work / shop
Interaction design,
Co-design,
Workshops,
Prototyping,
Participatory design
tags
team
Alexander König
Iris Bataille
Love Lagerkvist
Valeria Iezzi
context
Relational Design.
Malmö University.
2020.
duration
2 months
The purpose of this co-design project was to collaborate with our two stakeholders, Catch, a centre for art, design and technology and Cabas, a social employment institution for disabled citizens in Elsinore, Denmark.
Our task was to design joint workshops in order to create better inclusion and potentially growth and development for both people and the organisations. We were to combine the skills and existing products produced at Cabas with the technological expertise of Catch and ourselves, and thus co-design a number of new products that fit the exhibition profile of Catch and the skills of the employees from Cabas.
Our main goal was to highlight the collaboration between Catch and Cabas (work/shop) and promote and facilitate future collaborations with Catch, Cabas and any new potential partner.
design process
getting
acquainted
co-design
workshop
ideation &
material
exploration
co-evaluation
workshop
final design
&
documentation
getting acquainted
The interview and the contextual inquiry we performed took place during our first visit to Cabas alongside the director of Catch. The interview started with elementary questions about the organisation of their workshop. We wanted to get a grasp of the relationship between the supervisors and the employees.
The second part of the interview was mostly focused on the workshop itself: what products do they make, how are the employees assigned their tasks? What is the organisation of the workshop?
co-design workshops
Your Story
Creative Session 1, titled “Your Story” was designed to get to know our workshop participants’ stories and focused on two main points. First, establishing and staging the joint collaboration between Catch and Cabas. Secondly, we wanted to feature the supervisors and the employees at Cabas, by getting to know their stories, interests and their personal life projects.
Your Story: Joint collaboration
between Catch & Cabas
In this activity, the director of Cabas and the program manager of Catch engaged in a dialogue to determine their values and expectations for their collaboration. They used a large poster to write or use pictograms to communicate their thoughts under categories such as values, stories, and goals. This exercise aimed to foster understanding and envision a clear collaboration between the two parties.
Your Story: Cabas employees & supervisor
This activity focused on exploring the stories and interests of Cabas employees and their supervisor using a large poster divided into four sections with questions about their likes, happiness, favorite places, and what they enjoy about working at Cabas. Due to language barriers, visual props were provided for them to express their answers. After filling the posters with appealing images, the participants explained their choices, providing insights into their personalities, interests, and their connection with Cabas.
Cherry Picking
Creative Session 2, titled “Cherry Picking” aimed to develop product ideas by combining the expertise of Cabas supervisors, managers, employees, Catch's technological expertise, and our group’s input. The activity started with Cabas showing samples of their current designs and ideas. Then, the participants connected Cabas' ideas with inspiration materials (in the form of printed images) that we prepared. This inspiration material was organised in five different categories: maritime, tech accessories, textile tech, paper tech and jewellery. Each participant chose two images and explained their reasoning. This activity provided a visualisation of potential products and technological enhancements that could be explored further by Cabas employees.
ideation, material exploration & co-evaluation workshop
After the workshop, the team generated five product ideas: mobiles, light-up postcards, "party animals", LED jewelry, and plushies. Following the co-evaluation workshop and through iteration and auto-ethnographic methods, some of these ideas were discarded due to practicality, feasibility, and cost. The team eventually focused on two products: light-up postcards and mobiles, taking inspiration from the Marina, which is relevant to the context of both Catch & Cabas.
It is important to highlight that we were not aiming to create a finished product, but rather to show them very basic steps as to how to achieve the implementation of technology so that they could further explore, modify and implement these techniques.
ideation, material exploration & co-evaluation workshop
Parallel to our auto-ethnographic work, we decided to compile a Toolbox: Toolbox for Creative Collaborations. The aim was to compile the methodologies we used both in our workshops and during our auto-ethnographic stage. We also wanted to highlight the collaboration between Catch and Cabas (Work/shop) and promote and facilitate future collaborations with Catch, Cabas and any new potential partner. The structure of the Toolbox was influenced by the Convivial Toolbox, where we aimed to give our stakeholders creative agency in the design process. This stands in line with the fact that we did not want to present a finalised product, but rather leave space for them to further develop and personalise the methodologies, processes and materials provided. The document comprises four chapters: Introduction, Methods for Creative Collaborations, Product Descriptions and Catalog of Electronics.