This past week can only be described as a whirlwind. After weeks of breaking down the problem at hand, researching, brainstorming, and more, we were finally ready to talk to stakeholders about our prototypes. While we were excited to present our work and to get feedback that could make our prototype and design ideas much better, we also knew that with feedback comes constructive criticism. For the most part, our stakeholders were incredible. They came from a wide variety of fields: from doctors to drone designers to chief engineers. They helped us to consider aspects of of our project that we had previously overlooked. They took a genuine interest in the work we were doing and were excited about helping us to move forward. It really was a whirlwind due to the constant turnover of different stakeholders. We would try to get as much feedback from each stakeholder as we could in the 20 minutes allotted. We met with 14 different stakeholders in three days and took more than 8 pages of notes on the feedback they gave us. This week was also invaluable. We now know where the weak parts of our projects are and we know what people generally like. We are much more comfortable talking about our prototypes, as we had to do it all week long. Finally, we have a strong sense of direction heading into the last two weeks of the program.

Many of the stakeholders we met with had engineering backgrounds. They gave us all types of useful advice. They suggested different materials, they helped us around some of the possible complications, and they pushed us to considered new models. They had just as many questions for us as we had for them, and this discourse allowed for better understanding and feedback than our list of questions could have ever achieved. They were also usually able to answer any of the specific questions we had for them, which helped us compile a list of our most important points. They often pushed us to get back to the why. Why did we choose to do things this way? Why this shape? Why this material? Why this size? After weeks of working on a project, we had focused on an idea for a prototype that we had come up with, and we brainstormed ways to make that idea better. Instead, we were advised not to constrain ourselves to the idea that we had based much of our project on. If there is a way to better incorporate all of the aspects that we were discussing, it is necessary to free ourselves from thinking within our self-constructed box.

It’s very easy to think of engineering design and to only picture the prototyping process. Images come to mind of engineers with safety goggles in a design studio hunched over an evolving project. It’s very easy to forget about the very people that those engineers are trying to serve. This week helped us to once again keep our project rooted in the people we hope to serve and not the prototype we hope to create. It was the non-engineers who possibly helped us the most. They were the ones who pointed out how our prototypes would affect the end user. Doctors and nurses stressed the importance of proving that our disinfection system had decreased the viral load on the N95s. Without proof, clinicians would be very skeptical of reusing the masks, rendering our project useless. Students at the University of Michigan who had previously worked on face shields emphasized the importance of sourcing materials and manufacturing methods so that they were easily available in Malawi. These stakeholders reminded us of the importance of human-centered design. Without carefully considering the end users, even the “perfect” prototype might be a complete failure. We are determined to not let this happen with our project. We are going to work to consider how the end user will be affected by our designs, and we hope to improve them where they fall short.

After this week of stakeholder interviews, my team got together and we condensed all of the feedback we got into a few main bullet points. We now know where to focus our energy. We know what to do in order to get the most out of our prototypes in the time we have left. We have direction and confidence going into the final portion of the internship, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what we are able to do.

 

-Andrew