BBC launched CAPE (Create a Positive Environment) initiative in 2014 to study the knowledge and attitude towards neurodiversity. Neurodiverse individuals are those with hidden conditions such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADD/ADHD and Autism Spectrum Conditions.
CLIENT
BBC
YEAR
2017
BB CAPE
BBC launched CAPE (Create a Positive Environment) initiative in 2014 to study the knowledge and attitude towards neurodiversity. Neurodiverse individuals are those with hidden conditions such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, ADD/ADHD and Autism Spectrum Conditions.
CLIENT
BBC
YEAR
2017
BRIEF
How can we design a Manchester that is accessible for neurodiverse people?
SOLUTION
A modular phone case that allows customers to create their own personalised sensory distraction. The phone case is also supported by an associated app where your personalised visual & sound distractions can be downloaded and ready to be used whenever you need it.
MY ROLE
User research
Interview
Prototype
Pitch
TEAM
Hanna Elin
Ivan Holiakov
Jasmina Aleksic
Thiago Zandonai
Urška Tičar
DESIGN PROCESS
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Desk research
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User Interviews
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Persona
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Empathy mapping
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User journey map
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Ideation
-
Opportunity cards
-
Prototyping
KEY WORDS
Design research
UX/UI design
Service design
Prototyping
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BBC | Designing for Inclusion
We were asked by BBC to make Manchester more accessible to people on the neurodiverse spectrum who experience sensory overload.
We tackled the challenge and time restriction with applying Human-centered design (HCD), involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process. Our work was based on a core set of values that influenced our process and helped us deliver an innovative solution.
Our team put the time and effort in team building, defining our team culture, storytelling, co-creation and having fun in the process. By creating our own challenge statement, we were on a mission to find an innovative way to empower people within the specific neurodiversity so they can enjoy living in the city of Manchester.
“How might we prevent, stop, or soothe, sensory shock overload in neurodiverse people to make everybody enjoy living in the city?”
Key finding:
“Proprioceptive system”, which is located in our muscles and joints. This informed us that our body can not only regulate sensory processing but can also assist in controlling responses to sensory stimuli.
The next step for us was to get to know our end user, we therefore reached out to neurodiverse people through friends and family. Through interviews we wanted to gain understanding about their habits and learn about difficulties and strengths in their everyday life. We discovered that everyone had their own coping mechanism when experiencing sensory shock overload.
Establishing multiple personas from the user research helped us synthesise the findings from our define phase. In order to build empathy we also did an immersive user journey by role-playing the created personas and walked in their shoes for a while on the streets of Manchester.
Key insights:
The city can’t adapt accordingly to every single neurodiversed persons individual needs.
They have developed their own effective way of prevention and coping mechanism for Sensory Shock Overload by distracting themselves.
The strongest insights by far came from getting out in the world and gaining empathy for the people whose lives we wanted to improve. The hard facts became easier to take to heart which helped us keep the user in the center of the ideation session.
Our solution imagined a Modular Mobile Phone Case that allows the user to create their very own personalised sensory distraction. To provide more support and distraction we created an associated app were you can download your personalised visual & sound preferences.
CLIENT
BBC
YEAR
2017
BRIEF
How can we design a Manchester that is accessible for neurodiverse people?
SOLUTION
A modular phone case that allows customers to create their own personalised sensory distraction. The phone case is also supported by an associated app where your personalised visual & sound distractions can be downloaded and ready to be used whenever you need it.
MY ROLE
User research
Interview
UX/UI Prototype
Pitch
TEAM
Hanna Elin
Ivan Holiakov
Jasmina Aleksic
Thiago Zandonai
Urška Tičar
DESIGN PROCESS
-
User research
-
Market research
-
User Interviews
-
Persona
-
Empathy mapping
-
User journey map
-
Ideation
-
Opportunity cards
-
Prototyping
KEY WORDS
User research
UX/UI design
Service design
Prototyping
KEY LEARNINGS
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Keep asking why until you can define what to do.
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The time spent researching is never time wasted. Conducting insightful research before making design decisions provides the other half of the foundation for great design.
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Developing empathy for the people you are designing for is crucial to developing ideas and solutions that meets the user need.
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Creating multiple personas enables better understanding and brings the human touch to facts from research.
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Approaching the brief with an open mindset, adapting and iterating the design process accordingly ensures a successful outcome.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
We were impressed with the level of engagement from the students following the initial brief. Their enthusiasm to understand more about the topic was infectious, which was heartening to us as clients as this subject is very important to us both from a professional and personal perspective. Each individual team member could demonstrate the level of knowledge they had acquired and everyone presented initial ideas and prototype examples clearly and articulately. We were also impressed at the level of user-led research they had been able to identify and utilise to add depth to the review sessions.
Following the two-week brief, each team then presented back their final products, to their peer group, to us and to another external collaborator of ours who we have worked with on our project previously. The final product pitches were delivered professionally and demonstrated not only an understanding of the subject, but also a compassionate empathy for the potential end users of their products. We were impressed with the innovative ideas delivered and with the mix of low and high technology solutions which catered to every level of budget. Having taken delivery of these final products, we are extremely keen to be able to use them for our project as soon as possible. Great work, a great experience for us and thank you again to everyone.
Sean Gilroy
BBC - Head of Cognitive Design