The Problem
University is a place for studying, expanding your knowledge, getting a degree, and eventually lead you to a good job. However, its value is much more than what I just mentioned. University is also a place for students to socialize, make friends and connections, join clubs, and engage in all sorts of on-campus activities. However, due to heavy workload and commitments, many students spend most time studying, leaving no time for socializing. Students go to university for classes, and they return home after classes. Like office workers, they go to work everyday and return home after work. Students are busy, and they tend to forget what university is for. Therefore,
“this project aims to remind students that university is not a workplace, and students are encouraged to socialize with other people they meet at school.”
Research
Literature: For university students, studies are their priorities. Students know social life is an important aspect of campus life. Many students also see socializing as beneficial. However, they are unwilling to sacrifice time for socializing on campus, not even their free time. Students feel that they are responsible for their academic studies.
Interviews: We interviewed students from the University of Queensland. When asked what kind of place a library is to them, most students see it merely as a place to study. They have never thought of it as a place to socialize with others.
Design
In this project, we make use of the idea, critical design. We want to build an installation that would provoke university students’ to think and reflect on what university means to them and what the most important aspects of campus life are.
Concept Cards: There are 6 members in our group. We brainstorm some rough ideas together. With these rough ideas together, we each come up with 2-3 design concepts/ideas. Check out the two concepts I come up with:
Concept Iterations: Every team member presents their concept to others. We discuss each of every concept together. We give each other feedbacks, everyone is required to iterate, modify, and improve their design according to the feedbacks and suggestions given.
Concept Mapping: We created three concept maps with a coordinate plane and with 3 sets of different metrics. Below is one of the concept maps we created with metrics Practical/Impractical v More Interactive/Less Interactive:
Site Survey: To determine the location of our installation, we have to investigate different sites on campus. Some factors include student volume and environment and surroundings (if it blocks people’ way, causing inconvenience). For each selected site, we conduct observation for about 20 minutes to see the major activities students do at each site. These factors help us determine the size of our installation, the type of installation, and the level of interaction required. There were 8 sites, and eventually we decided to locate our installation at the entrance of one of the libraries.
Design Intent Flow: Our team drew a design intent flow chart to help us understand the aim, inspiration, and rationale of our design.
Prototype
Through 2 rounds of concept iterations and 3 rounds of concept mapping, the team agreed that the concept “UQ Workplace” is the best we have. We locate it outside one of the major libraries at UQ—Biological Sciences Library.
Description: The Quarantine Bin contains foam blocks wrapped with printed icons that represent social life (e.g. social media, beer, parties…etc). With a banner that says “Welcome to Work” over the bin, we attempt to show students that they are seeing the university as a workplace, and they have totally abandoned social life from this workplace. We hope this provokes self-reflection.
Evaluation
We observed student interactions with our installation for 3 hours. For record, we recorded the entire process using both our smartphones and laptops, shooting from multiple different angles. For further evaluation, we interview students who actually took a close look at the installation and interacted with it (e.g. pick up the blocks inside) for over 5 seconds. We were able to interview 14 groups of students eventually.
Outcomes
Here are a few points we concluded from the evaluation results:
12 out of 14 groups of students thought the design was thought-provoking.
Unfortunately, most students thought the installation is telling them to quit social media.
Only 4 groups of students were able to figure out what our design is meant to show.
Most students we interviewed admit it is difficult to keep a balance between study and socializing. They tend to prioritize studying.
As mentioned, the designed installation is vague and does not convey our message clear enough. This is probably because we represent social life using social media icons instead of other aspect of social life, such as talking to people, meeting people, joining clubs, and making connections. The icons seem to be misleading.