Week Six – Brief and Strategy

How do you ensure your project is strategically aligned to allow for its development in relation to client and audience needs?

Lecture Notes

How do you develop a strategy and project plan for a client / audience in a continually evolving global market?

Torsten Posselt– Structure and process that you want to work in. Many different ways of doing this, can plan each stage if you want but everyone works in different ways.
Good to meet clients in person first off. Designers today are all about communication. It’s important to ask clarification questions to client and involve them.
Take time to analyse ideas, what the client needs and layout ground rules- but don’t set in it stone. Need a freedom to change things as the project progresses. It’s good to speak to others about the idea and direction. Make sure you have enough time for the project.
Matthew Jones, Michelle Dona – Accept and Proceed
All evolving glad trends to influence how you manage the process. Deep dive audience research and reach out to consumers. Work through process with client at the beginning of the project.
Have the plan set up before you move forward
Walter Dirks – always start by doing research – understand market, client and project. Then do a brand workshop with the client. Interview other key stakeholders and customers to create as complete a view as possible of the market.
Luke Veerman – need to be aware of what’s happening globally and outside of your own industry. Where your client are and what they are experiencing. Need to speak to people from different layers of society. Who is going to use it and research alongside this.

Lecture Reflection

Making a plan to structure how your project will run seems to be important, and it needs to be well thought out and researched. However, the plan also needs to have room for the project to grow and change so flexibility is key. I think this balance is an important one and something that may be hard to achieve. A strong structure keeps you focused and moving forwards in the right way, but can be limiting to creative expansion and development if there is not space for a project to undertake a change in direction half way through.

Research of your target audience, clients and anyone else who will be involved in the project at any stage is also important. As a designer you need to understand and listen to many different people and bring all these ides together to create an outcome that can be really valuable for everyone involved.

Reading Reflection

Reading through Peter Phillips ‘creating the perfect Design brief’ was a really useful example of how to structure a project plan. I like how he split the project into phases and then clearly listed what would be achieved during that phases.

“Sit down and make a list of all the apparent barriers to your success”
Peter Phillips (Phillips 2012)

I also think writing down your potential issues is an interesting process, as thinking about these early on, gives you the opportunity to adapt and plan for them, instead of being hit by them half way through the project. I like how he refers to them as ‘apparent barriers’ opening up the idea that any barrier can be overcome if looked at in the right way.

I also think that setting out clear aims is a good plan, so I can keep these in mind as I go through the project and can ensure I keep it on track. I am going to bring a lot of these elements within my plan.

Katee Hui

Katee’s way of looking at issues in the world is very inspiring. She is looking from a very person focused perspective and making change. She spotted a problem in her community and wanted to change it and solve the problem. We all have the ability to make a difference. I think her approach of starting with a problem she wants to solves, but then letting herself be taken on a journey as she works towards solving it, is a really great way of going about it. The outcome she eded up with wasn’t what she had expected but she surrendered to the process without letting go of her aim.

I read part of Andrew Shea’s book, Designing for social change : strategies for community-based graphic design. Although not exactly aligned with what my project is, he raised some important ideas about what your strategy should be when designing in a community focused way.

Some of his top tips were:

Immerse Yourself, Spend time getting to know the community you work with.
Build Trust.
Generate numerous prototypes before coming to a final, informed strategy.
Meet with community partners frequently to make sure that your design effectively addresses the controversial issues with taste and playfulness.
Design with the Community’s Voice – Make sure your design connects to the community’s style and doesn’t just reflect your own aesthetics. Research what colors, typefaces, and other style elements are prevalent in the community and take inspiration from them.
Consider the local languages, cultural norms, and literacy levels, and continue to home in on your final design by soliciting feedback from community members throughout the design process.
Give Communities Ownership- Empower the community by giving it ownership over design tools and methods. Involve community members from the beginning so that they can learn from the research, brainstorming, and planning phases of the project and take pride in it.

(Shea 2012)

I think these are good reminders to keep the community you are designing for in the forefront of your mind while creating a solution for them, and involve them wherever possible. This is something I can going to try and incorporate into my project if I can, as I am looking to create a solution that directly helps a community, so I need to ensure I create if for them, not for me.

Project Plan and Strategy

At the start of my plan I think it is important to define my project question and my target audience. Throughout my project I need to pay careful attention to what my audience and potential users need. I also made notes about the potential project phases I plan to go through.

Objective/project overview

Everyone has mental health, and a lot of people struggle with their mental health at some point throughout their life, be that with a long term mental illness or short period of poor mental wellbeing. It is very common to need support for your mental health, but many people don’t or can’t access the support they need. This causes small problems to spiral out of control, or big issues to become life threatening.

During my time working for a mental health charity, I saw first hand how many free mental health support services are under utilised. I think a big part of this problem is down to a lack of understanding or clear paths for people who are struggling. When things feel too much and someone tries to reach out for support, knowing where to turn can feel very confusing and overwhelming. People need to be shown what they can do, offered understanding towards how they are feeling and for it to be very simple and easy for them to know where to turn.

