Lesson video

Hello there, my name is Mrs. Dhami.

Thank you for joining me for your design and technology lesson today.

Now, today starts off a brand new unit called Supporting Developing Countries, and it's one of my absolute favourites because it's all about exploring context that we may or may not be familiar with, but looking how design can impact the lives positively of people across the whole world.

It's gonna be a good one.

So hard hats on.

Let's get cracking.

Our outcome for today is we will be able to identify a broad range of design opportunities when investigating a context.

We have four keywords today.

Firstly, context, which is the situation within which something exists or happens.

And we're going to be exploring some context which you might not be familiar with today.

Design opportunity is a gap or a need where a new or improved product would be beneficial.

And I want you to keep looking out for design opportunities as we go through the lesson today.

Next one is iterative.

Now, we often call the design process an iterative design process.

That's because we constantly refine and constantly improve throughout the whole iterative design process so that we come up with a really good and effective design solution.

And lastly, we have design fixation where we consider only one possible solution.

And we're gonna try and avoid design fixation throughout this whole module.

We have two learning cycles for our lesson today.

We're going to explore a context and then we're going to identify design opportunities.

So let's get started with exploring a context.

A context is the situation within which something exists or happens.

And this is always our starting point to our iterative design process.

Now, for this module, our context will explore supporting developing countries.

So let's read a little bit more about our context.

It says, in developing countries, good design can play a powerful role in improving people's quality of life.

Thoughtful, affordable, and practical design solutions can help tackle everyday challenges, such as access to clean water, healthcare, education, and energy, making life safer, healthier, and more comfortable for individuals and communities.

Now, Alex says, "I have never been to a developing country and I can't visit one now.

Where do I start?" What I'd like you to do before I move on to the next slide is pause the video and have a little bit of a think.

If you were given this, let's say you were given this for your NEA, where would you start? Have a think, pause the video, come back to me when you've got an idea.

You may have thought about highlighting keywords within that context.

Highlighting keywords within a context is a great starting point.

So which words would you highlight out of this? Pause the video, have a think, and jot down which words would be the ones you would choose to highlight.

You may have highlighted quality of life.

You then might have gone on maybe to highlight affordable and practical.

'Cause those two things are really important for developing countries.

You may have then gone on to highlight the everyday challenges, so the access to clean water, the healthcare, education, and energy.

And then lastly, you might have identified that these things need to make people's lives safer, healthier, and more comfortable, not just for individuals, but for communities too.

Now, the point of highlighting is great, because actually these highlighted words provide you and provide us with roots to explore their starting points.

They're those roots that we can take forward and we can research and explore further.

Laura says, "Where do I begin with exploring the keywords?" Now, that's a great question, Laura, because for some of you, you might be unfamiliar with these contexts.

So there are a variety of methods to explore a context such as contacting primary users or stakeholders.

Now, pause there.

I know I can hear you go in, "But I don't know any primary users." "I don't know any stakeholders." Great point.

But you could also contact experts.

You could contact charities.

And you may or may not know somebody who perhaps has visited the country.

Now that might be a family friend.

That might be one of your teachers.

That might be perhaps a school group has gone from your own school.

Perhaps that you could ask them all about their experiences.

You could immerse yourself in the context.

Again, I can hear you going, "I can't just get on a plane." Great point.

But you could use and explore videos or photos perhaps from charities or other people's travels.

You could explore the internet or news articles for interesting facts and opinions.

You could create a user journey with the research that you have found.

Now, user journeys you may or you may not be familiar with, but they basically allow considerations of other people's routines that may be unfamiliar to you so that you can put yourselves in their shoes.

And we'll explore a user journey later on.

Time for our first check-in.

I have seen many news articles about developing countries.

I do not need to explore any further.

Is that statement true or is it false? Have a think.

Come back to me when you've got an answer.

Well done if you've got false.

And why is that? Researching often finds ideas, opportunities, or problems that you have not considered before.

You might miss a winning idea without careful research and consideration into a context.

So explore it, find out lots and lots of different things, and that will all add to your research.

One of the reads that we highlighted in the context was access to clean water.

Now, this image is from Nepal, and it's actually from one of my travelling pictures.

Now, Nepal borders India.

What I'd like you to do is have a little look and see what you can see in this picture.

Look at it in a lot of detail.

