What if? Self Evaluation

What Problem did you identify?

The problem that our group identified was the increase of use of Methadrone. A legal substance that has similar effects to ecstasy.

What evidence did you find to support your decisions?

When researching the project I found that increasing numbers of people ( particularly students) had been taking the drug for recreational use. I found evidence of this in many clubs in leeds and also in various house parties around the leeds student campus.

What methods did you use to gather your evidence?

We obtained are research in various ways including questionnaires that we gave out to a number of people in our year group. Interviews that we had with people in a club night in leeds.

We also tried to find out about fatalities on the internet from people abusing this new drug.

What methods of research did you find useful and why?

I found that the questionnaires worked well because even though they were anonymous it gave us a quite accurate percentage of how many people where taking drugs. The primary research that me and Dutch carried out in the club was also very useful and gave us an insight on the atomosphere around the drug and how open the people were about taking it.

How did these inform your response to the problem?

From the research we collected we decided that we would do a campaign to raise awareness about the drug. As it is a very new drug there was no information about the long term effects about it. we decided to use this theme when creating the campaign. We made cards telling people to be cautious when the where taking the drug. One of aims was not to tell people not to take drugs as this ha been the message of a lot of other drug campaigns and none of them had worked. The main focal point of the design was a key in the form of a question mark. The reason we chose a key was because we found that dipping a key into the bag containing the drug was a popular way to take it.

What methods did you encounter as problematic?

We found that the message of telling people not to take drugs was a problem because it has never worked in the past.

How did you overcome this?

We decide as a group that it would be best to raise awareness about the lack of knowledge surrounding this new drug. Spreading awareness instead of telling people to do something they did not want to hear.

What research could you have carried out that would have proved more useful?

I think that we could have contacted various chemists to get a more expertise opinion on the drug. I feel this would have worked well because we found little information about the drug on the internet.

List five things that you have learnt about the design process over the past two weeks.

1. Working in groups broadens the horizons of design ideas.
2. Patience is a virtue.
3. Outcome is heavily dependent on research.
4. I leant how to incorporate design technique better.
5. Listening is an important skill.

List five things to do differently next time.

1. More research is needed.
2. More time also needed to be spent on design.
3. Form discussions with the entire group regularly.
4. There needs to be more unity in the group.
5. Everyone must have a chance to take part in the overall design.