In my project, I want to use design as a tool to help make that first step towards accessing mental health support easier and more user friendly. During my project I hope to answer the question: How can design bridge the gap between people who need support but are not accessing it and the under utilised mental health services available in my area?

Target Audience

My project is aimed towards helping people who are struggling with their mental health. They want to access support and start on the journey to feeling better but they don’t know where to start. It is probably aimed more at people with mild to medium mental health symptoms. They have probably not accessed support before.

They are mid or low income, so don’t have private healthcare and are unlikely to pay for support.

Project Plan

Phase 1 – Research

Look at similar projects
Research the path people take to access mental health support
Speak to target audience
Speak to mental health experts?
Refine project question

Phase 2 – Service Design Research

Create personas
Look at client journey and sticking points
Refine project question again if needed

Phase 3 – Visual Research

Look at visual references
Create a selection of mood boards
Pick a few colour scheme options

Phase 4 – Idea Generation

Create three potential design directions
Gain feedback on these
Check the client journey and sticking points

Phase 5 – Design Development

Create logo and branding
Create prototypes for my design in chosen style
Get feedback and test client journey

Phase 6 – Deliver a final outcome

Finalise design of my final outcome

Phase 7 – Next Steps

Gain feedback from target audience
Create advertising material to market my outcome

Potential issues / Obstacles

Inspired by this weeks reading I thought about potential issues I may face during this project and thought about how they may be overcome.

May be difficult to get people to talk to me about their mental health
- Start early with my research
- Be bold about asking people
- ensure they can stay anonymous
I may not have enough time to fully realise this project
- Plan out the time I have well
I may struggle to get other companies onboard
Uncertainty that I can create a good outcome
Not enough experience in the subject matter
- Reach out to people who have more experience and knowledge about mental health than me
- Look for resources i can use to support myself

Key Aims

Create something simple, engaging and user-focused
Make it easier for someone to take the first step towards getting help
Create an accessible outcome

I added this information to a simple but clear project plan

How would I engage with my audience

During my design process I would like to engage with my audience. Working on a subject like mental health however, it is always more complicated to reach and engage with the right people.

Once my project is done, I will need to reach my target audience to make my outcome successful in improving the mental health of local people.

I would aim to do with through print and digital advertising of the service. I would create social media graphics, posters and billboards to bring peoples attention to the service.

I would also aim to rank well on google so people searching for local mental health support would come across my product. My belief is that google is one of the main ways people will take their first steps to look for support, but i need to undertake some market research to ensure this is correct.

Research

As I am worried that a potential issue will be getting people to share their insights with me due to the sensitive and often stigmatised nature of mental health, I decided to start my research as quickly as possible. I created a short form and shared in on my social media channels asking people to fill in and share, in the hope of getting some insights.

I asked:

Have you ever accessed mental health support?
Have you ever thought about accessing mental health support?
Where did you start looking for support?
What is your experience of accessing (or trying to access) mental health support?
What has put you off accessing support?
What do you think could be better/easier?
In an ideal world, what would you want your mental health support to be like?

The rationale behind my strategy and project plan

The brief I have decided to take forwards for this project is the Creative Conscious brief. As this brief is very broad, I have set myself my own project question within this brief, in the hope that focusing on a specific issue will allow me to create a valuable outcome.

The question I have set myself is How can design bridge the gap between people who need mental health support but are not accessing it and the under utilised mental health services available in my area?

I have based my project plan on the double diamond method and bought in ideas from Peter Phillips book, ‘Creating the Perfect Design Brief’. I think the structured yet simple approach of the double diamond method will allow me to be flexible in how I approach this project, adapting to any changes in direction I might come across, but while still keeping me focused and on track.

I have split my project up into seven phases that fit within the structure of the double diamond to give myself some structure. I have also looked at the available weeks and mapped out which phases need to be completed in each week. This way, I can make sure I give important sections enough time, but also make sure I get everything done within the timescale.

I think research will be an important part of this project, as I need to work out what is going wrong with people accessing mental health support, so I know where to position my solution. Therefore, I have separated my research out into three separate phases to ensure I give each area significant focus.

The main aims I have set myself in this project are to make sure my outcome is simple, engaging and user-focused, to create something that makes it easier for someone to take the first step towards getting help and to make sure my outcome is accessible for as many people as possible.

At this point I am purposefully unsure what my outcome will be, as I want my process to reveal the best outcome through following my process and sticking to my strategy and project aims.

Reference list

PHILLIPS, Peter L. 2012. Creating the Perfect Design Brief : How to Manage Design for Strategic Advantage. New York: Allworth Press.

SHEA, Andrew. 2012. Designing for Social Change : Strategies for Community-Based Graphic Design. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Lizzie Wa Design