Design and Planning
Instructions:-
Design and Planning
Design Process & Methods Semester 1,
This document contains the detailed assessment guidelines for DECO1006 Design Thinking. It is the official version of the assessment, describing the aims, tasks and deliverables for each assessment item, together with expected workload, due dates, deliverables, submission instructions, assessment criteria and accompanying grade descriptions for standards-based assessment. Clarifications to the assessment will be posted on the eLearning website during semester.
** Please note you are required to complete and submit all assessment items in this unit, regardless of their worth and contribution to your final mark. Failing to submit any number of those assessment items results in absent/fail mark for the unit.
Project brief
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning
Assessments 1 – 3 are based on the following design task:
For students at Sydney University the campus is the location where they spend many of their waking hours; getting from place to place and attending classes, but also relaxing with friends. How can the campus lend itself more to these different kinds of purposes, and become a multi-functional urban environment?
Through a combination of physical and digital interventions, repurpose the existing Sydney University campus environment to improve the experience of one of the following:
1. Wayfinding and transportation: Allow people to seamlessly navigate to different public transportation stops around the campus (bus, train) and successfully plan their journeys..
Integrated bus stop wayfinding
Image source: https://www.mtlblog.com/montreals-stm-bus- shelters-get-all-new-touch-screens Urban gaming
Image source: http://www.wooloo.org/open-call/entry/318273
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning
Assessment 1: Research Report
The primary aim of this assessment is to develop your understanding of the “pre-design” design stages: understanding the problem, finding needs, and setting requirements. Each student will apply the techniques of user research and contextual inquiry, in response to one of the two design briefs.
Context analysis and mapping of the chosen site and human activities will be undertaken and represented in the form of diagrams, to capture existing practices of people, their movements and interactions. A set of personas will be created to capture the user needs identified in the research.
Students will be working in groups of 2 or 3, on the same selected site (of their choice). Even though students will be working in groups for purposes of collecting research data, the final deliverables for this assessment should be submitted individually.
TASKS
The activities that you are required to undertake for this assignment can be broken down into the following approximate steps:
1. Conduct user research to understand the potential stakeholders/users’ perspectives on the problem area outlined in the design brief.
Perform contextual inquiry: Plan and conduct interviews and/or questionnaires with potential users. Make sure these interviews/questionnaires gather the kind of information that you want to know about your users.
Perform context analysis: Observe the behaviour of users in-situ during different times of the day/week. Document your observations through a photo diary, annotated site map, diagrams and notes.
2. Organize and make sense of the data. Use affinity diagramming to help you analyse the data from the interviews/questionnaires and site observations. Use concept maps or other diagrams to help identify key concepts and themes in your data.
3. Identify potential latent and explicit needs based upon your inquiry with users. From the user research, translate the findings/insights into a list of user needs and issues. Create a set of goal-directed personas that express these needs and issues, and present this information expressively and visually.
4. Research Report. Write up your work and produce consisting a visual report with a separate appendix. FORMAT:
The main part of the research should be presented in the form of a visual report. This is a set of annotated slides created in Powerpoint or Keynote (or InDesign if you can already use it). The intent is to concisely convey, through well-presented text and visuals, the method and conclusions of your research. This report should structured using the following sections:
• Problem definition: A brief introduction to the chosen design brief/problem and site
• Research methods: A description of the chosen user research methods, and amount of participants
• Research results: Summary and discussion of user research results and key findings/insights including:
o •Context analysis: observations and maps of people’s behaviour in-situ for your selected site.
o •Contextual inquiry: summary of results and findings from interview/questionnaire data
o •Discuss any insights and opportunities arising from your observations that you wish to explore in the
next assignment, related to ideas for design concepts. (Do not generate concepts/solutions yet.)
• Personas: Needs and issues identification
•At least two distinct goal-directed personas
•Discussion of key needs, issues and concerns for potential users
• References: A properly formatted bibliography citing any references used in your research. Make use you use one specific referencing style consistently throughout your text and list them properly within that system
Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning
at the end of your document. We recommend using Harvard style, using APA (American Psychological Association) referencing guidelines. Examples and guidelines can be found on http://www.citethisforme.com/guides/apa or http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm .
You are also expected to submit an appendix. The appendix is where you can put evidence of the research that you have done. This could include interview questions, transcripts from your interviews, photographs of participants, questionnaire examples, tabulated results, and photos of your affinity diagram. In the Appendix there is less focus on visual presentation, this can be a more traditional text-based document.
SUBMISSION:
All written reports are submitted via Turnitin, additional instructions will be provided on the eLearning site. Ensure your work is saved as a pdf, and is identifiable by including your unikey in the footer of the document. Include page numbers.
Assessment criteria:
The assignment will be assessed according to the following criteria:
• Relevance and quality in response to brief
• Depth and richness of contextual inquiry
• Clear and detailed context analysis
• Adequate identification and expression of (explicit/tacit) user needs
• Engaging personas and adequate representation of the range and diversity of target users
• Clear, well structured and written report, with a designerly approach to visual presentation
These should be read in conjunction with the grade descriptors (standards) below.
Grade Descriptors:
The following grade descriptors provide an indication of how you can achieve the graded levels of performance for standards-based assessment.
Grade Description
HD 85-100 Highly detailed and crafted interviews/questionnaires and observations leading to new insights. Site observations of user behaviour demonstrate an ability to document multiple perspectives. Latent or surprising needs identified and well supported by contextual inquiry; highly authentic personas capture full range of potential users; socially and culturally meaningful needs. Interesting and unexpected insights backed up by other sources of information and identification of novel opportunities for design informed by existing literature/sources. Professional quality of visual presentation. Annotated slides effectively, concisely and powerfully convey the essence of the research conducted, with detailed and substantial evidence compiled in the Appendix.
D 75-84 Interviews/questionnaires and observations revealed authentic situations and tasks that are useful in developing new design concepts. Site observations of user behaviour reveal careful observational attention of researcher. New needs identified which demonstrate insight; authentic personas capture full range of potential users. Interesting and unexpected insights and identification of novel opportunities for design. Annotated slides effectively and concisely convey the essence of the research conducted, with detailed evidence compiled in the Appendix. Visual communication of work enables reader to focus on the key concepts and significant findings.
C 65-74 Interviews/questionnaires and observations show competency in understanding current practices and uncovering user needs. Some new needs identified but were fairly obvious; good personas but they lack depth of description or authentic goals; incomplete or overlapping set of personas. Some useful insights and identification of opportunities for design. Good presentation, but visual communication of work sometimes detracts from key messages. Some poor content allocation between annotated slides and Appendix, making it difficult at times to follow the development of the research and findings.
P 50-64 Interviews/questionnaires and observations are vague, obvious, and highly scripted with no useful data gathered. Site observations of user behaviour are superficial. Needs identified but were very obvious; personas obvious or trivial. Trivial insights and opportunities. Satisfactory presentation, but lacking strong visual communication skills. Poor content allocation between annotated slides and Appendix. Appendix contains incomplete or minimal evidence of user and background research.
F 0-49 No substantive inquiry reported. No needs, insights or opportunities identified. Poor visual communication and presentation of work such that it detracts from the comprehensibility and validity of the research. Missing items/deliverables.
photos should be in this powerpoint