User-Oriented Collaborative Design

 In this course, we learn how to design with people—not for them. A common problem with designs is that engineers make them without really knowing what the users want. Over the course of the semester, teams practice designing solutions with a specific group in our community. This class is meant to demonstrate the importance of listening and co-design in order to inform the best solutions. My group chose to focus on firefighters and dispatchers.

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We conducted interviews and observed their work. We gathered and organized all of the information we had. This allowed us to create people portraights. We narrowed down a list of the user groups main problems they face and ideated ways to solve this. We then began the co-design phase of the project. We worked with our user group to improve our designs to meet their needs through product trials.

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