During this workshop, my team started off by defining a problem cats may face in their daily lives. We decided on a regular feeding schedule which could be facilitated by designing a soft food dispenser which could be operated from outside by the use of a mobile application. Then, we switched tables to suggest a solution to an issue stated by another group – a rather common communication issue between cats and humans. So, based on our knowledge about cats, we suggested that a solution could be a sensor which would map varying meows to what they mean and suggests whenever anything was off, for example, when a cat was sick. Subsequently, we were moved to yet another table where we built a prototype of a steering wheel which would indicate that a stray animal may be hiding under the car or in the space between the tire and the vehicle to prevent unnecessary deaths. The exercise was beneficial because after coming back to my first table I found a prototype of a cat dispenser which was suggested by my group.
On the one hand, I think that such an ideation method may be very useful in design teams at various companies. However, the design we found at our table different a lot from what we had in mind while stating the initial problem. Hence, I think that the method needs some improvement because there seemed to be a varying degree of knowledge about cats and their needs in the teams participating in the workshop. This is why the prototype I saw on my table did not match at all the prototype my squad would have designed if were had remained there. Most importantly, it did not address the problem of soft food. Instead, the prototype suggested a dry food dispenser. To improve the future design process, I would suggest that each team provides more contest to the remaining groups during the first part of the workshop.