We were given a project with a turnaround time of 1 week, so we had to work highly collaboratively to meet the deadline and produce a solution that solves a user need. This meant having a structured plan and way to communicate and work collaboratively, so we used Figma, as evidenced below.
“The more things you're interested in, the better your work will be.”
- Michael Bierut
A good designer should always have a healthy curiosity about the world around them. Being aware of current events, culture and generational issues help us to understand the needs of the people we design for and where we might be able to improve the world around us. We can use this general knowledge as inspiration and to make connections between things we've seen work in the past and new problems we may be currently facing.
Your task is to choose one of the list of Zeitgeist topics opposite to explore a product, service or system that may address the issue, or part of the issue:
Climate Change
Global Pandemics
Surveillance Capitalism
Income Inequality
Disinformation / Misinformation
Homelessness
Borders, Immigration & Refugees
Artificial Intelligence
Me Too / Gender Equality
Inflation / Financial Crisis
Racial Inequality
Energy Crisis
War
Cost of Living Crisis
You'll be working in groups of 4 or 5 which will help you cover a lot of ground in a shorter period of time as well as discussing the project in your team and dividing tasks amongst yourselves. So, a good idea might be to divide up the research areas and bring these back for discussion as a group.
As a guide you should be looking in to the topic itself, potential user personas, empathy maps, competitive analysis, connections to current products / services and how these may be adapted. It could be an Airbnb model for homelessness, a Rotten Tomatoes for news outlets, a Tik Tok for activism or anything at all, it's up to you!