PROJECT 3CO-CREATION TOOLKITDESIGN RESEARCH METHODS H. HAMOUDA

JAMIE YANG, PETER SHENG, SHUFEI SHANG

In modern lifestyles, we often buy food products and ingredients from the supermarket. And because of the fierce competition between the ever-increasing amount of brands, different packaging methods gets introduced into the products we buy everyday. Overpackaging was a major issue that came with the many packaging methods, and in order to understand the public attitude toward this issue, we are doing this survey to collect the data of how the consumer think of over packaging in their daily life and try to use semantic differential methods to measure their attitudes towards the issue. Also, we are interested to know how our toolkit activities have effects on our customers.

CONTEXT:

BACKGROUND RESEARCH :For the background research we adressess marketing and consumer issues to address communication goals.And our goal is to generate solutions by exploring, explaining, and expanding on ideas.Therefore, we also consider issues related to sustainability, including environmental, social, and economic aspects of the overpackaging design.We go to supermarket and stores to figure out the average of overpackaging products. We list the overpackaing products into our activities in the toolkit.

SECONDARY RESEARCH:To increase the participant's understanding of current packaging practices and method that has been done to reduce wasteful packaging. We have done extentives online and marketing research regarding this issue of packaging design.

TARGET PARTICIPANTS.: Package designer, communication designer, developer, and people who have the need to build prototypePhase of the design process we are going to the use co-design toolkits:Development and prototyping phase

PRIMARY GOAL OF THE TOOLKIT: - to develop a more effective way of developing prototyping- knowing the needs of the user group through prototyping- gain the knowledge of the material used and method during prototyping phase- focus on methods that will increase the speed of generative results

FINAL GOAL: Raise awareness of environmental impact of garbage through packaging design

INTRODUCTION:

INGREDIENTS

- Questionnaire- Instruction book - to guide users and provide a scenario for the user to prototype- Spreadsheet - to document the material they used while using the toolkit - Basic stationeries (scissors, paper, glue, double side tape, Post It Notes)- Sample of wasteful / unwasteful packaging

TOOLKIT:

SESSION SCRIPT:

Time Activity Descriptions

3 min Questionnaire Answer the questionnaire before starting the toolkit. Read the question carefully and answer it as clear as possible.

2 min Examining Samples Examine current samples & write down elements on Post It Notes on each sample

1 min Brainstorm Brainstorm on what aspect to redesign from all of the sample product

1 min Feedbacks Discussion with the group memeber about packaging design and have feedbacks from each other about what do you think changes before/ after using the toolkit

Answer the questionnaire before starting the toolkit. Read the question carefully and answer it as clear as possible. Time: 3 min

ACTIVITY ONE: THE QUESTIONNAIRE(DO BEFORE THE SESSION)

ACTIVITY ONE: THE QUESTIONNAIRE

ACTIVITY TWO: EXAMINE CURRENT SAMPLES

PART ONE:Examine current samples & write down elements on Post It Notes on each sample(examine what you l ike, what you disl ike on SEPARATE CATEGORIES)

Time: 3 min

ACTIVITY TWO: EXAMINE CURRENT SAMPLESPART TWOSustainable packaging Methods1 Minimal packaging Technique• minimal packaging encourages minimal use of materialso reveals the products to its true value, while preventing unnecessary use of packaging to reduce waste

ACTIVITY TWO: EXAMINE CURRENT SAMPLES

2 Eco-friendly Materials (e.x. Bio-degradable / Edible / Recycled)• Using recycled materials minimizes rate of excavation of new materials• bio-degradable materials are less harmful to the environment

ACTIVITY TWO: EXAMINE CURRENT SAMPLES

3 Compact Spacing• compact packaging stabilizes the products inside• minimizes impact during transport• reduces material use

ACTIVITY TWO: EXAMINE CURRENT SAMPLES

4 Design for reusability• design for reusability allows for multiple use, reducing the need to manufacture more packaging• reduces amount of waste production

ACTIVITY TWO: EXAMINE CURRENT SAMPLES

5 Local Resource Packaging• using locally available resources reduces possibilities of pollutiono avoid industrialized materials whenever possible• often lower cost than buying chemical / industrial productions• readily available locally rather than waiting orders from manufacturers

