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Prescription Bottles

Interesting video found from Vox Editor in Chief about prescription bottles: their history, an attempted change and its disappearance. 

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💭💭💭 Today was presentation day! This informal session was with 4 main tutors from the Product Design department who gave me some constructive criticism on my research so far and what my next steps are. I always found presentations useful in terms of getting my ideas in order and making sense of all the information I have gathered so far! Thanks to @_thomaa for the help over the weekend in preparation! ☺

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💭💭💭 I have used tracing paper to overlap two journeys: Clinical Trials and Cancer Patients. The first explores what a clinical trial is and the steps and phases within. The second considers a general person's experience of cancer. The overall journeys are divided in four: understand, detect, treat and post. With this map I wanted to see what differences and commonalities emerged, when the two overlapped and when they didn't. However I am wondering if mapping a person and a thing works? #mapping #journey #experience #clinicaltrial #research #thesis #topic #cancer #scienceandesign (at The Glasgow School of Art)

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💭💭💭 Update: this morning was a sort of 'external expert festival' in the studio as a number of staff from all areas of GSA design came in to chat to us about our final year project. Needless to say this led to some insightful discussions and tips on how to refine my research topic. Here's a photo of Braden getting some advice from Mafalda, an expert in seeing the larger picture and the best when it comes to simplifying and clarifying ideas! Though she is officially a PhD Research Student

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💭💭💭 taking a break from my thesis research today to plan our video for our Kickstarter that will raise money for the degree show in June! (at The Glasgow School of Art)

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Just finished watching this inspiring talk by Manu Prakash on TED. Crazy to note that this video is from 2012! 

Since then, a Kickstarter campaign was launched in 2016, and the Foldscope looks a little different (in a good way). Nevertheless, the Foldscope remains a “ultra-low cost microscope made from common materials such as paper. It is designed to be produced affordably, to be durable, and to give optical quality similar to conventional research microscopes.” 

The overall mission stated on the Foldscope website is to product affordable scientific tools that will make science more accessible. The aim is to overcome the price barrier that currently exists not only in scientific research and in developing countries, but also for the generally curious and excited. 

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From Instagram: Some of you may know, but my brother Thomas is currently doing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. Looking at the disciplines of design and science, I wondered how much our project processes have in common but also wanted for us to share our knowledge with each other and the general public. So Thomas and I will be using this instagram account jointly - my posts will have a 💭  and Thomas’ a 🔬!

go to @we.should.do.that.thing to check it out!

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Found this video on Helix Centre’s website by the Economist! So interesting to hear that the majority of hospital admissions could be avoided, and to see the different ways in which this high number can and is being lowered.

In addition, the comparison to India, the Narayana hospital, and their ‘frugal innovation’ approach is inspiring as Doctor Devi Shetty says “people living in developed countries think that for every problem there is a solution, but if the solution is not affordable, it is not a solution”.  

Helix is featured in this video as implementing its own ‘frugal innovations’ [11.02]. Here Helix’s main aim is to come up with cost effective innovations that easily implemented and are scalable.

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LDN Helix Centre

My second visit of the trip was to Helix Centre, which has previously caught my attention when Senior Designer Ivor Williams came to GSA to give a talk on designing for death. I also spoke about Helix in my TEDx audition!

We met Ivor and Rachel Kerr, who are both GSA graduates, the latter from Product Design and the first from Communication Design.

The Helix Center is a multidisciplinary team placed at the frontline of healthcare, inside St Mary’s Hospital. This location gives them unique access to patients, nurses, doctors to conduct research, test concepts, develop ideas and iterate in situ.

What was interesting about this visit was learning that the real issue for most of the problems across many different areas was culture: from our perception that resuscitation is successful 75% of the time, or that reporting an incident will get hospital staff in trouble.

But overall, the most amazing thing about Helix is its location and what it means for the role of design within the context of health and healthcare. Never have I dreamed of a more perfect setup. In addition, Helix has another line of work aside from their Lab that develops innovations within the Centre. Helix Methods “builds capacity for design-led innovation and aims to educate leaders and teams in the practice of human centered design in healthcare”. Rachel talked about a current Methods project that I will definitely have to ask her more about soon!

The visit at the Helix Centre complimented my past reading of More Human: Designing A World Where People Come First by Steve Hilton. The Health chapter raised many questions and paints a pressing picture of our current system. And I am not stating that design is the solution to the NHS, but seeing Helix’s past projects, it is undeniable that design can improve experiences within a hospital context.

