Hot group workshop at Konstfack

Two designers one nurse and Emma my second advisor was participating in a workshop session last night. The aim for this session was to quality check the synthesized version through a role played experienced prototype. I made this version as a very rough paper prototype for the participators to feel comfortable to co create and criticize freely. They were each given roles of either the two children, their grandmother or their mother, in a visit.

The session was very fruitful and after we discussed the activities and experience in a qualitative way and made some crucial decisions for me to be able to move on in the process.

Outcome: The symbol page, map page, game page and post page was considered the most relevant and suitable for the situation and they have all been refined more on detail level of the experience and in function. On the game page the rules and start/goal was taken away. It is better and funnier to make up your way of playing and your own rules. That also go in line with what the 8 year old girl preferred. On the word and symbol page we decided to merge the shape page together and instead having different versions for this page. More symbols was required. The map page was just a blank outlined shape of the country. I had a couple of ideas but wanted to take the opportunity to co create the activity around it in this role playing session. They spoke about an animal park, where they live, where friends live, where greece is, skiing vacations, where we were born, were grandma lived before.

The format of the object got a bit smaller on height to 80 cm instead of 100cm amd the format is now 80x100cm.

 

Main synthesize

This last two weeks all interviews and workshop outcome have been synthesized and embedded into the concept. The new ideas where refined and I have been working with the graphics a bit. Had a feed back session with a good graphic design friend over skype screen sharing and got good feed back.

 

I made a character for the concept. It’s an aniangel.

Interview with 8 year old girl and testing of a game

I had an interview with an eight year old girl in her room. This setting is very different from having a workshop in a kindergarden or in a school. She showed me her room, toys and we talked about play. Her favorite toy is the pet shop. She showed them to me and how she plays with them. She groups them in families in colour scales. When she plays with a friend they play with the pet shops or craft and draw. We talk about what is important when you play and she says that the most important is that everyone thinks the game is good and that you can be many to play not just two people. She has put a lot of work into a making a post box that she shows me. It has one big slot for big mails and a small on the top for small letters. The post box have now been embedded in the concept.

I brought a very rough prototype of a game idea. There were a lot of input from the children, special pedagog, physiotherapist and teachers I wasn’t able embed in a smart way until this idea came up. We started the  session by drawing our own characters. The game is built up with small tasks and questions aiming to create discussions and an exchange of personal information. E.g one task is to guess how many teeth you have and one is to tie a rosette. After the game we discuss the game and if there is anything she wants to add. She wants to add a task about drawing a self portrait and a question about best friends.