I am currently looking for an internship, and would love to hear from you.

Thank you,

Guillaume

Umu is a mobile app to help people share in the experience of caring for others.

The first phase of the Umu project is to build an app that will allow parents and care-givers to track and share different facets of early childcare, allowing for better communication and trend analysis for those who care for newborn children.

The second phase will see the Umu framework expanded to disability, elderly, and pet care

Research InfoGraphic

Our Experiences project began by exploring ways in which humans connect, engage and communicate with each other. We began with an open lens and considered a wide range of topics, with a lengthy research phase that began quite broad before narrowing. The consistent element throughout was a focus on developing a means for empathic communication. We indirectly wanted to address empathy and emotional intelligence through unassuming channels and touch points that would inspire maximum engagement and deep impact—while supporting our core meanings of Harmony, Community and Validation.

In short, we developed a solution that is simple and smart in how it supports these core meanings and addresses our primary goal. It’s not a shockingly new idea or a wild design, but a beautifully meaningful product with the potential for truly impactful engagement.

Research

Methodology

10 street intercepts

7 in-depth interviews with experts: Educators, Counselors, Juvenile Detention Advisor

12 in-depth interviews with Digital Natives (13-18 yrs olds)

Questions centered around identity, friendship and communication

7 prototype subjects

Primary:

We conducted several rounds of primary research, beginning with street intercepts focused around how people connect with each other in physical space and the role technology plays to facilitate and/or hinder those connections. Prior to our street intercepts, we spent a great deal of time observing behavioral interactions at cafes, dog parks, beaches shopping ares and city parklets; these observations helped define our interview questions and our areas of focus for the primary research. We were curious as to what helps or hinders people from communicating, as well as the role technology plays with facilitating or disrupting human connection.

From this research, we narrowed our demographic to Digital Natives, believing that as the emerging generation, how they connect and why they connect will become increasingly important to how we communicate with each other in the future. Using empathy as a filter, we expanded our primary research to our refined demographic, seeking to understand their intrinsic desires and motivations around communication and community specifically related to identity and friendship.

Based on this research, we refined our focus to virtual adolescent harassment (aka cyberbullying). As such, we underwent additional primary research with experts–teachers, counselors, school officials and a juvenile detention officer. These experts gave us insight into the developmental stages of teens, the challenges they face, common social issues particularly related to cyberbullying and the current solutions schools are implementing to avert the trends.

Secondary:

We conducted research around existing solutions for bullying as well as the causes for it. Once our solution space was narrowed, we funneled our research more closely to examine psychological needs and what could potentially be the cause of the more recent resurgence of bullying (now that digital communication has provided a more effective/efficient delivery method for it). We examined Gardner’s Nine Types of Intelligence as well as the Self Determination Theory. The latter proved most valuable, as it mapped exactly to our three meanings we set out to deliver on.

Findings

Our initial observations generated the following hypothesis: The irony is that technology is supposed to make the world smaller, connect us better, but in reality it’s having the opposite effect and we are less engaged to one another than ever before. How can we redefine the role of technology to facilitate human connection?

From this and through our initial primary research, we uncovered that people seek ways to make meaningful, deep connections but face challenges doing so. Technology is valuable for sparking connection, but is lacking as a means to connect and engage with each other in meaningful ways. People have an intrinsic need to feel connected to one another, but when done in abundance through using of technology, it loses meaning. We noted that current technology often only engages one or two senses and also observed that empathy deficit can result from that lack of a full sensory experience.

From our interviews with teens, we found a series of patterns that circulated around ideas of identity, communication and relationships. Our research suggested that there is a simple desire for kind behavior. Divisive, “bullying” type behavior is common and teens are very interested in and heavily influenced by other teens. Bullying and cyberbullying in particular, was an apparent challenge in many of our interviewees lives and influenced their communication styles and sense of identity and self worth. Similar to our initial hypothesis that resulted from our observations and first stage of primary research, it became apparent that wholehearted digital reliance often comes at the expense of developing mature emotional intelligence.

