Week 2: Further Research and Prototypes

Designers: Ranga Bhave, Fangxue Chen, , Effy Liu, Parth Loliyania, Zhe Lou, Ava Shepherd, Kristen Sullivan, Jacob Tomes, Ella Wilson

Ideation about final outcomes

After completing our initial research last week, this week we wanted to focus on prototyping potential ideas. Since we are a large group, we have the freedom to allow people to go off and explore the different avenues that interest them.

From a brief discussion, the main ideas people were interested in were:

• Building portable/modular pub furniture

• Music sharing to build community

• Portable seating to move around

• Using light and music to divide the space

• Table with pegboard to show icon/ graphics

• Possible pub event/night ideas

• Ask the community what do they want to see in their pub (use emoji as reactions)

Effy and I came up with one idea of using icons via a peg board to communicate messages subtly with the community. This idea was generated from our group discussions about how to subtly allow people to initiate conversations

Quick sketch of our idea

On Wednesday we all headed back to uni to complete the different prototypes we discussed earlier in the week. Due to people exploring their own ideas, we were able to generate 4 prototypes this week. A new pub layout, a communication system, sharing music probe and a pub without walls (Images left to right)

Making our prototypes

Testing the idea of a pub without walls

After creating the different prototypes, we also wanted to take some out for testing. One key idea that we all really liked as a team was 'what is a pub when you take away the walls?'. What is it that creates a pub? Is it the people? The environment? The furniture etc.... Therefore after class we invited our class mates to test our prototype of a pub without walls and portable furniture.

Testing our prototype of a pub without walls

Initial findings

Testing this prototype proved really beneficial. Through testing, we were able to learn a lot about how people like to interact within a pub and what both worked / did not work with our initial prototype. This information was really beneficial moving forward and allowed us to reevaluate the direction we wanted to head in,.

Key points about the furniture made by participants were:

• Not good for smoking, interacting with others

• Hard to balance, not comfortable, cannot fully relax

• Quite isolating

• Practicality, moving around is limited

• Wouldn’t work well with people at different heights

Additionally, while we tested the furniture, we also invited people to play different pub games. While this was a more spontaneous round of testing than the furniture, we were still able to learn useful pieces of information about how people like to interact within a pub setting.

Key points about pub games made by participants:

• Groups became rowdy as it progressed, need to know how to control

• More competitive as it went

• Interactions between the groups: builds a community atmosphere

• Alcohol maybe plays a role in loosening people up

• Games recreate a pub atmosphere outside of the pub

Reflection

This week was another very productive week. I am really enjoying being in a larger group and having the opportunity to explore several avenues at one time. One key thing that we took away from this week is that we still are very unsure about what it is we are looking to do. With hindsight we may have rushed into prototyping slightly early in the process. I think it may be beneficial for us to take another step back next week and complete more research at a deeper level. This will allow us to produce stronger prototypes and be more sure about the direction we want to head in.

Next Post: Week 3: Engaging with the Walworth Community