Epic 2008 Exploring Solutions for Homelessness

Savannah College for Art and Design 1

W14: Learning and Doing a Charrette: Exploring Solutions for Homelessness in Copenhagen and Boston

Beth Johnson, Continuum

Chris Miller, Savannah College of Art and Design

EPIC 2008 Copenhagen, Denmark

October 16, 2008

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Agenda

Introductions

Purpose

Context and Focus

Brainstorm session: what does it mean?

Social isolation

Social exclusion

The plan

Review video to identify and find examples

Create solutions

Present solutions

Wrap up workshop

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Purpose

Explore ways in which the charrette becomes a valuable ethnographic

tool for quickly uncovering deep user insights.

By bringing various stakeholders and interested parties together to

tackle a problem an iterative process with feedback loops can also be

collapsed in time.

We think that the use of this rapid process will make it more possible for

designers to engage in issues of social concern where budgets are

traditionally very tight.

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any collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem.

What is a charette?

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What is a charette?

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Idea generation tool Teaching tool Research tool

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Alignment SupportResearchDirection

EvaluationAnalysis

Why are charettes interesting?

• Sharing the situation

• team building• identifying

stakeholders

user research• immersion• observation• interviews• intercepts• experimentation

context research• client• competition• brand• technology• trend exploration

• mapping• sorting• triangulating• segmenting• framing

direction• exploring• envisioning• creating

evaluation• consumer resonance• data consistency• design inspiration• business analogy• envisioning iteration

• communicating• integrating into

organization• planning

execution

We have an innovation process that is very successful, however it usually takes a lot of time, money, and talent to make it work.

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Why are charettes interesting?

Continuum has worked on projects that have resulted billions of dollars of profits. Those projects were based on extensive in home ethnographic research.

Reebok PumpMore than 1 Billion USD in sales

Pampers DiapersMore than 1 Billion USD in sales

Swiffer SweeperMore than 1 Billion USD in sales

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Charettes are a great alternative research method for social projects

While a charette will probably not generate a billion dollar idea, it is a fast, easy and inexpensive way to kick start the design process.

As we start to work on more and more social projects efficiency and cost become very important.

Charettes put all of the stakeholders together to shorten the alignment, research, and design processes while yielding better results that simply designing with out user input.

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Focus

We see homelessness as a multifaceted phenomenon and one dimension of the social exclusion of a group of people who often confront different but interrelated problems (Anker 2008).

These can be social, economic, physical, or psychological problems

Our focus today: the absence of social relations common among people who have become homeless.

We consider the loss of social relations to be a central problem associated with homelessness and also one that could be addressed within the scope of our workshop.

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Focus: social exclusion and homelessness

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Context

Data that we use today was gathered during a focus group held recently in Boston, MA with a group of people living in a homeless shelter.

As a comparison we reviewed information on homelessness in Copenhagen. What we found was a very different social context; one that contrasts the institutional structure and conditions for homeless people here with conditions back in Boston.

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Layers of homelessness

Visibly homeless “street people”Do not know that aid exists

Homeless single(less likely to receive aid)

HomelessFamily

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Methodology

Focus group from the Boston, MA area 5 homeless people; all have children 2 advisors working at the shelter 3 individuals from Continuum (plus the facilitator)

We will…

1. View video to identify examples of social exclusion and isolation

2. Create solutions for social exclusion and isolation

3. Package and present solutions

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Brain Storming Session

When we talk about social exclusion we mean…

When we talk about social isolation we mean…

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[HEADLINE ~5 words]

WHAT…

WHO…

HOW…

About us…

[Graphic or Picture]

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Great work, everyone - Thank you!