As such, empathy and emotional intelligence were identified as two major skill sets that teens needed in order to build a strong sense of self and to combat bullying.  We also noted that current solutions around bullying and building emotional intelligence were severely lacking and the communication style and approach of existing solutions appear antiquated, impersonal and out of touch.

From these findings, we identified a series of three core meanings for our solution space: Validation, Community and Harmony. Together, these three meanings would guide us toward creating an experience that delivers on the needs of our target demographic. With a lack of self awareness as one of the key drivers toward bullying, we saw an opportunity to find ways to build empathy and emotional intelligence to work towards greater self awareness.

The digital native demographic is used to receiving information fast, they like to multi-task and function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards and embrace multiple modes of self-expression. Three-quarters have created a profile on a social networking site. In short, this demographic is ripe for an online platform designed to increase self awareness and connect them with their peers by facilitating and encouraging opportunities for self-expression.

Ideation Phases

Our project included three phases in which we cyclically explored, found and refined:

Phase ONE: [explore] how people connect in space and the role tech plays ? [find] people have desires to connect with each other in person ?

PHASE TWO [refine] focus on digital natives ? [explore ] digital natives’ relationship to technology and each other ? [find] they desire empathy /EQ ? [refine] bullying space ? [find] core meanings + need for self awareness and personal growth ?

PHASE THREE [explore] prototype ? [find] confirmed need for self awareness and growth and opportunity space ? [refinement] solution focused on school + life that delivers on core meanings

Prototyping Process

As we were creating our prototypes, we wanted to develop concepts for our high school demographic that encouraged self-expression through narrative, created an engaging social platform that facilitated emotional growth, as well as incorporated interaction and feedback, and promoted validation.

Our project included three rounds of prototyping. In our first round, our goal was to include our meanings (harmony, community and validation) and employ them in a way that promoted connection, sharing, emotional intelligence, empathy and empowerment. Each team member developed initial concepts that included academic-oriented themes such as redefining the report card, promoting sharing through objects, producing show-and-tell narratives and creating collaborative idea shops.

After our initial round of prototyping, we focused on providing our demographic with solutions within the school environment and refined the concepts of the report card and the idea shop.  Through the concept of Magnet, we created a platform that provided a rich, holistic form of evaluation and self expression and showcased process while providing actionable feedback.  It provided a connected platform from which students could access all of the content needed for school and personal lives.  We also created a similar concept, Portfolio, which provided students with a digital way to collectively organize their high school academics while also building goals for empathy and emotional intelligence. Another concept, Unite, provided students with a means to connect to each other through rallying behind a common cause.  It was a way for them to also make new friends and brought different social groups together.  Lastly, Prints Made by Teens created a simple way for teens to creatively express themselves through tangible objects and share these objects with other people while raising money for college.

We tested our prototypes with seven teens between the ages of 13-17 years old. As the teens worked through our various solutions, they revealed their own wants and desires around peer groups, self expression and connection. We were able to take our learnings and refine our concept for our final prototype. Our vision was to provide students with a service solution indirectly related to empathy and EQ, give them a platform to self express and engage with their peers in a meaningful way.

Story of Pique

The ideas behind Pique were born out of an exploration of cyberbullying. Having performed research in that space, we found it to be a very challenging, yet pervasive issue. Instead of focusing on attacking cyberbullying specifically, we took a step back to examine the root causes behind it. This was born out of a desire to impact the source of the issue rather than the expression of it. Furthermore, secondary research led us to the conclusion that all existing programs designed to impact bullying specifically, were done in such a way that was not inviting or relevant to the target age group.

While Pique is not designed to be a solve for the broad and complicated challenge of bullying, it is designed to provide an opportunity for development and greater understanding of self. The goal is to provide a safe haven for real communication and sharing.

Solution

Brand Positioning

Pique exists to provide high school students with a means for self expression, growth and connection. In so doing it delivers validation, community and harmony. Toward that end it offers a fun, collaborative, simple and stimulating platform for students to publicly showcase their hobbies and passions, discover new ones, and connect with peers.

