Week 11 – Design and Develop

Interview with George Lee & Jonathan Collie
E, Manzini., (2015) ‘Part 3: Making Things Happen’, in Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation
McQuiston, L., (1993) Graphic Agitation

Workshop challenge

Conclude your own service design project, which you outlined over the last two weeks.

After a tutorial with Ben this week I decided to try some different service design tools. I started with a few personas and then mapped their journey to the beach.

Persona 1: The Jones, a family of four looking for a week long break

Booking the Holiday

The Jones family book a holiday chalet at the same holiday camp every year. They have already booked next year’s vacation directly with the resort.

Packing for the Holiday

The Jones family buy beach equipment and use it every year, they store it and reuse it.

Travelling to Cornwall

The Jones family drive to Cornwall. They get stuck on the A30 and are tired and cranky by the time they cross into Cornwall. They stop for petrol at Victoria Services.

Arriving

The Jones’ stop for groceries before they book into the holiday camp. At this point they are vulnerable to snap buys.

At the beach

The Jones’ have made it to the beach. They have a mixture of decent quality beach things they bring with them, and cheap impulse buys that may break.

Persona 2: A group of single men on a lads weekend holiday

Booking the Holiday

The Lads book a last minute weekend break using an aggregate site. They don’t see the accommodation’s website.

Packing for the Holiday

The Lads pack quickly and carelessly. They forget many holiday essentials.

Travelling to Cornwall

The Lads get the train to Cornwall. They start the holiday as soon as they board and begin drinking.

Arriving

The Lads get a taxi to their accommodation. They don’t stop on the way.

At the beach

The Lads have booked surf lessons and are interested in pub crawls and drinking around a beach fire. They purchase any forgotten items at stores within walking distance but are mostly interested in alcohol and food.

Persona 3: The Smith’s -an older couple looking for an off peak holiday with their dog

Booking the Holiday

The Smith’s book a boutique dog friendly hotel, they have booked their break during the school term.

Packing for the Holiday

The Smith’s pack impeccably and to account for every eventuality

Travelling to Cornwall

The Smiths drive to Cornwall, but find traffic moderate and arrive in good time and are quite cheerful.

Arriving

The Smiths head straight to their hotel where they have already made dinner arrangements.

At the beach

The Smiths are interested in dog friendly beaches for long walks. They spend the majority of their time on the Coastal paths or in restaurants and museums. They do not buy cheap beach toys, but may purchase a new ball for their dog or a sunhat.

Persona 4: The Browns – A family of four looking for a week long break

Booking the holiday

The Browns holiday somewhere different every year. They book an AirBnB.

Packing for the Holiday

The Browns drag anything beachy out of storage and find it is all old and outgrown by the children. They throw it in the bin and plan to buy all new supplies once they arrive.

Travelling to Cornwall

The Brown family drive to Cornwall. They get stuck on the A30 and are tired and cranky by the time they cross into Cornwall. They stop for petrol at Victoria Services.

Arriving in Cornwall

The Browns stop to stock up the kitchen of their AirBnB. They take the opportunity to stock up on cheap beach toys as well

At the beach

The Browns have made it to the beach. Their cheap beach toys begin breaking as soon as they use them and they look enviously at the Jones’ more robust equipment. They don’t want to invest in expensive high quality beach toys, but would be interested in renting them for the same price they paid for the now broken equipment.

From these four personas I can see that my focus should be on Personas 1 and 4. I can see clear spaces to reach them with my campaign about body board rental and beach toy libraries. Insertion points are at the point of booking, arrival at large service stations, and while checking into their accommodation. Knowing that beach toys and equipment will be provided by the lending service at their accommodation or affordably rented at the beach will positively affect their behaviour and reduce the amount of broken plastic left behind.

I also did a short anonymous survey, but haven’t had much uptake. The consensus so far is that posters and awareness campaigns do work, which I found a bit surprising.

I’ve decided to tighten my scope to just bodyboards and beach toy libraries. Beach litter is a big local issue, but it mostly just requires more bins and recycling facilities, and the funding to keep them maintained.
I had a great chat with my local Green party candidate (and she’s used some of my ideas in her campaign, which is fantastic!)

I’ve found my target audience and isolated some outreach points and will start working up some images. Based on the assumption that people don’t *want* to be littering or wasting money on rubbish beach toys that break and pollute the ocean, I’m going for a two pronged approach.
First – working with local holiday camps, hotels and campsites to establish a lending library of quality beach toys. Often the facilities already have a surplus of equipment left behind by previous guests. If we can let holiday makers know they will have access to beach equipment as part of their stay it will cut down on the broken bits of plastic that are left behind every year.
Second – A local Bodyboard rental facility. If we can make quality bodyboards available for the same or less than the easily broken boards we can start to make a difference in people’s buying habits. The boards need to be easily accessible and available. If we ban the sale of “single use” boards, we need an affordable and sustainable replacement, and an outreach project to make people aware of the option.