The Arch of influence

Winner of the IBM iX Essential Projects award for Desirability 2020

My role

I completed this project as a pair with one other designer after completing initial research as a group of four. We took on equal research and concept ideation duties. All animation was completed by myself, where all 3D modelling was completed by my design partner.

Description

In the recent bushfire crisis in the summer of 2020, the Australian public flooded the rural fire services with donations on an unprecedented scale. Without the manpower to sort and distribute these donations, they caused more havoc than help.

IBM iX and Sydney University worked together in order to tackle the issue of ineffective donations during times of crisis, designing an interactive design installation to educate citizens on social and environmental issues. By tapping into users emotions and curiosity, we can ensure long-lasting and meaningful donations.

The problem

How can we encourage citizens to make meaningful contributions in times of crisis?

Through context-mapping research we narrowed it down to three key components:

Education - people are more likely to donate if they are aware of an issue
Emotion - if an emotional response if generated, people are motivated to help
Involvement - people like to see the impact they are making

Understanding the key stages in charitable giving, all the way from the donator to the frontline, helped us to understand how we could reach the public in the most effective way.

Process to Final Mockup

Our idea morphed from an interactive AR poster to a Vivid-inspired visual installation as we found out more about how people interact with their environment and how they absorb information.

We wanted to create something that would draw a crowd, intrigue the public, but also effectively incite change. We created an installation that had well-researched and designed touch-points to engage the audience to the highest degree.

We created a visual mockup using 3D modelling software 3DsMax, and an animated walkthrough of the design using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects.

Please contact me if you would like to view the visual report for this project.