review (pp. 30-35). Standford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved from https://www.dschool.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/design_thinking_for_social_innovation_-_ssir.pdf

Esposito, E. (2018, October 22). 4 Types of research methods all designers should know. Retrieved from invision: https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/research-methods-designers/

Fedkin, M. (n.d.). 1.3 Principles of Sustainable Design. Retrieved from PennState: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/eme807/node/687

Kelley, T. (2011, June 25). Field Observations with Fresh Eyes. Entrepreneurship.org. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvkivmyKgEA

Papanek, V. (n.d.). Do-It-Yourself Murder. In V. Papanek, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (pp. 65-95). Bantam Books. Retrieved from https://www.kth.se/social/files/5429500af2765443fe7a1398/do_it_yourself_murder.pdf

Thomas, P. (2016, April 10). "What's the difference between Design Thinking and Making". Retrieved from The Medium: https://medium.com/@parkerthomas/what-s-the-difference-between-design-thinking-and-making-614cb089bc5e

Wahl, D. C. (2017, April 29). Facing Complexity: Wicked Design Problems. Retrieved from The Medium: https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/facing-complexity-wicked-design-problems-ee8c71618966

Westaway, C. G. (2019, November 20). Turn Frustrations Into Delight: The Empathetic Design Method. Newcastle: TEDx Talks. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKCVJpWd_8g

[strongertogetherwithbass]

Implementation - I

Two readings I'll state before going into this is "Principles of Sustainable Design" showed me the importance of looking around your environment for ways to improve design features, and "Field Observations with Fresh Eyes" which taught me that there's always something to gain from observing what's around. They fit together Hand in Hand. _____________________________________________________________

We came up with several ideas for a prototype:

Creating a Video Game experience

Creating a Website to showcase our business

Creating a building plan to show the business setup

We ended up creating a fully fledged website which would be an entry point for people as well as showing a building plan built in Minecraft to better visualize what we had in mind.

When it came to a building plan we looked towards GVP Esports. When you saw the inside of the building it was open with computers and consoles not being separated much so we drew inspiration from that. GVP Esports was also the company we first looked at after thinking of this business. It's successful in its own rights but considering it's aim is E Sports it lacks the draw to more casual players as it feels like such a competitive zone.

We're hoping we can expand on this further in the future.

[strongertogetherwithbass]

Ideation - II

When researching and putting together a more solid idea for our project research is essential. "4 Types of Research Methods all Designers Should Know" outlines some of the research types we used. Primary Research is what we'll be referring to a lot of the time. We decided to run with the idea of teaching music via music creation systems in video games. With a few of our runner up games being Minecraft and Fortnite. There weren't any real life examples we could pull information from or look into since as far as we searched, something like this hasn't been done before. _____________________________________________________________ We presented the current idea to the class. Location would be at the Uni. Our Demographic would be mostly music students. Our purpose would be to try and connect students especially now that COVIDs over and try to reignite creativity in some students. We, of course, interviewed a people and put out surveys to see if there was any draw to this idea. A large percentage of people preferred if we conducted this face to face instead of having online sessions. Although the project was received relatively well there was feedback that made us think it was too narrow minded. Referring back to "Do-It-Yourself Murder" we felt as if we were too focused on purely music students and helping them reignite creativity. With an idea like this we thought we could expand it further. _____________________________________________________________ We took away the music education aspect. This is what was holding us back a lot of the time and if we wanted to reach a larger demographic of people and help in a different way we needed to get rid of Music or Games one of the other. Since games are a more popular way of reaching people in this day and age we went with that. We're now focused on the creation of a place in which people can meet others and reconnect within a gaming environment more comfortably. It's a place focused on recreating social connections rather than educating. This would result in the removal of session times as no one wants to game on a time slot. Thanks to "Turn Frustrations into Delight: The Empathic Design Method". The reason I state that is the main message which I perceived as "let's fix this painful point". Fixing something that users found unwanted.

Since we're straying further from the program idea of teaching music and instead focusing on games our location problem can also be removed and it opens expand-ability a little more since we can now open establishments without relying on different companies.

We also had to think about ways to keep the establishment running and the initial and perhaps future way to attract people to the establishment.

We plan to create a Gaming Tournament of sorts that hopes to reach out to both players and viewers of all skill levels to come and participate. The idea came from Games Done Quick (GDQ) and as such a large percentage of the profit will be donated to a charity focusing on helping people with mental problems (Loneliness, Isolation, Stress and Trauma, etc.).

At the end of it all I'm reminded Parker Thomas document on "What's the difference between Design Thinking and Making?". Design Thinking is a process of solving complex matters with no truly right answer where as making is the process of realizing that design. So I can only be reminded that there's still more that needs to be done.

[strongertogetherwithbass]

Inspiration - II

We've strayed away from the PCYC idea. It become less feasible as time went and the cons started to outweigh the pros.

An idea was brought up as we tried to explore different ways to utilize music. From the idea a couple popped up:

Teaching Music Through Videogame Music Creation Systems (e.g. Minecraft's Noteblock system)

Creating a space for people to reconnect and learn a bit on the side

This would create an area between the UN Goals for Education and Health.

[strongertogetherwithbass]

Ideation - I

We decided on the latter of the three ideas we came to; a place where people of all walks can come to learn or play music. A PCYC of Music is what we were looking at.

Of course, we came to some road blocks with this idea. Thinking back to "Facing Complexity: Wicked Design Problems" which focuses on how complex a problem can be and the interconnections of different situations and problems is something we should pay attention to when developing an Idea further.

This left us with a few different problems.

1. Location Although, this isn't a big problem we'd have to think of where a location like this could be located. We could partner with PCYC but considering we have to think of global expansion it decreases our range to Australia

2. Attraction How would this attract people? We had to look into similar things around Australia that both worked and didn't. Most of the time it didn't work. Things were mildly successful but not big. This was due to factors like location not being accessible.

3. Education We mentioned we wanted to give an education to kids or people who wanted to practice and learn music but for some reason couldn't. However a point was brought up that schools do offer similar things in education. Although only a few schools offer actual tutoring of an instrument they still teach music to a degree for free. Which takes away more from the draw of this project.

Back to the drawing board.

[strongertogetherwithbass]

Inspiration - I

The first thing I should be bringing to your attention is that this will be structured more around a broader version of the IDEO Steps we've been working around. I read about this way of looking at it in "Design Thinking for Social Innovation" by Tim Brown & Jocelyn Wyatt.

In the review they state that:

"The design thinking process is best thought of as a system of overlapping spaces rather than a sequence of orderly steps. There are three spaces to keep in mind: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. Think of inspiration as the problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solutions; ideation as the process of generating, developing, and testing ideas; and implementation as the path that leads from the project stage into people’s lives." ~ [Brown Wyatt, 2010]

So that's what I'll be focusing on; the Three overlapping areas Inspiration, Ideation, and Implementation.

As the group consists of mostly Music students we of course wanted to strive for something under that's within Music and tried looking at faults within there. Trying to think of something within music that adheres to one of the 17 goals.

We're looking at the Education aspects of Music. Most of us remember how theoretically burdening High School music education was. Comparing it to University classes there's an inherent lack of creativity as most pieces we analyze are based around just that, analyzing it and writing about how it utilizes different musical techniques.

Our mainline problem was "Is Music Education Killing Creativity". From there it was just coming up with a few ideas:

Changing the Curriculum

Creating a program faced more around music creativity whilst teaching music

Gathering point for musicians and non-musicians to collaborate and learn

While coming up with these ideas we also wanted to think of ways within these ideas in which we could include the less fortunate. Those who aren't able to play with instruments, a place where people are able to meet new people, hang out, learn and maybe practice. We try to encompass as many areas into this as we can.

It's something that I felt was often brought up in "Design for the Real World" by Victor Papanek. The thought that design should look at encompassing and adhering to everyone regardless of circumstances. Although a difficult task that is almost impossibly hard to pull off perfectly it's still one I felt should be strived for.