I was absolulty thrilled to find out this weekend that Innovative Product Design of the University of Dundee had won their first New Designers award.  The New Designers Swarovski Crystal Palace Award of £1000 worth of crystals went to Andrew Ross for a very different but fascinating project, of looking into alternative uses for bovine bone : 

“My initial research explored agricultural by-products. The idea was to give farmers the ability, not only to farm food, but also to farm products.  I desired to create some form of local production, which would be beneficial to both the environment, and the economy.This research led me to an abattoir where I encountered a strange, yet wonderful, opportunity to use waste cow bones “

Andrew Ross

Last week i visited wigan renal unit as a starting point for a user experience project. The unit is a Satellite of Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust which provides patients with renal dialysis closer to their home without having to go into hospital. 

During my day i did observations and chatted to patients and staff to hear their stories and thoughts about the unit.  Whist i was there i realised what a niche service this is for the patients, they use it three times a week, there start to finish user journey is very methodical, it can often take up to 7 hours, and they are dependant on it to keep them alive….I have never expereinced a service that is such an important part of someones lives.

However although this is the case i have never met a group of people that were more upbeat and positive…..they were great! They know they need this treatment, but they just get on with it and make the most of it. The patients and staff have a real family vibe between them, they are all treated with equality rather than a division between staff and patients, it was very refreshing.

After a full day spent at the unit and a good disucssion with the renal consultant about our next steps i have come away with lots of exciting ideas and i am determined than ever to help make a difference!

More updates on this project will be on my website soon!

sorry i couldn’t upload an image wordpress was being rubbish!

I’ve never been a huge fan of computers games, but I have to admit since more “interactive games” like wii sports have been released I have been more drawn to them due to them being far more fun, energetic and a social activity to do with a group of people.

Recently Nintendo Wii have brought out “Wii fit” a computer game that combines fitness and fun to encourage better health and fitness.

The game has four training modes; balance games, aerobic exercise, yoga and strength activities. There are 40 exercises in total which are aimed to provide you with a “core workout” The program can even calculate your BMI (body mass index) and chart your daily exercises to see how yout stats are changing.

As far as computer games go I think this is a great idea, it is getting away from traditional games that usualing envolved sitting down for long periods of time and instead it is providing you with fun exercise.

I am always stil in favour for outdoor exercise but i think this would allow people who are more self conscious to do a wide range of excercises within the home, which normally would be restricted to your usual workout videos.

This a sign i saw at Edinburgh Zoo (Part of  The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland) I thought the quote on it was great! so i had to take a photograph! If everyone had this outlook on life the world would be a very exciting and innovative place to live!

This inspirational book by Johan Tell is brilliant!It is full of simple actions to help sustain our environment and reduce energy consumption. Now we just have to get people to do these actions!

I highy reccomend buying it!

After a few tedious technical problems, my new website eilidhdickson.co.uk is up and running! I am using the website to show some of my work and little about myself! As far as i know it is fully functioning, but if you notice anything not quite right please let me know though!

I recently recieved an email from paul at thinkpublic with an invite to come up with one line of service design . The experiment originated at the service design company 31volts. Check out there blogpage to find out more. Its very interesting! So here is my one line!

“service design allows us to create personal enjoyable user centered experiences, that will sustain over, without creating uneccessary products that will obselete and end up in a landfill”

 To see the results so far see this link…

Last Thursday i experienced something brilliant when i volunteered at a local senior citizens club that my granny runs. I was amazed at how such a simple service provides such joy to the elderly. The club gives them something to look forward to every week and helps them make friends and maintain relationships, which i think is fantastic as loneliness in the elderly is an every increasing problem in our society. I think more services that bring the elderly to together for social interaction would be great!

This weekend i had an interesting time brainstorming will my old university flatmate. Myself and Emma who had studied psychology at university were thinking of possible projects and things we could do to further our knowledge in our spare time…..while we were doing so i was enlightened, when i found out that Emma had used a number of the same user centered research techniques for her work at uni as i had, something that would have been good to know at the time, especially as she often had a slightly different and very interesting approach towards them! To me research is the most important role of a designer, being able to obtain meaningful insights and use them to solve problems and help people.  This got me thinking again about do you need to have a design related degree to be regarded as a designer? or may be there should be a different name for people that want to use there knowledge and insights in this way? I think there is so much potential to combine learning through with other disciplines. At university there obviously is some affiliation between faculties, you often see design working with engineering or business, but imagine the possibilities if more diverse departments were less segregated and worked together. For example a project joining product design and social work. This would give the design students the insight into social change, human relationships and behaviour and enhancing well being where as the social workers could see how a method like the design process can could help solve social issues that they work on every day. I think if opportunities could arise like this at university it would be fantastic, and i think the outcomes would be great!

I know that using multidisciplinary teams within design consultancies and using design in new ways to solve social, environmental problems etc associated with our changing lifestule is a very topical area at the moment but if you have any thoughts I’d love to hear them!

An exciting event is happening in Copenhagen soon! A service design symposium held by Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID). The event will bring together specialists and pioneers in service design. Over the course of two days there will be talks and debates with the hope to provoke new thinking in service innovation. “The symposium will act as a platform for deeper understanding of how to harness design thinking as a strategy and adopting best practices in the public sector” The event will be hosted at the  Danish Architectural Centre on the 6th and 7th of march. I may be a little service design bias but to me this sounds awesome!To find out more……..

CIID service symposium webpage

CIID weblog