Transferring Today to Tomorrow

I have had a fantastic couple of days! I did promise I would tell you about a fantastic project I am involved in as soon as I could.

So here goes...I am embarking upon a 3 month project with Deutsche Telekom laboratories, T-labs, in Berlin :)

This international project initiated by the renowned design researcher Rosan Chow, is made up of an interesting mix of talents. The multi disciplinary team consists of staff and students. We spent the day team building, thinking about our roles within the team and our expectations.  You can see pics from the day on flickr.

I am working with three fellow post-graduate design students from a range of fields; interaction design, multi-touch technology and jewellery. Project mentoring, research and facilitation are being carried out by: Mike Press, Professor of Design Policy and Head of School, Hazel White, Director of the Masters of Design program and Fraser Bruce, a specialist in team dynamics and product development.

We will be focusing on information communication for older users. In depth research and analysis will be carried out to define who the elderly are; their social behaviours, lifestyles, physical and cognitive abilities.

Visualising new concepts, processes, existing products and services will be a key tool adopted throughout the project. Aiming to designing for ourselves in the future will be immensely challenging. It will be a huge opportunity for me to explore existing services for older users,  describe services in design terms and learn how to categorise services. Our team will visit Berlin throughout the project...:)