It is no small task to build a platform designed to address empathy and emotional intelligence. without being overt in a way that undermines our goal of being indirect in its approach. In order to do so, we built a site that is very subtle, with the empathy component remaining almost invisible to the user.

Project Details

Date: Fall 2011

Class: Experience Studio

Group Size: 4

Contributed to: Primary Research (Interviews), Graphics, Writing, Concept Development, Ideation, Project Presentation

Since 2009, Dublin has seen overwhelming success with its bicycle sharing program. Dublinbikes , modeled after the Paris Bike Program, has had a high adoption rate as Dubliners are using the bikes much more than anyone had expected. The program has been so popular that this past November , the City Council voted to expand the program from the current 500 bikes to 5,000.

The brilliance of the system is found in its simplicity. When Dubliners need to get from one part of town to another, they can check out a bike from one of 40 bike centers around the city and deposit at another when they are done.

Dublin Bikes from Guillaume Driscoll on Vimeo.

The bicycles are free for the first half-hour. Afterwards, there is an escalating, hourly-based, tiered pricing structure. This encourages riders to keep their trips brief and allow more users the opportunity to utilize the biking system. The rider is also on the hook should anything happen to the bicycle while it is in their care. If the bike is not returned the credit card on record is charged.

Due to the monetary incentive, the program has had only several bikes damaged and very few stolen, unlike the Paris scheme, whose theft and vandalization rate threatened to end the program.

Riders can sign up for the service easily by registering online for a Longterm Hire card. However, if a rider is visiting the city for a short period of time (as this writer was) they can sign up for a 3-Day pass for €2 (~$3).

According to a local Transportation Department survey, 70% of the riders use the bikes for commuting purposes, while 30% use it for shopping or enjoyment. Of shoppers, almost half of riders made trips that they otherwise would not have, adding additional revenue to local business. This is also helped by another feature of the bike that allows riders to use a built-in onboard bike lock should riders want to make a stop during their ride.

Expanding the Program

Because of the extremely high popularity of the program, the city council voted last year to expand the program from 450 to 5,000 bicycles in the coming years. In addition to the number of bikes available, the program also hopes to increase the number of locations of bike stations where bikes can be picked up or dropped off. One issue some riders mentioned was that on occasions bike stations would fill up and riders would have to locate the next closes station on the kiosk. Increasing stations would alleviate this issue as well as open up it up to more riders.

There are even questions if the program’s effects can be felt nationally. Over the last two years the Ireland biking industry has seen a significant increase in bicycles sales, prompting many in the industry to wonder if there is a correlation, in addition to a faltering economy and skyrocketing gas prices.

City officials in the United States have also taken notice of the program’s popularity. In April, the city of Boston signed an agreement to start their own version called HUB that could be in place as early as this July. Other cities, like San Francisco, are eagerly searching for alternative transportation methods that are both healthy and sustainable, and will certainly be watching these programs closely.

Back in Dublin I hopped off my bike to catch my breath after peddling frantically through the morning rush hour. I was barely able to to keep up with the bike traffic. However, just two years into the program DublinBikes shows no sign of slowing down.

The EnergyBike Pack, still in the early prototyping stage, will attenpt to address this issue by utilizing bicycle power to bring energy into people’s homes. Initially, I approached the problem by looking for an abundant sustainable resource in targeted areas, and bicycles were consistently the most common shared resource.

The EnergyBike Pack will be a removable battery system that is easily attached to virtually every type of bicycle. While the bicyclist pedals, the batteries will be charged by an attached alternator connected to the rear wheel. Once home, the bicyclist will be able to detach the pack and bring it into the home to plug in a common electrical device such as lighting or an electric stove-top.

With rising purchasing power, they are a powerful force in the furniture consumption market. However, recognizing that they are not in permanent situations, they often resort to poorly made furniture with a short lifespan.These consumers know all to well that second hand markets such as Craigslist often provide no greater than a 50% return on quality second-hand furniture. Legendary addresses this problem through quality built furniture, design to be moved, re-used and refurbished for an infinite number of owners and a service model that makes take-back convenient and economically comparable to the alternatives in the market place.