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The nature of these contemporary problems is that they have no boundaries, include many elements and relationships, change over time and span across many organizations. Because of this, we can no longer solely rely on past methods to solve them, and Dorst argues that we must shift towards a "frame creation" approach... Think DIY tools and methods rather than a how-to manual 🤔💡🛠🖊🔲

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Just got this book from the library, it's part of a larger series of books by the MIT Press called Design Thinking, Design Theory. Enjoying it so far as it ties in with my topic of creating collaborative frameworks needed to 'deal with the new open, complex, dynamic, and networked problems' that Dorst addresses in the book!

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Found on the Open Utility blog and written by GSA graduate Alice Tyler

The Skill of Problem Solving

How can UX design be used to shape products and workplaces? Open Utility co-founder, and CPO, Alice Tyler gives her tips.

Keep reading

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LDN Open Utility

My first visit was to Open Utility, a small technology company which “works in collaboration with electricity retailers to deliver digital services in order to give their customers more choice and control”.

Co-founder and GSA graduate Alice Tyler gave us a quick run through of what they do at Open Utility. She also gave us an idea of where they might be headed and how they aim to democratize energy, and move towards a local and decentralized renewable energy model. 

Open Utility was an thought provoking first visit because they are providing these digital services not to the general public and everyday energy consumers, but to companies and businesses. Though this choice is based on law, it was interesting for me to consider how much falls under the term ‘user’ and ‘who is this for?’ question that is often asked.

More information about Open Utility can be found here as well as their blog.

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London Trip 15.02-17.02

Back in second year in Product Design at the Glasgow School of Art, my year went down to London to visit various design studios and companies. This trip allowed me to gain an understanding of what might be waiting for me at the end of my five-year course. Seen above is a photo of me at the Design Museum visiting the Hello, My Name is Paul Smith exhibition. 

As final year MeDes students, Zuzi, Hannah and I got the opportunity to tag along on this year’s trip, revisiting some studios but mainly discovering new ones!  

In the next posts, I will be talking about some of these studios and how inspiring they have been, not only in terms of my thesis research but also my design practice.

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Formulation Unit Tour .07

Overall I would like to thank the Formulation Unit, Kirsteen, Sue and Professor Halbert for allowing us the general public on this tour on World Cancer Day. 

Not only did this day open my eyes on the amazing work that is happening in Glasgow but also to the people that are working every day to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured. They range from a simple £10 donator, to the inspiring ambassadors such as Sue, to the behind the scenes organizers such as Kirsteen, and the knowledgeable research scientists at the Formulation Unit lead by Professor Halbert. 

I was impressed to see and hear how much the scientists at the Formulation are thinking and working for the final user of all of this research and work: the cancer patients. 

And as Kirsteen mentioned in her introduction, all of this still isn’t enough. Because for the moment, chances of being cured are 50/50, a coin toss. And as a designer, I cannot help but wonder: to what extent would a collaboration with a designer enable some of the research? I was particularly interested in the CRUK Formulation Unit because of its molecule to medicine approach and I also wonder how and when could design contribute in this journey? 

After this inspiring day I encourage you to go to cruk.org/glasgow to see how you can get involved and to read some of the inspiring stories there. 

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Formulation Unit Tour .06

The end of our tour was all about the importance of sterility and how we as humans are what bring in the most contamination into the labs. 

Once again I volunteered to put my very dirty hands underneath a UV light to show how unfit I was to enter a sterile environment. The photo above is actually of my hands after I washed them twice, and even then you can see bacteria around my finger nails and wrists which I did not clean well. 

But sterility in this case isn’t just about washing your hands twice, it is a series of several layered actions which ensure that there is no contamination. It is something that is often taken for granted, however when dealing with medicine and drugs for vulnerable patients, contamination could lead to serious repercussions.  

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Formulation Unit Tour .05

The Formulation Unit buys certified capsules and then fills them individually with this very noisy machine. Each capsule is opened, filled with a liquid, and then sealed with a small amount of alcohol that is then let to cure. After this process, the capsules are put into their wrappers by yet another machine that is semi automated. The majority of this production work is done by people and, needless to say, is laborious. In addition, a full batch is usually done in a day to ensure the same conditions for the capsules.