Look closely, look from afar, and note down or jot down what you can see.

Pause the video, come back to me when you've had a good look.

Now, you may have noticed smoke coming out from three different jetties on the other side of the river.

Now, that is actually a Hindu cremation.

And once the body had been cremated, it was then put into the river.

Now, if you look this side of the river, you can see a whole load of clothes.

Now those clothes are using the river water to wash them and then they have been put out to dry.

So I actually witnessed this myself.

So the same water where that cremation was being put into was then also being used to wash the clothes.

Now, this is the same river, but further down.

Have a little look and see what you can see.

Pause the video, come back to me when you've had a good look.

Right, so you've probably noticed that people are bathing and washing in the same river water that was used to wash clothes in and also the cremated bodies were put in.

It really was like the circle of life.

These young children bathing, having a great time, yet those bodies were still being put, the cremated bodies were still being put into that river too.

Let's carry on exploring the context with a few more of my travelling pictures.

So this is moving away from Nepal.

This is Siliguri in India.

Now, this is a hotel bathroom, of an actual hotel that I stopped in.

And you can probably see at the back it has got a standing toilet, which you may or you may not be familiar with.

Now, turning on the taps in this bathroom, I remember the water coming out a very funny peculiar colour.

I did not use that water to brush my teeth with.

I did not use that water to drink with.

I bought bottled water as it definitely was rather undrinkable.

Again, this links in to what we identified in the context about access to water.

Now, I also, on my travels, noticed lots and lots of people washing clothes.

Now, it quite often tended to be the women washing the clothes.

And this is a lady that I saw.

And I asked her whether I could take a picture.

She said yes.

And here she is featuring in our lesson today.

Now, she's actually at a temple, and she is washing her family's clothes on the rocks of the temple.

Now, you won't be able to see from this picture, but actually those rocks were quite dirty themselves.

So she was trying to clean clothes on a dirty area.

As you saw from that picture of one of the hotel rooms that I stopped in, there's not always access to clean water.

Now, in many developing countries, access to running water is very rare, especially for rural communities.

This means that drinking water can be frequently carried very long distances from water pumps or wells.

And water is quite often carried on the top of a person's head, as you can see from that image.

I'm not too sure if I would be able to do that, especially for long distances.

Now, this is my mother-in-law.

This is Surinder, and she grew up in India.

We're gonna have a little listen to Surinder as she shares her experiences of access to water when she was growing up.

<v Surinder>Hello, everyone.

</v> I'm born in India in the village Sansarpur, and I used to get water from the well.

And the well water, which is for washing, cleaning, drinking water, and most of the water was going in the field.

And we tied oxen to the wheels, then wheels around in a circle, which move into the big wheel.

They collected often water from the valve, and that water was going in my fields.

<v ->Surinder's recount informed the creation</v> of a user journey.

Now, user journeys are great, because they allow us to visualise the context.

So from surrender's words, we can get a visual interpretation of what she was saying.

So let's have a little look.

First of all, she had to walk to the field.

She then tied oxen to the wheel, and the oxen walked around in a circle to turn the horizontal wheel.

Now, turning the horizontal wheel also turned the vertical wheel, which collected water from the well.

Surinder then could take that water that had been collected, and she could go and use that water to water the crops in the field.

This may be slightly different to how you imagine or how you know farmers locally to water their crop, the crops in their fields.

And this is why user journeys are fantastic, because they allow us to step into somebody else's shoes and to be able to consider it from their point of view.

And when you explore a context, a user journey might be effective for you.

News articles and websites provide really interesting facts, opinions, and ideas to help you explore a context, such as, let's say a news article here tells us access to clean water transforms lives, making it possible to grow food, stay healthy, and thrive.

In contrast, the absence of safe water leads to tragedy with thousands of children dying daily from diarrhoea and millions losing their lives each year due to preventable water-related illnesses.

Now, if we highlight that one key part, thousands of children dying daily from diarrhoea.

Wow, that's actually a true fact.

So that is us exploring the context and identifying some of those problems that people may face, which can then hopefully lead us to identify design opportunities that we can help as designers to be able to solve.

The photos from my travelling experiences, the articles, and the opinions such as Surinder's that we have explored highlight the many uses and challenges of water in developing countries.

We could then go on to collate this information into a mind map.

