OUR DESIGN METHOD
FIELD RESEARCH
TIME TO DISCOVER BOVISA
The analysis of the actual situation of Bovisa campus and the surrounding area has been focused on collecting information about the habits, attitudes, and behaviors of people concerning the topic "Plastic-free."
In order to collect a wider range of information, we decided to split the group into couples and explore different areas of the neighborhood trying to find as many useful examples as possible. Once back in the classroom we shared the data collected with the other teammates. The information gathered during our research included pictures of interesting solutions, bad behaviors, and observations on the attitude of local people.
ATTITUDES
We indicated on the map of the neighborhood useful spots to obtain a global view of the services located in the area and their attitude towards plastic waste. Among the information gained during our walk around Bovisa, the interviews conducted to students and shop owners helped us to pay attention to problems we did not notice in the first person.
Good behavior
Bad behavior
Unexpected
solution
Good example of
reuse and recycle
Interview
77%
Discared masterials
from laboratories
88%
Recycling
garbage bins
12%
Restaurant with plastic-free
approach
39%
People paying attention to plastic packaging
40%
Bring lunch
60%
Take away
STUDENT
"I enjoy the initiative that Politenico has made about selling metal bottle in the campus. I've just bought one of them and I like the approach of the campus about refill points but I hope that they will
increase."
PHOTO PRINTER SHOP
"Analogic print are nowadays a big trend but the packaging of the rollers made of plastic material forces us to create a lot of waste. It's a problem because we throw two bags of plastic waste every day."
After the field research, we faced the topic “Plastic-free” by using a battlestorming. This tool helps to focus on problems and on possible existing solutions concerning a given topic.
For the battlestorming the group split into two smaller groups for half an hour. One group was asked to think of the threats and problems concerning the topic “Plastic-free” and the other one to write down strengths and solutions that already exist and can provide an answer to the problem.
When the two groups reunited we began to battle by placing on a board the problems and the related solutions, trying to find exhaustive answers for every case. In the end, we realized that even among those problems that were followed by multiple solutions, not all of them could be solved in a satisfying way.
To have a clearer idea of what we had placed on the board we clustered all the strengths and weaknesses. To cluster the problems we tried to find common causes behind them. On the other hand to classify the solutions we searched for common subjects who could act to solve the problem.
BATTLESTORMING
Clustering the results revealed to be useful to find areas of interest that could be used as a starting point for the “How could we” questions.
This tool was useful because it made us realize that many problems remain largely unsolved. Moreover, it helped us to discover some critical issues that we couldn’t see before.
Clustering the results revealed to be useful to find areas of interest that could be used as a starting point for the “How could we” questions.
This tool was useful because it made us realize that many problems remain largely unsolved. Moreover, it helped us to discover some critical issues that we couldn’t see before.
In order to formulate the “How could we” questions we focused on the general problems concerning “plastic-free” emerged during the battlestorming. To do so we tried to downscale them in order to relate them to the assignment “Plastic-free Campus”. Each member of the group has written down a certain amount of open-ended questions that have been later shared with the rest of the teammates.
HOW COULD WE...?
HOW COULD WE ...?
We later proceeded to classify the questions, assembling together the ones that were similar. Basing ourselves on our personal experience at Politecnico and on a survey carried out among other people that live the campus we selected the most relevant areas to explore and chose inside of them the two open-ended questions that could inspire more interesting design directions.
CLASSES
How could we help to create a students network system for reusing materials used only once?
How could we reuse and recycle plastic stuff and other materials leftover used by students during some laboratory?
How could we involve students in the reuse and recycle of plastic and other materials leftover during academic activities?
FREE TIME
How to make students on campus be
more involved in plastic free activities?
How to make plastic free more
convenient/affordable/easier to increase
the participation of students for plastic-free?
How to improve the way people having party/activity on campus to decrease the waste of plastic?
LUNCH TIME
How could we solve the problem of waste
of plastic during daily meals for students
that don't bring their own food?
How could we improve the coffee vender machine to prevent a lot of waste plastic cups and sticks for melting the sugar?
How could we reduced the plastic packages
in the bender machine ?
LIFESTYLE
How could we convince students that a plastic free lifestyle it is even a less expensive lifestyle just by avoiding one-use products?
How could we let the students really know
the results if they did not change the habits
of using plastic products?
RECYCLING
How could we encourage people in campus
to be willing to recollect and redo the recycle in very details and correctly?
How could we communicate in a better and smarter way how to throw away things in the right way?
CASE STUDIES
In order to collect as much information as possible about the two questions selected we used the case study as a tool to get an overview of existing examples related to the two problems.
