Categories: Research, Book, Concept, Team Work
2020
Brief Process
The team consists of 14 people, 3 sculpture designers, 2 photographers, 2 industrial designers, and 3 graphic designers with 4 team leaders. During the 10 weeks, our work was evenly distributed. We expressed our views in the early stage and then selected the five best concepts and interfaces to bring to the mid-term presentation. After the modification in the remaining five weeks, we finally took three concept maps and interfaces to the final presentation.
Boarding
After an in depth understanding of the challenge presented to us, we developed our essential question.
Take Off
Through human-centered iterative design, our crew sought to develop creative strategies. Our design research process included understanding the context of our project, exploring concepts that we developed, and framing insights from the rest of this process.
CAN WE REALLY FIND A
SECOND LIFE FOR TWENTY TO THIRTY THOUSAND BEVERAGE CARTS?
Understanding Context
To better understand the context of our strategies, we began material studies, primary research, and the secondary research. Material studies explore the current design and product limitations of the carts. Primary research includes field studies, surveys, interviews, and observations. Secondary research uses already existing data found in publications that, with primary research, is used to build our understanding of the design space we are developing concepts in. As designers, we wanted to first understand the physical details and limits of our new toys. We dissected the carts and carriers from top
to bottom. We were able to quickly learn what it would take for someone to physically change the carts, piece by piece. We gained insights into what materials exist in these products (steel, aluminum, foam, plastic), which parts are easy to disassemble, and which parts need specialty tools to be removed or changed and what those tools are. Understanding how much of the cart was actually recyclable without finding a second life became a key insight. Bending, drilling, cutting, and changing shape allowed us to understand the malleability of our possible concepts.
DELTA Tour
Research
Through field studies, our crew began primary research to better understand the first life environments of the carts. Understanding these environments aided us in translating the changes in their existence to a second life. First, we visited the Delta Headquarters and lived a day in the life of
a beverage cart. This experience provided a perspective on the day - to -day treatment of the carts, as well as the culture of Delta as a whole. We met with the regional catering manager for Delta at Hartsfield -Jackson International Airport, a veteran flight attendant who trains prospective stewardesses on the cart functions, and members of the on-board services and sustainability teams.
Later, team members immersed themselves in sustainability based environments in Atlanta, including LifeCycle and Atlantis Hydroponics. LifeCycle is a local nonprofit participating in “environmental stewardship and community resilience by creating a sustainable lifecycle for the built environment,” and Atlantis Hydroponics is committed to “educating people about environmentally conscious products.” While these companies were educating us, they also directed us on how we could educate others in the context of sustainability. While these companies were educating us, they also directed us on how we could educate others in the context of sustainability.
Secondary research provided us with. preliminary understandings of Delta, sustainability, innovation, and up cycling. Understanding the current values, vision, mission, initiatives, and identity of Delta gave us the foundation and direction we needed to dive into a more extensive research process. Through this research, we understood the innovative context in which Delta can pave a runway for environmental responsibility in the travel industry.
Concept Development
After understanding the context of our essential question, we were able to begin our. ideation process. Using insights from the research, we created a consumer map that helped us understand who these strategies would be affecting. This map can be found in the appendix. The consumer map gave us insight into possible customer personas. These can also be found in the appendix. To accompany these insights, we began writing questions. These questions were in the interest of discovering what we wanted to learn as a team.
We began a series of affinitizations. Taking sticky notes and some black wall space, we started ideating any idea, thought, or question we could think of. After a series of these great experiences, we were able to narrow down
nine categories in which most of these landed. We boiled these nine categories into three design criteria. These three criteria became roadmaps for everything we would do.
What were the teams at Delta asking of us?
What were we asking ourselves?
Where do we need to explore, and why?
Framing Insights
The design criteria for creating a sustainable second life for the beverage carts and carriers became Human and Community Impact, Environmental Value, and Business and. Industry Value. Our first criterion is human and community impact. This includes questions about how a user can generate community or trade value from this. Will it have more than just a domestic impact, and is it scalable in a way that can impact the most people that it can? Our second criterion is environmental value. This includes
whether the process and added parts are sustainable, as well as if it will have a further environmental impact like carbon offset. Our final criterion is business and industry value. This includes how possible this strategy is to implement, whether it is truly scalable in a sustainable way, and in some cases, whether it is brand oriented Through these design criteria, we were able to position our strategies and focus our visions.
Inbound
Our design research and process led us to six identified concepts that present possible. design strategies for Delta Airlines.
• Hydroponic Garden
• Wind Turbine
• Installation
• Book-share
• Family Center
• APP
Throughout the journey, we had a midway check in with the Delta team. We presented our six design strategies and discussed the expansion of our ideas. From this hands on morning came insights that would influence the development of our later design strategies. With this development, our crew narrowed the scope of our project from six concepts to four.
Collaborative
Layover
Posters
Solution
Final Destination
As part of the next iteration of the design process, we used our insights from the collaborative layover to develop new questions for our team to answer. The team decided to move forward with the following strategies:
