#wickeddesign

Just a Summary of Wicked Problems.

I think the COVID-19 pandemic (and any pandemic, truly) is an example of a wicked design problem. While there was a roll out of vaccines, it was met with a huge amount of polarity from those who supported versus those who didn't support it. This made it a very controversial problem to solve. The main concerns were long-term effects, efficacy, and overall benefit versus risk - and there were arguments for both sides.

As a reminder, my wicked design problem is “How can we get people to still go out and exercise and work without being bothered by the rainy weather?” 

For visual diary 14, I was thinking about how can I keep the users engaged continuously beyond the initial deployment of motivating people to go out and exercise even in rainy weather. We talked about parameters earlier this semester, and I realized that my project is beyond just the initial development of shoes that may be of help in motivating people to take initiative in working out and go to work without being bothered by rainy weather. However, I shouldn’t just stop there and “give up” on the consumers. As shared in our class, I wanted to anticipate the future and think about the societal impact this solution could have, and how my solution can “live” beyond its initial deployment. Therefore, I thought about maybe an app would be a good continuous motivator for the consumers to stay involve with the waterproof footwear company and also be motivated to actually exercise or go to work in these shoes during the rainy weather. I was inspired by Nike Run Club app, where they basically track runners and the amount of miles and the map of where they ran. I will go further in this in my presentation, but I’m thinking of having the app have the location setting on and be able to track the weather, so during the rainy days, it can remind the users that they don’t have an excuse now to not go out to run or go to work now that they have waterproof shoes! Additionally, to keep it light hearted and fun, I think having giveaways or providing some sort of social media aspect to it, such as allowing the consumers to share their progress with each other will create that relationship between business and consumers. 

This weekend I finally got to watch the Netflix documentary Fyre Fraud which showcases the rise and fall of the Fyre Festival. When watching this documentary, you definitely see that the main reason that the festival failed was greed, but you also see many design issues in the plan for the festival. One of the main design issues was simply the layout of the island. The island was too small to be able to fit the amount of people that were supposed to attend the festival, and that was a wicked problem that simply had no solution. The layout of the island was a wicked problem because every problem that arose was a symptom of another problem. There was not enough room for everyone on the island, therefore there were not enough tents and beds for all of the guests. There were not enough resources on the island for all of the people coming. The island itself lacked electric capacity and cellular and internet connectivity; and there was also not enough food, water, and supplies for all of the attendees.