Week 10: Revisiting 'Bad Design' - IDEO's Shopping trolley project

The videoclip is a feature done by ABC on a design company called IDEO. Famous for being one of THE best, if not the best, design company, in the world, the feature highlights the problem-solving process that have made IDEO famous for her outstanding and innovative solutions. Watch the clip and answer the following questions:

1. In your opinion, what are some of the problems of the current design of the shopping trolley?
2. What are some of the rules instituted by the IDEO's design team, and why do you think were they instituted?
3. From your observation, what are some of the company's culture or practices that have made IDEO one of the best design company in the world?
4. How do you think some of these culture or practices can be implemented or internalised in SST, or within you as a student?

Week 7: Identifying Bad Designs

Go to the baddesigns.com website link provided by the side (in Design Sites). Take a moment to study the products and situations that are listed in the site. These are some typical examples of designs or situations that are badly-designed, and might lead on to rather unpleasant product or usage experiences by the users. Based on these examples:

• Showcase a few products or situations that you can use and highlight as an example of something that is badly designed, whether be it a product, or a situation
• Put these as a blogpost in  your personal ADMT blogs.
• Place the link/s to your posts in the comments section of this post
• Remember to include these items in your blog post:
• The problem (product or situation)
• Proposed solution
• A picture or pictures of the product/situation (do remember to quite your photo sources if they are taken from some other sites!)
• You can use this mechanical pencil example as a guide
• Deadline: By Tuesday, 23rd February, 2010

Week 4: Consolidating your Research

Now that the individual team members have done their own individual researches, as a group, do consolidate your research. Take some time (about 20 to 30 mins) during class to consolidate and answer the following questions as a group:

1. State 2 major problems that you have identified on the given topic on 'Environment'
2. State 3 potential areas or problems that you think, as a group, you would like to work on for the next 10 or so weeks. Note that you would NOT need to work on all 3 later on, most probably just 1 or 2 only!
   
3. Think of how you can incorporate these sub-lessons for the problem/s that you are going to solve:
• Photography
• Animation
• Models and/or prototypes . Do give some suggestions for this too if possible and relevant.

Note that the deadline for this exercise is next Fri, 5th Feb 2010 by 1700 hrs

Week 4: Making Your Research Clearer

There are many ways to ensure that that your research information is presented in a clear, concise and more targeted manner. Two methods that you can adopt are the '5W+1H' method and the P.I.E.S. method. Do a search on these to know what they are.

Week 3: Doing 'Research' (part 2)

Based on the given 5 different topics on Environment (shown below according to your assigned numbering within your group) that has been given to you in class, do a more in-depth research individually. Ensure that the context of your research is localized, i.e. in Singapore's context. Put up your research work in your ADMT personal blog, and put the URL/link in the comments section below.

FYI, the 5 given topics are:
#1: Sustainable Design
#2: Conserving Water Resources
#3: Alternative Energy Sources
#4: Singapore Environmental Policies/Campaigns
#5: Reducing, Reusing & Recycling@SST

Deadline: Monday, 25th Jan 2010 @ 5pm

Week 3: Understanding 'Research' (part 1)

After your presentations on your initial findings and research on the theme 'Environment', I would like to gauge your understanding on the topic of 'Research'. On your own and during class curriculum time, answer the following questions in your personal ADMT blogs (estimated lesson time: 30 min.).

1. What is RESEARCH? (Please use your own definition/s!)
2. Why do you think research is important?
3. How can we conduct good research?

Post the URL links of your answers to these questions in the Comment section of this post below. Your comment format should look like this:

• Your Name
• Your URL
• Any other comments/remarks that you might want to include

Deadline: By Monday, 25th Jan (6 pm)