ACTIVITY TWO: EXAMINE CURRENT SAMPLES

6 Design for functionality (multi-purpose)• doing more tasks, while using less materials• reduces material waste

ACTIVITY THREE: BRAINSTORM

Brainstorm on what aspect to redesign from all of the sample productTime: 2 min

ACTIVITY FOUR: DISCUSSION & FEEDBACK

Discussion with the group memeber about packaging design and have feedbacks from each other about what do you think changes before/ after using the toolkitTime: 1 min

PILOT TESTING: FEEDBACKSQUESTIONNAIRE:When Pilot-testing the questonnaires, Participants A felt confused about question 1, “how many” products is too rough, need to specify the products kind.So we decided to narrow down our range to one kind, the food product.

Participants B said that some food may not have packagesPeter explain that it depends on what you buy.

Participants B also advised that we can have a range of diverse question and specific questions.

EXAMING SAMPLES:First is sample display part, we showed the pocky sample packages to them Then we let them to label the sticky notes onto the sample packages (chocolate and macha pocky)We let them to rank the label, from which they think is more important to which not.Participant B said she didn’t care about sustainablity. We discussed several kinds of food packages, cheetos, porks, also the pocky packages. Some food is easy to break apart, and the two participants both think the pocky package is fine.

FEEDBACKS/ ADJUSTION:It came to the core parts of our toolkit, which is users redesign food packages. In this part we met several problems.The first one is, participants A said it is difficult to let common customers to redesign the packages, he also thought that package-design is designers’ job, common customers have no responsibility and ability to design a package.The two participants also advised that if we want to educate users, we should show some photos or videos to users to see how wasteful it is instead of let users to think how to design it. Finally, the question came out: do we still need to let users to redesign the sample package? and if we should add an interview part after the co-creation design toolkit part.

PILOT TESTING: FEEDBACKS

WHYThis toolkit was created based on a project from redesigning packaging. And our main goal is to educate the public the enviromeantal impact of wastful packaging and raise the awarness of how it effected our enviroment.

SAYQuestionnaireDiscussion

MAKEBrainstorm

DOexamine the sample

PATH OF EXPRESSIONwe have step one and two of the path of expression in our co-creation toolkit. We first gather our data from our participant by letting them do the questionnaire. Than we used step two "recalling memeories" of the participant by letting them examine the samples we provided.

WHY

DISCUSSION & FEEDBACKThis activity is to exchange feedbacks form the participant and to see if they change their thoughts about wasteful packaging and if they have different answers for the questionnaire after they used the toolkit.

BRAINSTORM The goal of brainstorming is to let the participant organize the information they had learn from examing the samples in the tololkit and compare it with their daily life experiance of packaging design. This actitiy can let them gain understanding of how wastful packaging herm the enviroment.

EXAMINE CURRENT SAMPLESIn order for the participants to gain an understanding of current packaging practices, we have selected a range of product samples that embodies the notion of over-packaging, as part of the plan to update the participants on their understanding of wasteful packaging that exists within local supermarkets.

QUESTIONNAIREThe purpose of the survey is to gain an understanding of the general public’s level of awareness in regards to wasteful packaging that commonly exists within the market today.

CONCLUSION

In modern lifestyles, we often buy food products and ingredients from the supermarket with packaging, but we dont really see the lifecycle behind the products we bought and how it would effect our enviorment. By using this toolkit it educated the participant of how the packaging stand in our daily life and how packaging effect the enviorment.

ADDRESS ACTIVITY TWO

Considerations has been made to implement the prototyping activity to further improve the "memory accessing" of the participants. However during the pilot testing phase, the test participants' thoughts on the prototyping activity was rather too intimidating for them, and that they think an outsider participant might prefer factual information to increase knowledge and understanding rather than telling non-designer participants to design a specific thing, as multiple participants think the design aspect should belong to designers only.

WORKS CITEDSanders, Elizabeth B.-N., and Pieter Jan Stappers. Convivial Toolbox: Generative Research for the Front End of Design. Amsterdam: BIS, 2012. Print.

PROCESS:https://www.dropbox.com/s/lsspfxlynu7gzcc/Summer-2016-Design-Research-Project-3-Design-Toolkit-7.docx?dl=0