University Projects

Will a human-centred design approach offer a solution to elevate pressure on Irish Healthcare services? This study analyzes and identifies what is causing a strain on Irish Healthcare services and how experts can easily adapt new products or technology into the medical domain. The design process selected uses the  participatory method, focusing on the end-user and offers great opportunities to uncover problem areas and suggest potential solutions. As the seriousness of the COVID-19 became apparent in March 2020, the response of the Irish Healthcare system resulted in staff and resources being diverted from existing services and allocated to fight against the virus. A high proportion of deaths occurred as patients received insufficient care and attention during the early days of the pandemic (Kennelly et al., 2020). Many services have struggled to manage and provide continued high-quality care and support to their patients, with constant pressure felt by  staff. This study aims to determine how such pressure can be relieved in order to optimise Healthcare Services in Ireland. 
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The definition of Healthcare Services is broad, and for this study, particular attention is being paid to the pharmaceutical environment and what role the pharmacist takes in our medical needs. Is there an opportunity or gap in service needs that can be optimised to provide pharmacy services differently?Potentially through the means of design, the service they provide can be made more efficient and cost effective. By completing interviews and observations, the aim is to investigate this area and gain a better understanding of the types of pharmacy users and their interactions with pharmacies. The aim is  to support the user in completing tasks and to support the business in achieving their targets. By inviting users and stakeholders to a  co-design workshop, this will enable them to contribute to conceptual designs and give their valuable insights and feedback. A low-fidelity solution will be created as a pilot in early prototyping sessions, with changes being made before testing a high-fidelity prototype.
 
The research carried out raises serious questions about the stability of Irish Healthcare and it’s services, especially as the pandemic worsens. A human-centred design approach will integrate a combination of perspectives; those whose activities will be affected by a design outcome and those who can offer expert opinion regarding the activity the design will support. The goal of this research would be to achieve a solution that supports Irish Healthcare Services on a nation-wide level of emergency should a medical threat of this calibre arise in the future.

Click this link to view my final report
Click this link to view my mobile prototype
Click this link to view the desktop prototype‍

Critical Design challenges preconceptions and assumptions, making us think. Throughout this module, we created critical artefacts to formulate questions to understand our users behaviours. We created a provocative and conceptual video that would provoke debate and stimulate user-centred innovation during a collaborative workshop. 
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The video promotes a new initiative being introduced by the University of Limerick to enforce environment improvements by the student body. The information in the video justifies the University’s plan to take action with some distressing images of waste and statistics of pollution. Along with the new service fee, the information in our critical artefact triggered reactions from our users and drove momentum for creative solutions throughout the duration of the workshop.
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Click link to view Critical Artefact

Solidworks is a widely recognised and an easy to use parametric design tool that allows you to visualise your design in real time while creating sophisticated photo realistic renderings and animations. Throughout this module, we built designs from simple geometric shapes to complete industry machines, testing our skills and knowledge on assembly modelling, moulds, surface modelling and more. 

Some of the most creative minds are enthralled with being able to visually represent the audible. From music videos to sculptures, what we hear is more and more often shown to us optically. It’s not just art that allows sound visualisation, but the surfacing of new technologies that show us what sound really looks like. For example, SoundViz is a software that analyses the data behind noise and finds ways to measure the different qualities of the audio and then assigning a visual component to them. 
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For this module, I wanted to understand and capture how I visualise sound. Sound and music is subjective. I wanted to create a visual format, with a clean geometric graphic influenced by my personal music tastes. The graphic I have created is influenced by an electronic music video by a DJ duo called Bicep. This music video experience was designed by Studio Degrau. I wanted to create something similar that the user could control using the mouse.

Computer Supported Cooperative Work addresses how different technologies facilitate, impair or simply change collaborative activities. Collaboration in the workplace is vital and can involve as few as individuals to a whole team, even across different organisations. It’s common for teams to work remotely or co-locate across the globe, relying heavily on tools and communities. Computer Supported Cooperative Work looks at how different technologies and software simply collaborative activities in the workplace.

Over the course of this module, I invested the collaboration tool Slack, that is popular for communication in the workplace.