Double Diamond workshops
21.12.2011
Joanna Choukeir was invited by Paul Micklethwaite, course director of MA Design for Development at Kingston University, to host a series of workshops around an Uscreates live project. The aim of the workshops was to support students in using practice-led design thinking, methods and processes for social and environmental development.
The live Uscreates project brief we offered students was one that we have received from a real client, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. This is a summary of the brief:
Use your research and design skills to discover, define and develop interventions:
- that initially raise awareness around the Wheel of Wellbeing for maintaining good mental health (awareness)
- and ultimately change behaviour by driving Londoners to adopt the Wheel of Wellbeing in their day-to-day-life (action)
We structured the workshops and the project around the Design Council’s Double Diamond model: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver. One workshop was completed for each of: Discover, Define and Develop. Knowing that the students were at postgraduate level, we realised that they were already good at ‘Delivering’ so this phase was not included.
The workshops were engaging, interactive, and as ‘real world’ as possible. They expected students to carry out secondary research around the topic area, primary research engaging stakeholders and audiences, co-designing ideas, prototyping, and testing them. Click on the links below for a slideshow of each of the workshop structures:
Following each workshop, students were required to spend 1-2 weeks developing their project further, and then present their work in progress to Sherry Clark of NHS SLaM and Paul Micklethwaite, for feedback and suggestions.
Each student defined a particular focus and target audience for their project, and following the develop workshop, their stimulating ideas included:
- A happy ticket scheme in workplaces
- A secret angel society supporting International students
- A re-design of TFL bus services to improve commuters’ journeys
- An on-street instant happiness monitor
- Happiness programmes supporting students in transition between school and university, and between university and the working environment
You can visit the students’ work in progress on their ISSUU page.
Click images to enlarge