So access to clean water.

We've looked at the uses of water.

We've identified things such as bathing, washing, drinking, funerals, leisure, sanitary uses.

We've identified there is a lack of clean running water, just like that hotel room I stayed at.

We've identified from the news articles about the water related diseases such as diarrhoea.

And we've also identified accessibility issues.

So people having to frequently travel long distances to wells or pumps for drinking water or for watering their crops, just like Surinder.

Time for a check-in.

Which method of research may be harder to achieve for exploring the context of supporting developing countries? Is it A, internet image search, B, contacting charities, C, interviewing someone currently living there, or D, exploring news articles.

Have a little think.

Come back to me when you've got an idea.

Well done if you've got C, interviewing someone currently living in a developing country is quite often harder to achieve unless you actually know somebody living there.

But there are lots and lots of other ways as we have already seen through today's lesson.

Onto task A.

Part one, I'd like you to define design context.

Part two, I'd like you to identify three methods that you could use to explore a context.

Have a good go.

Come back to me when you have got some great answers.

Answers could include part one.

A context is the situation within which something exists or happens.

And this is always our starting point to our iterative design process.

Part two, there are a variety of methods to explore a context, and I asked you to identify three.

But I've shown you four throughout the slide deck.

So you could contact primary users, stakeholders, experts, charities, or visitors of the country.

You could immerse yourself in the context such as videos or photos from charities or other people's travels like I've done with sharing my travelling pictures today.

You could explore the internet and news articles for interesting facts and opinions.

And you could use that information to create a user journey to allow consideration of other people's routines that may be unfamiliar to you so that you can put yourselves in someone else's shoes.

Part three, I'd like you to use a mixture of methods to explore a different aspect of the supporting developing country's context.

Now, we've already looked through that today.

We have already explored the access to clean water part, but there are loads and loads of other parts and other routes that you might like to explore.

So choose one of those that appeals to you and then think about news articles, internet searches, speaking to primary users or stakeholders or charities or experts or visitors, and perhaps creating a user journey from your research.

Enjoy this part, enjoy exploring the context.

Don't keep your minds closed, keep them open to look and explore and find out as much as you can about that particular aspect or route.

Enjoy.

Hopefully you really enjoyed exploring whichever aspect or root of the context that you chose.

So Izzy says, "I chose to explore energy in developing countries using the following methods.

I contacted my auntie who works for a leading charity as they provide solar panels to remote communities in developing countries.

I used the internet to find images of this community, and I went on a news website to research related articles.

I presented my findings in an annotated image board with lots of images and interesting facts." Izzy, that looks absolutely fantastic, and I'm sure yours does too.

Well done with all of your hard work.

Onto learning cycle two, identifying design opportunities.

A design opportunity is a chance to create or improve a product, system or service by identifying a problem or unmet need.

We will explore how design has and can be used to support developing countries throughout this module.

What is the starting point for investigating, analysing, and identifying design opportunities? Is it A, an idea B, a problem, C, a design brief, or D, a context? Have a think.

Come back to me when you've got an answer.

Well done if you got context.

A context is the starting point for investigating, analysing, and identifying our design opportunities, exploring a context often sparks of ideas for how design can help solve a problem or unmet need.

These are called design opportunities.

So we looked at this picture earlier and we identified that there are standing toilets in lots of hotel rooms like this in India.

Jun says, "Elderly or disabled people may struggle with a standing toilet.

Could a method of supporting people when using these toilets be developed? Great point, Jun.

Jun has identified a design opportunity.

In our exploration of the context, we saw this lady washing her family's clothes on the rocks of a temple.

Jacob says, "This is back-breaking work.

Washing on rocks could make the clothes dirty with mud too.

Could a simple and affordable method of washing clothes be developed?" Great point, Jacob.

And Jacob has identified a design opportunity there.

In our context exploration, we identified that in many developing countries, access to running water is rare for rural communities.

This means that drinking water can be frequently carried long distances.

Sophia says, "There is no way that I could carry a bucket with that much water on my head for any distance.

Could a product to transport water easily and efficiently be developed?" I absolutely agree with Sophia there.

I could not do that myself.

So well done, Sophia.

Sophia has identified a design opportunity.

We listened to Surinder's recount of growing up in India and how she watered the crops in her fields by hand.