By using the case studies we were able to quickly understand the solutions already found, with their opportunities, weaknesses, and strengths. We also grouped the case studies according to similarity and origin, in order to clarify our ideas and understand if the solutions could (and if so how) be implemented on the Bovisa campus.
1. How could we solve the problem of waste
of plastic during daily meals for students
that don´t bring their own food?
2. How could we involve students in the reuse and recycle of plastic and other materials leftover during academic activities?
POSITIONING MAP
After collecting case studies, we used the positioning map to organize them in a constructive and useful way to choose one single question. First of all, we identified two pairs of opposite, but both positive, words ( individual network/community action - reduce waste by recycling materials/ reduce waste by reusing objects) that best described the division of case studies.
From the positioning of the case studies, we noticed how all those referred to the first question were distributed in three quadrants while the ones referred to the second one occupied only the lower left quadrant. At this point, we proceeded to name each quadrant using an evocative phrase
"AN APPLE A DAY"
After collecting case studies, we used the positioning map to organize them in a constructive and useful way to choose one single question. First of all, we identified two pairs of opposite, but both positive, words (individual network/community action - reduce waste by recycling materials/ reduce waste by reusing objects) that best described the division of case studies.
From the positioning of the case studies, we noticed how all those referred to the first question were distributed in three quadrants while the ones referred to the second one occupied only the lower left quadrant. At this point, we proceeded to name each quadrant using an evocative phrase
FAST BRAINSTORMING
A fast brainstorming is a design tool used to generate a lot of new ideas in a very short time. It allowed us to use creativity without rational boundaries or any kind of restriction, expanding our way of thinking and pushing us towards the investigation of unusual and crazy ideas.
The focus was to concentrate on the quantity rather than on the quality of the ideas, allowing ourselves to follow the flow of our thoughts and explore new possibilities instead of focusing on just one complex solution.
This tool helped us to recognize many different solutions to our open-ended question. To make the most out of what we had proposed in fifteen minutes we clustered all the possibilities, joining together the ideas that were linked to a common direction and giving a name to the different groupings. The names were a sort of metaphor of the ideas collected in each grouping and helped us to develop different concepts.
The collection of many ideas in a very short time lead us to new insights and stimulated our capacity of merging more ideas together.
" How could we solve the problem of the waste of plastic during daily meals for the students who don't bring their own food? "
GOURMET LOVERS
- Edible packaging
- Cooking class at lunchtime
- University bring a chef to cook for students
- Kitchen inside uni to cook lunch
- Open your own restaurant and eat there
- Have lunch to someone's house in the neighbor
NOMADIC
- Students network for daily social meal
- Bring your own tableware and cutlery
- Sustainable tableware collecting
system
- Extending of plastic free take away to
the restaurant around the campus
- Official Polimi dinnerware set
- Use dishes and cutlery of the
restaurant and bring them back later
CHALLENGE
- Plastic free cool
- Build a plastic sculpture
- Cleaning party
- Ecofriendly activities in campus
- Create nice looking bottles
COLLEGE STYLE
- Canteen in campus
- University cafè
- Hot food dispenses inside uni to refill lunch box
- Don't take food away from restaurant
- Stationary market to buy food
during lunch
- University gives lunch to students
MEAL WITH BENEFITS
-bring your tableware
- Teacher increase students grades if they bring their lunch
- Discount in local restaurant for those who bring their own stuff
- Pick up ten bottle for one meal
FLIGHTS OF FANCY
- Flying pigeons
- Delivering drones
- Doraemon pocket
BACK TO ORIGINS
- Eat with hands instead of forks
- Eat only trees fruits
- Eat only food that don!&t need
dishes and cutlery
- Package free food store
- Using your own stuff instead of dishes
CHANGE HABITS
- Study from home
- Don't have lunch during lunch time
- Don't eat at all
- Eat during the night instead of during the day
- Eat a gum that make you feel satiated
CONCEPT GENERATION
Making use of the suggestions generated by each grouping of ideas we tried to build two possible concepts for our service. Both of the proposals took into account ideas from different grouping trying to merge them together in order to develop more interesting and complex solutions. Once defined the main characteristics of each concept we summarized its contents with an evocative name. To choose the concept to move on with we had a group reflection and decided which of the two ideas convinced us the most. We noticed that the type of solutions contained in Be into Bento could lead to appealing design directions. Taking into consideration the case studies we also noticed that some of the possible solutions found in this concept recalled in someway existing ones that had produced substantial results in the realities in which they were applied.
RATATOUILLE
Ratatouille is a concept that allows us to imagine a world where people don!&t need to prepare food by themselves or buy it from take-aways. This concept includes the creation of a network that allows people to choose every day the best chef, someone that cooks for them at the time and in the
place they prefer.
