This week, our lecture focused on project planning for our semester-long project and was led by our new course lecturer, Maíra. She introduced the scope of the project and guided us through how to plan our work strategically from the outset. We explored effective desk-based and primary research methods, including interviews, alongside key ethical considerations specific to healthcare research. The session concluded with practical guidance on how to plan, document, and organise our work, providing a clear structure for managing the project throughout the semester.
The first area we explored was different design processes to guide our project. Maíra introduced the Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver framework, highlighting it as a structured way to understand the problem, clarify our goals, and plan next steps without rushing ahead. Applying this process is especially valuable for our group project, as it helps align our thinking early on and supports a more considered and collaborative approach to solving the task.
The Stanford Design Process is a human-centred approach to problem solving made up of five key stages: empathise, define, ideate, prototype, and test. It begins with understanding users and their needs through empathy, before clearly defining the problem being addressed. From there, ideas are generated and explored during the ideation stage, followed by creating prototypes to visualise potential solutions. Finally, these ideas are tested with users to gather feedback and improve the overall outcome. This process helps designers create more thoughtful, effective, and user-focused solutions.
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This week’s lecture focused on project planning for our semester-long project and was led by our new course lecturer, Maíra. The session introduced the overall scope of the project and explored how to strategically plan and manage our work from the beginning. We looked at different forms of desk-based and primary research, including interviews, while also discussing important ethical considerations within healthcare research. The lecture concluded with practical advice on documenting, organising, and structuring our workflow, giving us a clearer understanding of how to effectively manage the project throughout the semester.
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