Anthropology Students Develop Prototypes for Solving Social Problems on Laurier’s Waterloo Campus

Students in Applied Anthropology (AN456) used a research-design approach to identify and solve social problems on Laurier’s Waterloo campus.

According to course instructor Daniela Kraemer, lead ethnographer with InWithForward, a research-design approach combines ethnographic research methods and design-thinking. Ethnographic research methods seek to understand the people’s lived experience of a particular social issue, while design-thinking – particularly service design thinking – is used to develop a solutions to particular problems.

According to Kraemer, service-design thinking has four key principles: it is user-centred, emphasizes the co-creation of services, pays careful attention to the sequencing of actions, and it is holistic. In a research-design approach the investigator begins by identifying “pain points,” or something experienced by a group of people that bothers them or interferes with their lives. The goal of this kind of research is to provide a solution. To do so, researchers identify positive exceptions in the situation and the factors that influence them, generate data to identify new ideas, and design interactions to create desired outcomes. After, they create prototypes, or small scale versions of the solution, to test it out and then work with users to modify it.

AN456 students worked in groups to apply a research-design approach in identifying and solving problems on Laurier’s Waterloo campus such as the scarcity of study space, dissatisfaction with study space in the Laurier Library, and challenges students interested in the creative arts face in connecting with one another.

On April 4, three groups of students presented their research-design process to the class. We learned about successful and not-so-successful recruitment methods, the challenges of conducting a segmentation analysis, and a series of fascinating prototypes. The following are brief summaries of each of these impressive projects, presentations, and prototypes.

Smart Study Centre: Responding to a Lack of Study Space on Campus

By Francesca Apraku, Simon LeBlanc, Tamar Zecharia

It is no secret that Laurier students are frustrated with the lack of study space on the Waterloo campus. However, Francesca, Simon and Tamar asked questions such as, "are students frustrated by a lack of space or the lack of a particular kind of space?" And, "what kind of study spaces do students want and what should it look like?" While recruiting participants proved challenging, visual tools such as drawing maps were a key technique for eliciting information. Francesca, Simon and Tamar identified students who were “group workers” and preferred busy open spaces and “isolated workers” who prefer a space of their own.

Their prototype for resolving the problem was the construction of the Smart Study Centre a brand new five-floor building with different kinds of study space to address the needs of students with different approaches to studying. They argued that a new building is needed because the lack of space was tied to the dramatic growth in Laurier’s student population.

The new building would have a combination of quiet, closed spaces and brighter, larger, more social spaces. The first floor would have an open concept design and contain both group spaces and individual workspaces. The second and fourth floor would have group spaces while with the third and fifth floor would have more private workspaces. The second and third floors would operate on a first come, first-served basis, while students would be able to pre-book rooms on the fourth and fifth floors. Their design also included the Smart Study Centre App which would facilitate the booking process.

Students Konnected: An App Bringing Together Laurier Students Interested in the Creative Arts

By Kirstin Corbett, Courtney Magnus, Angela Marelli, Katerina Sucevic

Laurier students interested in the creative arts struggle to connect with one another. This project grew out of one group member’s involvement in creating the Laurier Creative Collective to address this “pain point” and another group member’s challenges in locating such a club during her transition from first to second year. This group’s analysis of research participants’ interviews generated the categories of “socializers” (who wanted to attend creative arts events with a friend), “frustrated creatives” (who wanted to find a venue to display their creativity but could not), “non-creators” (people who did not identify as a creator and did not want to get involved), and “arts stress releasers” (people who wanted to do arts for pleasure and to release stress but not to perform or exhibit their work).

Kirstin, Courtney, Angela and Katerina developed the app “Students Konnected” to address the concerns of “socializers” and “frustrated creatives.” The app has two key entry points. One is for students looking for clubs to get involved, events to attend, and people to attend them with. The second is for clubs to promote themselves to interested students and to advertise their events. The group presented a detailed prototype of the app and walked us through how a student interested in attending an event would use the app and how a club would use the app to reach that student. The app would function similar to a social media platform. It would allow students to "like" clubs and would have an algorithm that generates unanticipated alternatives based on what they have liked.

Stop and Swap: Creating a Sense of (Study)Place at the Laurier Library

By Krischan Antaram, Gary Hung, Sabrina Yorke

This group's starting point was their own and their friends’ experience of the Library work space as “a prison” or “pure agony.” After successfully recruiting participants using a flyer, Krischan, Gary and Sabrina used a series of interview questions to elicit emotions. Analyzing their interviews led them to focus on two groups: “the social butterflies” and “realists.” Realists expressed frustration with the library’s level of cleanliness and made proposals to advocate for a new library space. Social butterflies were frustrated with the noise regulations and advocated the creation of a new co-working space.

Recognizing the university’s limited financial resources, this group proposed Stop and Swap, a new service that could be offered by the library. This service would allow students to rent or purchase items that they could use to modify a library workspace in order to create a personal sense of place in the library. They proposed an online app for renting items such as blankets, headphones, fans, cleaning fluids, a SAD lamp, and a divider to use on an open table. Students would be able to reserve an item using the library’s website, pick up items at the check-out desk, and return them when they are finished.