The Vision

We want to reduce furniture waste by creating a solution that would allow for furniture to be used again and again. We realized, however, for this to happen, the furniture would have to be repaired, recycled or repurposed. This would be Legendary’s role.

Yet, for furniture to be designed in a way that would allow the furniture to be easily repaired there would have to be a set of strict design principals from Legendary that the industry would adopt. Having the option to sell back used furniture appeals to consumers.

To develop the initial business model and design principles, however, we would start by offering our own line of Legendary furniture along with the expectation that when customers wanted to change their furniture they could sell it back to Legendary.

Project Details

Date: Spring 2011

Class: Sustainability

Group Size: 5

Contributed to: Primary Research (Interviews), Graphics, Report Design, Writing, Concept Development, Ideation, Project Presentation

LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS OF A MICRO-BREW BEER

Looking at the entire life cycle of a six-pack of beer includes the agricultural process of growing the hops and barley, gathering sand to make glass bottles and forming steel bottle caps and eventually transporting cartons of six-packs in a refrigerated vehicle, potentially across the country, to a grocery store where it will be stored for a number of weeks in large refrigerators to eventually be picked up by a consumer who likely drove several miles and will return to their home to once again store the bottles in their personal refrigerator. This is all in addition to the water, electricity and gas usage during the actual brewing process.

Using the Sustainable Minds’ tool to conduct a Life Cycle Analysis of brewing beer proved challenging since this tool focuses primarily on manufacturing and not food products. However, as the ingredients for brewing are unlikely to be negotiated by an individual brewer, using industry standard data was an acceptable alternative. As the intent of this study was to focus primarily on the impact of local vs. national brewing and the consumption methods of beer, we did not include the construction of the brew house, nor the installation or maintenance of the brewing equipment

Read the Full Report:

Project Details

Date: Spring 2011

Class: Sustainability

Group Size: 4

Contributed to: Secondary Research, Analysis, Graphics, Writing

Video will be uploaded soon, please visit back shortly.

Project Details

Date: Spring 2011

Class: Business Models and Stakeholders

Group Size: 6

Contributed to: Secondary Research, Primary Research, Analysis, Writing, Concept Development, Ideation, Presentation Delivery

View the presentation slides:

Project Details

Date: Spring 2011

Class: Market Insights

Group Size: 4

Contributed to: Secondary Research, Primary Research (Interviews), Graphics, Writing, Concept Development, Ideation, Presetation Delivery

At Children’s Hospital and Research Center of Oakland (CHRC) nurses’ stress levels are reaching a critical point. They face several stress points in their profession that can, and has, inhibited their ability to dutifully fulfill their job requirements. The first stress point is the emotional toll that is brought on by caring for sick children and their families. The second, is having the time constraint of a constant demand for attention from many different area, while only having a finite amount of time to attend to them. The time crunch felt by nurses can be overwhelming. Thirdly, nurses expressed a need for additional resources to fulfill their responsibilities. This stress manifests itself into harmful health effects, reduced care quality, and higher turnover.

This must be addressed. From the information I gained through research I have designed a short term solution to alleviate stress through peer support. CHRC should organize and support group meetings outside the purview of the hospital administration. These meetings should have the overall theme of community support but participants should also be allowed to choose their own approach. This would provide a safe environment for the nurses to express their feelings and receive emotional support from their peers.

View the full report:

Date: Fall 2010

Class: Innovation Studio

Group Size: 1

Contributed to: Secondary Research, Primary Research, Analysis, Writing, Concept Development, Ideation

Date: Fall 2010

Class: Leadership by Design

Group Size: 1

Contributed to: Secondary Research, Primary Research, Analysis, Writing, Concept Development, Ideation

The winner posters were displayed in Piazza Cordusio e via Dante, in the heart of Milan during the city’s Design Week.

You can also view the below submission here.