Laura says, "I can imagine this must have taken Surinder so long.

I wonder if she had to do this before school each day.

Could a method of efficiently watering crops be developed?" Great point, Laura.

And again, Laura has identified a design opportunity.

We looked at one of my pictures from Nepal.

And we noticed that river water was used to wash clothes, and clothes were then laid out on the rocks to dry.

Can you just pause the video for a second and have a little bit of a think.

What design opportunities could you take from this aspect? Sam says, "Could a foldable, compact, and portable method of drying clean clothes away from dirty rocks be developed?" Sam has identified a design opportunity, and hopefully you might have identified a similar one or maybe a completely different design opportunity.

Izzy looked at the last picture in Nepal and she said, "I have got it.

I'm going to design a smaller version of the clothes horse, which is red and has a strap so that it can be carried on a shoulder." Now, Izzy has become absolutely fixated on a design, so much so that she's even defined what colour it should be.

This is called design fixation.

And design fixation is when you only consider one possibility, and then sometimes you miss an even better solution.

So we'd like you to look out for design opportunities, but you do not need a design solution yet.

Enjoy this part of the iterative design process.

Enjoy exploring and identifying a range of possibilities.

Which statements are true about design fixation? A, it enables you to explore lots of possibilities.

B, your mind can only see one solution.

C, it is perfect for the iterative design process.

Or D, you may miss potentially amazing ideas.

Have a think.

Come back to me when you have got an answer.

Well done if you got B and D.

Design fixation, just like Izzy on the last slide, is when your mind can only see one solution.

And with that, you may miss potentially amazing ideas, which we don't want you to do.

So what are we looking for in a successful design opportunity? Well, successful design opportunities do not give a specific solution, unlike what Izzy did.

They do not create design fixation.

They are open and could have lots and lots of different possibilities.

And they identify a problem that has the opportunity to be solved.

Enjoy identifying those design opportunities.

Design opportunities can be collated into the mind maps that you use when you explore a context.

However, it's a good time, a good idea, sorry, to highlight those design opportunities so you can easily come back to them when you're choosing which one to solve further along the line.

Let's add on and highlight some of the design opportunities that we have found in our second learning cycle.

So first of all, with washing, we identified that clothes are sometimes washed by hand in dirty locations.

Notice how I'm not giving a solution.

I'm identifying the problem, I'm identifying the opportunity.

Sanitary, elderly people struggle to stand over toilets when there is no seat, and then high volumes of water can be painstakingly carried long distances when in some rural parts of developing countries, people have to travel long distances to wells and pumps for access to clean water.

Onto task B, part one.

I'd like you to define design opportunity.

Part two, I'd like you to define design fixation.

And part three, I'd like you to identify the design opportunities from the aspect of the context that you chose to explore in task A.

Good luck.

Enjoy.

Come back to me when you've got some great answers.

Answers could include part one.

A design opportunity is a chance to create or improve a product, system or service by identifying a problem or unmet need.

Part two, design fixation is when you only consider one possibility, and then sometimes miss an even better solution, just like Izzy did.

Part three, I wanted you to identify design opportunities for the aspect of the context that you chose to explore in task A.

Now, if we remind ourselves, easy chose to explore energy use in developing countries.

And Izzy found these design opportunities.

She said, "Often school hours are at night due to the need for children to work in the day.

This means that school is often lit by candlelight in remote communities." Notice she doesn't define a product that she's going to make.

She is just telling me about the problem and the design opportunity.

She also says many energy products are too expensive for low income communities, and that frequent blackouts or unstable grids, disrupt homes, schools, and hospitals.

Great design opportunities there, Izzy.

And hopefully you found some really interesting design opportunities too for your aspect.

Well done with all of your hard work.

This brings us to the end of our lesson today.

Let's summarise what we have found out.

So a context is the situation within which something exists or happens.

And this is always our starting point to our iterative design process.

A design opportunity is a chance to create or improve a product, system, or service by identifying a problem or unmet need.

There are a variety of methods to explore a context and identify design opportunities, such as contacting primary users, stakeholders, experts, charities, or visitors, immersing yourself in the context, internet searches and news articles, and user journeys.

Well done with all of your hard work with exploring a context, which may not have been familiar with you today.

I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope to see you in another lesson soon.

Take good care.

Bye bye bye.