Everyday Wellbeing Design Challenge – Fresh Minds & Approach

Photos of Massey students prototyping ideas image courtesy of Mark Bradford

After a two week mid-semester break, the students from Massey’s School of Design are back to work on their Everyday Wellbeing Design Challenge!

We were asked by the Massey Tutors to come in and do a quick fire lecture to ground the students back into the next 6 weeks of the project, with a specific focus on ensuring the projects narrowed in on the Everyday Wellbeing outcomes.

So we sent Sam back into the lions den lecture theatre, aptly named “The Pit” with 160 students fresh from their break.

“How many of you did something for your wellbeing this break?” he asked.

Roughly three quarters of the room raised their hands.

“Considering only 2 of you put your hands up 6 weeks ago when I asked you whether you knew what we meant when we said ‘wellbeing’, I’d call that progress.”

The ensuing lecture was part reminder (about week 1’s lecture), part provocation, and part context setting for the coming 6 weeks as the students ramp up intensity to design a response to their brief. You can see the annotated slides here:

The students then headed up into their groups to tackle the ‘5 Ways to Wellbeing Lens’ workshop we’d developed for the tutors to help ground the students with.

Here’s an example of what ensued:

 

 

The Design Challenge runs across Thursdays & Fridays, so whilst we couldn’t return the next day, there was fun and games on the cards. The next milestone of the challenge is to shift out of research, and into learning through doing – or prototyping as we like to call it. It shifts the energy from seeking insights through analysis, to seeking insights through physical manifestation of an idea.  

 

 

“To dream with purpose” is a wonderful way to explain this mode. Where Science is the pursuit of “what is”, Design is the pursuit of “what should be”.

 

 

The students were led through a d.School prototyping session on Friday which brought their ideas to life for feedback, iteration, and engaging a more spatial sense of design.

We’ll follow up with students to hear more about their experience in this session, and add it to the bottom of this post soon.

In the meantime, here’s a little post we wrote about the Prototyping mindset which seems timely.

 

Design Challenge Chart : Week 7

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