Sustainability Jam Session
1. Which methods are appropriate when designing for sustainability?
2. How can we learn to design for sustainability?
Participants organized themselves into 4 teams, and spent 2 hours trying different methods to solve the problem. While these methods overlapped among teams, each team’s use of them differed as they explored the many facets of sustainability. Given the limited trial, every method was helpful and each brought something unique to the discussion.
We avoided defining sustainability, and instead launched into the research. Each team was able to set their own objectives and came back with unique solutions. In essence we started at the beginning, and each team re-framed the challenge on their own. In the end, each team unearthed different principles for sustainable packaging. Together these principles form an even more powerful base from which to build new concepts.
Team 1
Result:
A Mart driven initiative split into two components: an integrated product for those dining in and a reusable lunch box for those on the go.
Methods:
- Observational Research
- Baskinger Sheet Storyboards (From Anijo)
- MAYA Design Sticky Method
- Paper Prototyping
- Franken-Prototype
- Life Cycle Diagramming
- User Journey
Integrate the packaging with the cooking process.
Make reusable packaging portable, via affordances for carrying and connecting different containers.
Team 2
Result:
An independent automated service marketed towards eateries to replace their packaging systems with a reusable container.
Methods:
- Precursors
- Diagramming Behaviors and Interactions
- Field Observations
Replace disposable packaging with reusable packaging.
Make returning the container financially lucrative for anyone who finds it.
Team 3
Result:
A Merchandise Mart driven initiative to replace existing napkins and utensils with a uniform selection of biodegradable substitutes for all vendors.
Methods:
- Observational Research
- Stakeholder Interviews
- System / Flow Diagram
- Developed an ad-hoc framework. (Reduce: Resources, Confusion, Waste, Costs)
- AEIOU
Make it cheaper. (Managers will adopt the new solution if it is cheaper than the old one.)
Remove the onus for sorting waste from the consumer.
Team 4
Results:
An external automated service to replace disposable cups with durable community cups.
Methods:
- Value Web
- Stakeholder Interviews
- User Journey
- Precursors in other markets
- Behavioral Prototype
- Storytelling Demo
Make the cleaning process visible.
Make returning the cups convenient.
Which methods are appropriate when designing for sustainability?
Despite the limited nature of this experiment, we learned our tools are useful when creating sustainable solutions that address issues of use, behavior, and interaction. There is no need for us to discard our methods in search of new sustainability related ones. Sustainability requires systemic thinking, and ID methods are known for building understanding and designing systems. While additional knowledge is always a plus, it is also clear that using ID methods for understanding we were able to generate knowledge in context; displacing the need for domain knowledge. I really enjoyed watching the teams develop points of view on discrete aspects of the problem, leading to concrete concepts.
How can we learn to design for sustainability?
It is clear that using hands-on workshops we can rapidly test ideas and methods. We struggled to try everything in the allotted time and it was remarkable the progress made. I personally look forward to trying this format again for more than 2 hours. Perhaps with the next round we will be able to return to the field with prototypes to test them in context. In true Bauhaus tradition, this pilot showed that learning through experience works.
But don’t take my word for it, try it out for yourself.
As Daniel Erwin said, “Sustainable design should be part of everything that we do everyday, so to think of it as something different or separate is not the right way.”
NICE TO MEET YOU GEOFF SUVALKO
Where are you from?
The beach. Ruakaka, Northland, about 2 hours north of the city of Auckland
How did you end up at ID? Where were you before?
For the last 10 years I’ve run my own design firm in New Zealand and Australia. Over the last 4 years I got involved with one client in particular - Air New Zealand, in product and service innovation. It was within that project I worked alongside Ideo and got introduced to human centered design.
Tell us quickly about a project that you’re working on now that you’re really excited about.
A museum at home that I worked with before I came over and still work with while I’ve been at ID. I have been given the opportunity to help redesign the entire customer experience - and I love it.
What do you do in your spare time?
I love standing on the beach at dusk with not a soul around casting into the surf and waiting for something to bite. Generally i’m waiting a long time.
What would you do with 20 million dollars?
Develop an innovation design think tank downunder to address economic, social and evironmental progress. If I had the money, i’d do it tomorrow.
What super-power would you most like to have, and why?
Persuasion, because as designers that’s what we tend to spend so much of our time doing, persuading organisations that design can make a difference, and persuading them to pay for it!
What are the websites you could not live without?
Right now - Seeid! apart from that I sleep around.
Is there anything you would like to say to ID?
Apart from thanks for giving me a great year, I would suggest the more ‘real client’ project work amalgamated into the program the better.
Hello from Seattle!
ID and Microsoft have generously stepped forward to show their support for our third largest ID community and the many talented people that emerge from our program. If you will be in Seattle, stop in for some eating, drinking and design thinking. We welcome your design friends in the Seattle area as well, we just ask that they RSVP to get an accurate head count.
