This week we worked in interdisciplinary teams tackling the sensitive subject that was Breast Cancer. It was our task this week to design a product, service or campaign that could be used to prevent Breast Cancer. As a team of young adults, we decided to focus on the idea of self-checking as it became apparent very quickly that none of us were aware of what we were meant to be feeling for.
After some research, we found that 1 person is diagnosed every 10 minutes. This meant that in the time we have spent only in class this week 240 people have been diagnosed 30 of which were young adults (18-35). This was quite a staggering statistic and fuelled our teams ambitions for the project.
As a team we continued to look at these three key words which we felt all contribute to being able to support our concept. We believe by teaching people how to check themselves properly it would increase the chances of early diagnosis and prevent any misdiagnosis.
We carried out market research using survey monkey and going around campus asking our target market. The feedback we received further backed our initial ideas – our generation are not comfortable and educated about breast cancer! We began prototyping as a team to brainstorm ways that we can create some sort of educational tool to allow users to practice feeling for lumps. We experimented with many different materials, and our textiles student members excelled at this stage in the project.
While carrying out research we found that there wasn’t a lot of support available for our age group for breast cancer sufferers, we decided as a team it would be good if we could create something that could also raise awareness and promote The Lavender Trust – which our market research showed a staggering 95% of people didn’t realise existed!
We came up with the idea of creating a campaign, and began photographing students with our prototypes and sharing them on social media platforms such as instagram. The idea was that a campaign/service could be introduced into universities student unions that would a) allow people to have a hands on approach and let them feel what they have to look out for and b) educate people on the groups that are out there if you are in need of advice such as the Lavender Trust. We went to our own student union executive campaigner and we came out with a really positive result in that there was nothing like this happening and also that they would support us if we were to do something like this.
We decided to name our project CAN TOUCH THIS as it is a positive message with a little humour added as well. We found that by being light-hearted it allowed us to communicate and connect with students a lot easier.
To conclude, I had a very busy, fast-paced week. But by the end our final product was very satisfying as we worked very well together to achieve such an interesting prototype which couldn’t have been thought of on Monday!
design by anonymous 