The Cube - Surf Life Saving Australia
Problem Space
In the original brief, we heard you say that educating people about beach safety is important in reducing drownings at unpatrolled beaches.
Therefore, we explored the importance of conveying safety and information to all beachgoers and how they perceive it. We also learned that people often choose unpatrolled beaches because they seek a sense of relaxation and freedom. Being with friends provides emotional support, improving their mental stability and making the experience more enjoyable and comforting.
We've recognised that people often visit unpatrolled beaches with their peers, and we can use the importance of peer support to promote a sense of looking out for each other's well-being. This means safety isn't just about signs or lectures; it's about creating a shared understanding of care.
From these learnings, we reframed the brief from one focusing solely on safety to one that also emphasises mental well being through establishing connections. By doing so we can better convey the importance of beach safety at these unpatrolled locations.
How Might We Statements
Design Principles
From these learnings, we reframed the brief from one focusing solely on safety to one that also emphasises mental well being through peer connections. By doing so we can better convey the importance of beach safety at these unpatrolled locations.
And based on this reframe, the design principles that guide us moving forward are:
Methodologies
We not only achieved the purpose of promoting topic exploration and thinking innovation but also gained a deeper understanding of the background research and development direction of solutions related to unpatrolled beaches.
The combination of the above methods helped us determine the target user group and design direction, while fully understanding their ideas and needs.
Not only did we clarify the design direction and the needs of the target user group, but we also obtained feedback on the first draft of the final solution and subsequent revision directions.
Through user testing, we learned where the interaction needs to be adjusted, and at the same time further understood the psychological activity of the users when participating in said interaction.
Idea Statement
Setting up a 4-foot cube on an unpatrolled beach, with a touch screen on each side except the top and bottom. The cube will be placed on a platform in the sand at popular unpatrolled beaches around Sydney.
When the cube is on standby mode (no one's interacting with it) it will look like a Rubix cube but as soon as someone touches one of the four screens, a UI with 9 different ocean-themed elements appears.
Click on any element and the user will randomly enter one of three mini-games. The questions in these mini-games have only the most appropriate answers and the least appropriate answers. If users perform well in the mini-games, they'll receive an exclusive badge for that beach. These badges can be downloaded to their phone or shared with friends via QR code.
The cube uses the perfect blend of fun, mystery, curiosity and education to help spread beach safety information. These Mini-games will be accessible in multiple languages for users to choose from. The content and educational parts have short, easy-to-understand illustrations and universal logos. To keep the user community motivated, users can search for these cubes while exploring different unpatrolled beaches, answer questions, get educated and receive different badges. In addition, it also includes videos made by surfers and SLSA employees talking about the importance of beach safety as well as tips and tricks that one could use when they are stuck in a tricky situation.
Storyboard
Final Prototype - Day of the Exhibition
The pictures shown below represent the final working prototype of our Cube at the Graduation Studio exhibition held at the end of our academic semester. We created a small version of the cube by using Ipads to mimic the interactive screens.
Reflection
Our project is centered on designing and developing an interactive cube with touch screens and an engaging UI to educate the public about beach safety. We create a series of ocean-themed mini-games and quizzes, integrating multimedia elements such as illustrations and animations for an immersive learning experience. Additionally, the cube will feature multilingual support to cater to the culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community. We aim to deploy these interactive cubes at popular unpatrolled beaches in Sydney. Moreover, we will conduct user testing and gather feedback to make iterative improvements to the system.
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