Identify and focus on a problem
This week, we spent some time in class mapping the multitude of problems and pain points within healthcare and the health and wellness of people/communities.
This process is known as affinity clustering; a way of sorting items based on similarity. It minimizes the overwhelm of big ideas, problems or when writing an important paper. This process also helps to identify themes and patterns. It is a wonderful group exercise.
Create Teams Around Health & Wellness
(Honestly, I could not have planned this any better as every topic was an interest. In fact, I had met with Maria just a week earlier to brainstorm ideas for a project. Education and health related problems were at the top of our list.)
I learned about food deserts while studying clinical nutrition at the Maryland University for Integrative Health in a class that gave us an overview of how food and politics in communities. It was eye-opening and infuriating; a definite wicked problem and one I wanted to investigate further now and perhaps in the future. I suppose it was in learning about the social determinants of health that planted the idea that I was meant to stay in design but shift the space in which I worked. Perhaps.
Thankfully, in addition to Maria, two other classmates — Mackenzie and Laura — were also interested in tackling this problem! I’m eager to work with them.
This is Part 2 in a series documenting my learning experiences developing a solution to address food deserts, food security, health literacy, and health for populations. This project is part of our Designing Innovation course with Professor Lien Tran at the University of Miami, School of Communication. I am an IMFA (Interactive Media Master of Fine Arts) candidate.