The challenge of this project was to create a box to solve a social issue. My group decided to focus on mental health as it is a prominent issue in society. For this project, we choose to explore the concept making items with our hands relieve depression. We decided to design a craft for people facing depression to make. Ratto’s critical making process was used in our project and in the end, the craft we created was a rubric cube with quotes on it.
This was done in a team of three, UX students. Collaboration was mainly done through in-person discussion. The duration of the project was two weeks.
The first step of this process was to metaphor map materials to the concept. This meant choosing materials that relate to the concept. We brainstormed ideas and decided to make the craft in the shape of a Rubik's cube. The twisting of the rubik's cube represents the motion of our hands. We also decided to use paper as paper is fragile and would symbolically represent mental health.
The second step is to design and build prototypes for conceptual exploration. Thus, we built a prototype by finding motivational quotes and writing the quotes on coloured sticky notes. Then we taped it together into the shape of a Rubik’s Cube.
The goal of the last step was to critically reflect on the prototype. In our case, we presented our prototype in class for further discussion and answered questions, comments, or concerns. During this discussion, we discussed how this craft could be highly customizable. This craft can be customizable by changing the different sizes, quotes, and images, allowing it to be individualized it for different needs. Moreover, the craft can be customized to help accessibility. The colours and text size can be altered to fit with each person visual perception. Braille can also be used.