THE REDESIGN STUDIO: AN INTENSIVE EVIDENCE-BASED APPROACH FOR IDEATING PRODUCT AND UX/UI IMPROVEMENTS

Abstract

This paper describes a six-week design studio that set out to make 'redesign' an educationally rewarding activity, whilst developing students' skills in evidence-based designing. Final year industrial design undergraduates chose a personally owned household electrical or electronic product that they considered in need of improving or updating. The redesign studio guided students through five consecutive stages of briefings, activities, and critiques: (i) product anatomy analysis and part labelling, (ii) market analysis and market segmentation charts, (iii) hands-on peer contributed user experience (UX) evaluation, (iv) strategies for product improvement, and (v) design proposals. The educational aims of each stage are presented, with particular attention to the UX programme evaluation stage, where students were supplied with a special UX evaluation worksheet to accelerate their comprehension of UX terms and assist the collection and analysis of product evaluations. The results of a survey to gather students' views on the strengths and weaknesses of the redesign studio are also presented. Students gave overwhelmingly positive feedback, praising the closeness of the studio to 'real world' design practice. Their greatest challenge was time management: having to deal with the new experience of a high-intensity studio where they could not afford to ideate for excessively long periods or to procrastinate at any stage. The redesign studio is suggested to be a fruitful model for design instructors to adopt and modify in their own institutions for market-focused design briefs where rationalized incremental improvements are sought, rather than radical innovations.