UBC Orchard Garden Shed
Project Description
I worked with other two group member in a user research class. My main role in the group is the graphic designer and user researcher, sometimes I will help brainstorm our main design focus and communicate with our client. In this semester, we worked with our client which is UBC Orchard Garden. Their purpose is teaching student gardening and improve teacher's teaching skill. In our earlier plan, we decided to do some change on their spacial area. Due to the data they give to us through our cultural prob, we changed our ideal and focus on redesign their wooden shed.
The first meeting with our client, we get lots of information about this organization and have a basic understanding of UBC Orchard Garden.
Process & Challenge
We went to the UBC and join their meeting. Through the note we took, we realized the problems they had and try to find some solutions. In this project, it is my first time to do the user research and find the client by ourselves as the first step at the beginning. We met and emailed our client weekly for getting more information about their organization and the last feedback of our design solution. Sometimes our client can'e respond our questions in time, we would try to analyze the data we got from the meeting again and find more relevant information on their web site. This is a long process to design some feasible solutions because some ideas are always limited by realistic conditions.
Using the data we collected from our meeting, we synthesized member's information into the persona.
Preliminary investigation
Since we are not 100% aware of UBC Orchard Garden's usual activities, we feel that it is feasible to understand the expectations and needs of members in this organization, which means we want to the members' perspective to collect the useful data and help them improve the garden.
At the first, we synthesized main members' information. The data we collected help us to have a clear image of each member and what's their expectation. It would be considered in our next brainstorming process.
After that, we use cultural prob to collect their idea of changing the garden. Our design focus at this time was to design a new outdoor feature to utilize the empty space near the entrance of the garden space. Sometimes, people’s ideas cannot be expressed in full by words, so we have added more ways to stimulate their ideas by drawing and photographing. For example, I draw a digital map in Illustrator and use this user map to identify their joys and pain points in the garden space. We also use moodboards to encourage them draw their ideal garden.
The cultural prob works very well. It not only allows members to expand their thinking, but also allows everyone to share their ideas to each other in the process.
Data from cultural prob, also included our analysis and conclusion.
In-depth
Due to the result of cultural prob, we made three preliminary design predictions: Labyrinth Garden, Herb Garden and Vine Gate. After consulting with our instructor and teaching assistant, as well as discussing in our group and client, we consolidated some ideas and tried them in a less costly way: Vine Gate, Herb Rack Wall, and Garden Signs. Though the communication with our client, they hope that we can more streamline this design. After a week of discussions, our group decided to carry out a multi-functional transformation of the original wooden cabin in the garden, which has achieved the cost-saving requirements of client. Secondly, we have also tried to satisfy the members that they want to make the garden more useful.
Result
Through this project, I was able to hone my skills in visual design by organizing all ideas on a poster and attach design analysis and focus. I learned how to use a more interesting way for users to have a sense of participation in the project, so that our designers can better collect data for design and adjustment. This sense of participation allows us to better make interaction and usability with users. Although start the user research from zero to understand them more will take a long time, it will give me a deeper understanding on our client's expectation and make the projects closest to their ideals. In the future, I would like to acquire and understand the client's mentality through communication and various user researches. I think it would help us better to make a more practical, excellent project.
The final framework of our project. It explains our steps of design focus and how we analyze the data which we received.