This project was developed as part of an award winning year long design class for subsistence marketplace environments. Teams were composed of graduate MBA students, Industrial Designers, and Engineers. Each team was given a unique sponsor and topic who would assign a context and problem statement.
MAPPING MY DESIGN JOURNEY
Research
Customer Needs
We were tasked by our sponsor, The Safe and Global Water Institute, to develop sanitation solutions for the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Reoccurring meetings with our sponsor throughout the project provided opportunities for us to professionally present and get progressive feedback on our design. Our sponsor was also helpful in pointing us towards academic research that could support our efforts.
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User Needs
Our team included a slew of diverse individuals with backgrounds in Engineering, Industrial Design, and Business Masters Programs. Together we conducted numerous interviews with a variety of potential users both in the field and remotely through skype. In total we recorded over 70 interviews with different users. Through our interviews we met with people throughout the sanitation ecosystem, providing insight and allowing us to develop informed empathy.
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Context Visits
Exploring the ways that users interacted with their sanitation environments was crucial to our understanding of user needs. We talked to a diverse range of users to understand how peoples sanitation practice differed and toured numerous sanitation sites. Talking with refugee settlement leaders, local sanitation experts, and end users provided us with a range of perspectives.
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Defined Top-Down and Bottom-Up Needs
Ideation
After researching in the field and talking with numerous users, we began our ideation phase. We leveraged common design strategies such as experience diagramming, concept mapping, and affinity clustering to help us produce a broad range of ideas. After numerous sessions, we landed on a unique latrine system. After creating basic renders and sketches, we returned to our users in the field and further refined our design and product life-cycle.
The RENESANCE Latrine
Our team developed the RENESANCE Latrine to address issues we found from users in the field. Mainly, we noted a need for quick efficient deployment when large populations of refugees came to a settlement. After initial setup, we were also concerned with creating a solution that would work long term. We found that a sustainable way to do this was to incorporate a solid and liquid waste diversion system, that supported the removal and servicing of the latrines. Once waste was separated, it would go into removable containers at the bottom of the latrine. Field servicemen would then retrieve and replace the containers. The filled containers would then be brought to the service center hub where biogas digestors would be fed with the resulting latrine waste. The biogas digestors would then output fresh biogas and fertilizer for local use in farming and for sustainable cooking.
Creating A Comprehensive Business Plan
The culmination of our design efforts was a comprehensive 100 page business plan and polished pitch presentation. Our final was a build it yourself style latrine kit that could be easily brought on site, in bulk, to rapidly expanding refugee settlements. Our broader exchange model was developed through further defining the ecosystem in which our product would be implemented. The results of our efforts were very well received by our product sponsor who has gone on to use lessons from our design exploration.
Growth Strategies