Overview
This was a team final project in our course Technology Design Foundations, in which the topic was “Bending Towards Justice: Reimagining Health in Light of Increasing Wildfires.” With the growing number of wildfires in California, our team wanted to help close the gap in how different communities are impacted by air pollution caused by wildfires. I led research, ideation, design, and assembly in this 4-week challenge to create a product that aims to increase the public’s attention to air pollution.
Team
Carolyn Nguyen, UX/Hardware
Can Ge, UX/Hardware
Zoe Ingram, Software
Jessica Kim, Branding/UX
Roles
UX Designer: user research, sketching, ideating, high-fidelity
Hardware: 3D modeling, 3D-printing
Duration
4 Weeks
Type
Speculative Design
Multidisciplinary
Software
Hardware
3D-Printing
Laser-Cutting
Problem
The physical health of the public are negatively impacted by increasing wildfires due to lack of awareness despite increasing wildfires in California
Our team at Berkeley was perplexed by the increasing number of wildfires and wanted to understand how it affects communities around them. One fact that caught our eye is that California employs thousands of incarcerated people to work as firefighters on huge wildfires while paying them less than 2-3 dollars a day. We wanted to dig deeper into why it came to this solution.
Research
Despite the increase of wildfires and rate of climate change, communities at large could not grasp the impact of their health because this information regarding air pollution was hard to find
I proceeded to interview commuters, students, and common individuals in public about air pollution. I found out that:
- They did not know what AQI (air quality index is) nor how to interpret that information
- It was hard to find this information (have to Google or scroll down in the Weather app)
- Didn’t know what next steps are after reading about air quality (“and so what?”)
Design Goals
How might we help the public grasp information on air pollution easier and help them protect themselves?
We want to build a product that will:
- inform the user of the air quality in a method that is easy to interpret
- reach out to communities in public spaces
- provide facts regarding wildfires and how they affect others
- provide the user a way to protect themselves
Product Constraints & Requirements
Our team’s makeup is filled with diverse set of skills that can build this on a holistic level: hardware, software, UX, branding, and form.
We will be building this within the $500 budget we are given in the next four weeks along with the course’s final project requirements:
Ideation
Visualizing how the product will be used
The team brainstormed with Jess as the lead on the user flows and storyboard.
We envision this product to exist in public like a newspaper stand, where it will draw people in to read information about the air quality and be invited to take a mask.
Sketching & Brainstorming
Form & Branding
Our team mentioned that we wanted to incorporate lungs and sustainability, so Can (one of our team members), brought up this leaf lung idea. I wanted to envision how the logo would show up.
Packaging
I thought we could also educate the public about different facts regarding air pollution caused by wildfires on the mask packaging.
UX: Signifers & Affordances
How do people receive masks? Camera recognition or analog button?
How to make air pollution information easy to understand?
Can and I actually had a few similar ideas during the sketching phase, such as facial recognition or using LED lights. Can’s sketches are in black while mines are in gray.
Mechanisms
How will we physically dispense the masks?
In class, I learned how to control a servo motor with a raspberry pi, so I wanted to see if this could be a feasible mechanism. If this didn’t work, I sketched out backup ideas.
Prototyping
Low-Fidelity Prototyping
My teammate, Can, and I, worked on a low-fidelity physical prototype for the Mask Dispenser using foam board material.
I created the top screen portion with information about air pollution, such as AQI, smoke reading, and temperature.
Testing
User Testing
With the low-fidelity physical prototypes, we tested on users to find out their impressions and any missing gaps.
Impressions:
- people could see this being used in public areas like airports, grocery stores, bus stops, and the like.
- the idea of “taking something” felt engaging
Gaps:
- What does the AQI number mean?
- Smoke and temperature readings aren’t helpful
- How does the product give me a mask?
- How do you know how many masks are left?
- Can people take as many masks as they want?
- How to refill masks?
Hi-Fi Designs
Designing the full product inside and out
We moved on to higher fidelity modeling so that we can identify the right space, material, features, screen, and parts. I modeled the internal structures with the servo motor + raspberry pi + clearances for assembly using Fusion 360.
My teammate, Can, modeled the outside face and digital renderings in Rhino.
One of the features we really wanted in the product is for the form to represent lungs. After modeling it, it was clear that this design drove manufacturability: 3D-printing.
I also built high-fidelity designs of the screen, which users would interact with and gain knowledge from, with a focus on information architecture. Can (teammate) designed the lungs logo.
Fabrication
Holding our breaths to build “Breathe Easy”
Figuring out small details…
The smaller challenges were getting internal features and spatial design just right.
The biggest challenge: 3D-Printing
These are the files from Fusion 360 that I printed on Stratasys Fortus machines. However, these printers require polycarbonate sheets that ran out so we had to get creative in time crunches. I was also afraid that the walls were too thin and would warp. Fortunately, they came out very well on the first print!
The facade was printed on the Objet350.
Components & Assembly
Sketches-14
Sketches-15
Sketches-16
Final Product
Demonstrating how to “Breathe Easy”
This video showcases how we envision our product to be used for the public. It stars my teammate, Jessica Kim.
Reflection
A test of grit, compromise, and reaching the vision
This project was intense! Each week was like a sprint, with one week starting out murky but eventually, we trusted our instincts to act and execute the ideas we had in mind.
A lot of tradeoffs were involved, like:
- using a button to dispense masks instead of camera vision or a fancier script
- assembling using the first iteration of prints (which could have been thicker)
- building out a few samples of screens instead of the entire educational content
- using scrappy material mixed with higher quality material
Designer’s roses and thorns
Looking back, there are areas in this project that definitely could have been better. Due to time constraints, the way that the course structured this project, and the highly-collaborate nature involving many disciplines, I’ve learned important skills but also could have done better in:
I’ve learned…
collaborating with those outside my disciplines,
executing the vision in a time crunch,
researching the problem,
testing prototypes,
but could’ve been better at…
evangelizing design-focused over prevent solution-focused decisions
delivering high craftsmanship
verifying the problem with data
validate the solution with users and more iterations
Inspiring speculative design
Despite the questionable practicality of this minimum viable product, design critics from industry struck very interesting conversations with us on the product! Could this be expanded to educate people about:
- noise pollution and provide ear plugs?
- COVID and KN95 masks?
- recycling and reusable products?
- and more?
I hope that this product can inspire future educational products!
