I also really liked the idea of a way to track a stolen bike or bike parts. I have several friends who have gotten their bike seats and whole bikes stolen, and I’m afraid that will happen to me, so it would be nice to have a way to at least get back the stolen items if you can’t prevent theft in the first place. Overall, I liked everyone’s projects and saw many smart ideas. 

Once we came up with the basic ideas, each member of our 5 person group was assigned a specific area to talk about in the powerpoint presentation. We included information about the problem of shoes causing discomfort, our project’s goal, inspiration for the idea, our primary target audience, how we planned on connecting with the audience, research on other shoe comfort products, our experimenting with different materials, and what we asked people about to gain insight from others. The written submittal included similar elements that we broke off into different sections and had one person or two people do each part. I think it went pretty well overall, and we worked together in a good way!

After figuring out a good material for our blister protecting comfort product, we needed to figure out how it was going to be sold, and how we were going to market it. Our primary audience was decided to be business women who spend a lot of time in heels and other uncomfortable professional footwear, and athletes, such as runners, who can be hindered in performance quality when their shoes cause discomfort. Of course, this product can really be for anyone, since everybody wears shoes, but we thought the largest group represented would be business women and athletes. We also decided to come up with the idea for a website that allows consumers to customize the product to meet their needs according to size, shoe use, etc. Another online tool we wanted to take advantage of was social media. We wanted to have a twitter and instagram in order to share information, spread awareness of our product, and receive feedback from users of the product. 

After coming up with our concept, but looked into different design ideas and ways to make our product come to life. We needed to check out different materials, and we thought of a few that may be soft enough and moldable enough for our blister pad. Yoga mat material, foam, and gel material were all options. We then tested these out for durability, comfort, and how well they held their shape. We found that gel held up the best as it was durable, comfortable, and retained it shape rather than flattening like the other materials. 

We started out our project by brainstorming problems that are common in our everyday lives. As a group of girls, we realized that we all hate when cute shoes give us blisters or cause discomfort. Our project idea is to create a sort of moldable, removable pad to prevent blisters that seem to come with every pair of new shoes and ease discomfort. We want the product to be usable for a variety of different people, including business professionals, athletes, and more. We decided to start off by setting our mission statement or goal: “Our group’s goal is to create a solution to the problem of blisters, pain, and discomfort when wearing cute shoes. We want to eliminate the notion that “pain is beauty.”

I think the idea for a water bottle that tracks daily water intake that Emily posted is a great one. I always try to drink a lot of water, but it’s hard to remember to drink more water and force myself to fill up at drinking fountains. Water is a really important part of staying healthy, so I think that this design idea is great. Everyone needs to drink water, and I’m sure a lot of people have the similar problem of forgetting to drink up! 

This week, I thought about design as it is used by people in public, or as public space. I have spent a lot of time outside recently, using public space. Public space needs to be designed to suit the needs of different people, and it often can be used for different things. For example, the Mall here at the U is an often used public space for students here. I have studied outside there, and looked around at different elements it has. There’s obviously a large grassy area, used for all sorts of activities including games, studying, laying out in the sun, and more. There are a number of large trees, useful for providing shade and adding interest to the space. There are also sidewalks along the outside, lined with benches. Placed up closer to Northrop Auditorium, there are a number of tables, some more benches, and lots of plants that add to the space. This space is useful, it’s functional, and it is able to be molded for studying, fundraisers, concerts, activities, shows, and more. Public space is important to life, especially in cities, but really anywhere. 

When you organize a protest, you first need a particular issue about which you are rallying. You also need a location to protest at, preferably somewhere relevant to the issue and a place where you will be seen by a large number of people. The main goal is for your issue to be acknowledged as a prominent problem, which is the first step towards fixing or changing it. In addition to the location, you need to plan for the number of people who will attend. You also need to figure out how you are going to protest. There are a number of options including signs, loudspeakers, marches, banners, chants, speakers, etc. that would be beneficial towards getting the main point across. Design is definitely involved more in these things than one would think, and the large protest we viewed on wednesday showed how a well thought out and well organized event can be.