Design team: Janet Turner, Sarah Goodhew and Grace Roddick.
The brief for this project provided two parameters: the design process must be generated in the public sphere, by/through collaborative discussions with a chosen group of people not enrolled in the course and the final outcome must be a thing that facilitates engagement between people.
We situated our project at Griffith University's Mount Gravatt College with a group of college residents with the aim to facilitate conversations and enable solutions to be developed, dealing with concerns around college (primarily communication and community). The final outcome of this collaboration was that college members would facilitate community run activities which would promote a sense of community while alleviating segregation.
Below are the tools we utilised in our collaboration and the outcomes...
The Card Sort: This first activity enabled team communication while getting them voicing opinions and compromising in order to achieve outcomes. This also enabled us as facilitators to gain insight to how the group worked and the varying personalities.
Sticky Note Mapping: Under two predetermined focus areas (determined by the participants), each person could individually reflect before bringing it together as a group for discussion.
Whiteboard Cognitive Mapping: Fleshing out the issues identified in the previous mapping, the whiteboard allowed open discussion while mapping the progression of ideas on the board.
Actors, Road Blocks and Constraints: The final activity was a combination of 'trigger cards' and a facilitated mapping process that helped to conceive the relational complexity of the project. This also lead into the participants creating their own design fictions exploring the possibilities of a community run event (see below for an example design fiction).
