REFLECTIONS OF PROJECT TWO

The start of Project Two kicked off with grouping up with Fanru,Jen and Julia. Having never worked with Fanru and Julia, I was keen to see how our group would interact and what the dynamics of working together would be like.

We initially struggled with grasping the true concept of a PSS, and found it hard to define what a product was, within a new service system, while not just riding on and branching out from an existing product or system.

We toyed around with the idea of shared baby strollers, much like the concept of bike-sharing, but soon scrapped that due to numerous issues that arose, such as safety and hygiene. Having already done significant research on products for children, we then decided to stick to children as our target market.

We explored various existing PSS and finally decided upon drawing up concepts for children's recycling bins.

The journey that followed was not as easy one, as we started to run short of time. With each week and Studio that passed, we progressed, but the flaws in our designs became more apparent. Each week saw us moving forward, but backwards at the same time.

The biggest issue that arose with designing children's recycling bins was the struggle between making it fun and interactive, while letting it fit seamlessly into the current garbage disposal system in schools.

We started to realise how much research we had ahead of us and how much we needed to know and clearly define our problem, in order to strategically move forward and clear all the barriers involved.

Industrial designers should in fact consider PSS as they offer us useful and promising concepts to move in the direction of sustainability, which the entire world is moving towards. This was another reason why we chose to centre our concept around educating the masses on recycling, starting with children.

What I liked most about designing a PSS was that they could very easily be placed into different environments, depending on their purposes. Every PSS has a very specific job and it either works or does not, making the design process clear and concise. This however, was also what I did not like about designing a PSS as, it does not leave much room for error. Given a constraint amount of time, designing a PSS would not be my first choice.

It has been said that despite the advantages that a PSS yield, some PSS changes can generate unwanted side effects: Rebound effects, where potentially environmentally-friendly solutions can increase global consumption of environmental resources.

As a whole however, I thoroughly enjoyed working on Project Two, especially with my group mates, as we managed to work off each others ideas and expand on them as a group. I personally have never experienced working with a group on a Studio project so intensely as this one.

This project has highlighted to me the need and ability to see whether a product can realistically work, and the steps that should be taken to counter the factors preventing a product from working the way that it should.