Who: Approximately 60 alumni, local companies/organizations
When: Friday, April 30th 6-9pm Where: Vessel - a lounge in downtown Seattle
RSVP: ABatchu@gmail.com or ABuhayar@gmail.com
Cheers! Amy & Andrew
To accompany this week’s scores, here’s a highlight video with some of the participants crushing their cans:) Watch till the end to see danimal’s beast-like can-crushing prowess!
What does Michael Beirut think of us?
Read his recent post on Design Observer where he talks about The Institute of Design and Innovation:
Michael Bierut
Innovation is the New Black
Last month I was invited by Patrick Whitney, director of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, to participate in a symposium on the “‘creative corporation’ and the adoption of design by business leaders.” Naturally, I said yes, quoting Lance, the drug dealer in Pulp Fiction, who, when asked by Vincent Vega what will happen after he gives Marcellus Wallace’s wife an adrenalin injection to the heart, answers “I’m curious about that myself.”
…
read on: http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=3857
the serviceID silk screening workshop was thursday! five frames were provided with a bunch of graphics to choose from on each. all the shirts provided by serviceID are being donated to a local shelter next week, and a few were brought in by students to be personalized and then taken home. thanks to everyone who came out to print a shirt or two!
more photos @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/skurfee/tags/silkscreen/
Hello ID Community,
We are on a sustainability binge! Paper recycling, a sustainability workshop and now…
RECYCLE-CAN: a competition to see who recycles the most cans and bottles.
How it Works:
Although we don’t have a bottle recycling system in place at ID, we want to encourage sustainability and let people know the impact of their actions
With every can and bottle you recycle, you are removing waste from landfills and decreasing the impact you make on the Earth’s resources…that’s significant!
So, instead of throwing out your drink bottle and soda cans, make good use of them!
Take them the Recycle-Can Game Board:
Step 1. Crush your aluminum can with The Can Crusher (it’s fun and a stress-reliever)
Step 2. Place the crushed can into one of the slots at the top of the board and watch it fall into the box (plinko-style)
Step 3. Enter your name and add your points you earned on the score board (super easy!) Note - this is an honor system!:)
Repeat! At the end of April, we will tally up the points and award amazing prizes (it’s worth doing, trust us)!
If you don’t drink soda or use water bottles, good for you! You can still participate by recycling other people’s cans and earn 10 points for recycling plastic bottles or other drink containers in the box.
We will keep track during the weeks on The New Idiom and see who is in the lead.
The Game Board will be on the 3rd Floor Hallway for 2 weeks and switch the last two weeks on the 5th floor.
Please let us know if you can help us take the cans to the recycling (it’s just Annie and Sally).
Good Luck!
Brains, Behavior and Design
Research in the field of behavioral economics can help designers understand why people often don’t adopt offerings designed to address identified consumer needs. Based on a synthesis of current behavioral economics research our ID Demos team developed a set of tools and engagements that help designers more effectively understand and design for people’s decision making processes.
Learn more and download the kit at:
NICE TO MEET YOU HANNAH SWART
Please introduce yourself in a few sentences.
About 3 decades ago, on the red dusty plains of Southern Africa, a rational planner and passionate artist kissed and not long after that beautiful moment, I happened. I am in love with life and the people that share it with me. I am endlessly fascinated by the thinking that sustains and creates our lives and futures.
How did you end up at ID?
During my career as interior architect, I saw glimpses of what our future could be, but I did not know how do get there. This dissonance between what I was doing and could be doing grew until I realized that I had to leave South Africa to bridge the gap between what is and what can be. I came to Chicago to lecture at the School of the Art Institute and then stumbled across ID.
Tell us quickly about a project that you’re working on now that you’re really excited about.
During the past weeks, I started to read about living systems. This way of seeing is generating a new paradigm where we learn to work with the bigger order to create a sustainable future. This excites me beyond words.
What would you do with 20 million dollars?
I would set out to discover how a sustainable future might look, by starting an organization that brings together brilliant minds from various disciplines that can see a new way forward. Together we can prototype how new thought patterns may become tangible realities. As we discover sound ways of thinking and doing that creates wholeness, we would partner with companies to bring the future into the present. We would work with companies to redefine and broaden their identities and start the necessary transformation from the inside out.
What super-power would you most like to have, and why?
Hmmm, I’d like to be the melting muse. I’d LOVE to be able to lose my form and melt into stuff – become one with it and learn it’s core nature. Imagine melting into the side walk, being absorbed through the roots of a tree, breathed out by it’s leaves and rained back through layers of misty clouds; imagine melting into language and becoming the pattern that adapts to different meanings; imagine melting into the body and mind of a tiny 8 year old in a dusty African shanty town; imagine melting into the internet and hearing the billion voices and bits of information whizz through me, catching phrases, picking up repeats, understanding us all the more.