BE-INTO BENTO
In Be-into Bento we imagine a world where students and workers don't buy food in single-use packages. They are equipped instead with a sustainable and reusable solution. People are stimulated to reuse day by day and become a part of a network with food providers.
PERSONAS
Personas are a conceptualization of real users. They are behavioral models that stand for a large number of people that share peculiar characteristics, goals, and needs. Their profile is a fictional one but the data used to create it are real. Personas are useful to create empathy with the users and create a service identity with which people can associate.
Our Personas are based on information that we collected around the campus and the neighborhood, especially
through interviews. Part of the data used to create the
students' profiles come also from our personal experience.
To interview people we used a set of questions that were focused on the topic we wanted to explore. The questions were formulated in order to analyze different behaviors and attitudes.
The portraits we defined condense a large amount of material gathered during the data collection. The definition of our personas helped us to shape the concept we had in mind by paying attention to the users' needs from a less technical point of view. Referring to them as individuals with a proper name and background allowed us to develop the service
focusing on specific viewpoints and perceptions.
POLIMEAL
To define our concept and develop our project we tried to translate its most important points into more tangible actions, constantly making reference to our personas and to our "An Apple a Day" scenario. Our idea aims at creating a network of students and local restaurants' shop-owners to avoid the waste of plastic packaging during meals. The goal is to substantially reduce the waste of plastic in the Campus by changing the way the food is carried by students.
What we offer is a customized Polimi lunch box that can be ordered by students directly from their personal profile on the Polimi website. Shop-owners who want to take part in the initiative can also register on the website and become a part of this network.
The app builds a connection between students and the shop-owners . Thanks to it students can get to know every day the menus of the different restaurants and learn about the food offered in the neighborhood. On the other hand, shop-owners get to know their customers' opinion through their reviews.
The lunch box is connected through an app to the students!& profile and is paired with a QR code that students can exhibit in the local restaurants to get a 10% discount. The discount that the shop-owners provide is equal to the cost of single-use packaging they normally had to buy for each customer.
To stimulate a day by day action students gain points for each meal bought using the Polimi lunch box. After a certain amount of points, they receive a voucher for a free meal. The results of the action of each individual are daily monitored and, once a week, the users receive feedback from the app on how their actions have helped to make a change; another way of stimulating them to keep going and put aside unsustainable habits.
POLIMEAL
The customer journey map is a tool that allows to visualize the chronological sequence of actions made by users while interacting with a service and clarifies the touchpoints and the users!& perceptions during all the stages. Visualizing the actions made by users is helpful to have an overview of the journey of the customers and create a logical sequence of steps to follow in order to have a pleasant and coherent experience.
The definition of the touchpoints is fundamental to explore the interaction between the customer and the service and to build the journey of the different users. During this phase referring to our personas has been very helpful to understand how their attitudes influence their interaction with the service and how different users may need distinctive touchpoints to engage with the service.
To define the users!& perceptions we made use of our personas and ran through the sequence of actions trying to focus on their point of view. This constant reference to a specific profile helped us to develop our map step by step. It also made us realize that in order to explain our service concept in a more comprehensive way we needed to create three customer journey maps, one for each of our primary personas.
DESKTOP WALKTHROUGH
The desktop walkthrough is a reproduction in scale of the service which can be used to both explain and test the interactions between users and touchpoints.
It has been useful to verify the efficiency of what defined in the customer journey map to try out the sequence of actions by simulating them on a small scale. This tool helped us to envision the service and find out if there were any weaknesses in the process. We decided to reproduce the whole journey in order to visualize all the steps in a more graphic and intuitive way.
In support of the actions, we created cards that helped us to show details involved in the storytelling that couldn't be reproduced physically. By moving the users on the mockup we could also achieve a better understanding of some passages of the service that resulted to be more complicated to visualize, such as the return of the rented lunch box.
ADVERTISING
She finds out about the service through the POLIMI welcome week for international students.
INFORMATION
On the POLIMI website, she finds all the
necessary information to join the network.
BOX COLLECTION
She collects her box at the POLIMI store.
MEAL ORDER
Once in the restaurant, she choose what to eat.
SHOWING QR CODE
She shows her personal QR code on the app to get a 10% discount on the meal and add points to her profile.
LUNCHTIME
She enjoys her meal alone and watches a video on her smartphone.
SYSTEM MAP
A system map is a visual explanation of the complexity of a service. It shows all the interacting components together and the relationships among them.
This description of the service organization includes all the actors, the links between them, and the flows of materials, data, and money.
The map helped us to have a final overview of the service and understand how everything is connected in a system. It clarified our vision of the service by avoiding detailed connections and focusing on the essence of the different flows, giving a condensed image of the service in its totality.
