An Educational Workshop Tool on The Internet and Throttling
Starting a controlled burn with Nariman Gathers
Designers: Brennan Commons and Chancellor Gardiner
The Project
This project came out of a workshop with Nariman Gathers. The theme of the workshop was 'Controlled Burns'. The idea of confronting tough conversations with an interactive workshop to make people comfortable. The goal was to create something tangible and interactive for people to use as a learning device.
Process
How Why Ladder
The first step that was crucial to the project, was to identify the actual problem. Brennan and I knew we wanted to do a project on internet access and technology literacy. However, we needed to get to the core of our problem. Nariman uses a method called the How Why Ladder, which they use to teach design thinking at Standford D.School. The process involves making statements and asking why and how to them. This is done until you find the root of your problem.
The internet is not accessible
Through our How Why Ladder, we found that there are multiple gates that make the internet inaccessible. Internet quality is poor in many areas around the US, Internet is an expectation to those with access, but undesired in those without access, infrastructure isn't widespread, and your geographical location dictates your access to large ISPs.
How do you solve so many problems? You start from the base—education
Low Fidelity Prototypes
How do you prioritize your needs?
We wanted to educate people how ISPs dictate their internet activity. We found it was hard to communicate the concept of throttling, especially to someone who didn't experience it—or didn't know they experienced it. We gathered a collection of activities and needs people used the internet for and swapped them with their non-digital versions. For example, ordering from a delivery service is a digital form of going to a restaurant or sending a text is a digital letter.
When you limit someone's options, they begin to make decisions they don't want to make
We made a post with a string attached to it. Surrounding the area were posts with the various activities and needs. The string had a limited reach, if you wanted to keep sending letters in your life you would wrap the string around that post and loop it back to the center. Quickly, the string would shorten and not be able to reach anymore posts. What would the user decide to keep in their life? What would they leave behind? Some people found it easy to complete, others faced tough decisions. This is the controlled burn.
Final Prototype
We wanted something easy to use that could be shipped to anyone in the United States
We had made a large interactive version that would be great for a public space, but it wasn't largely accessible to anyone who didn't have the time, space, or resources to set it up. We decided to scale down the activity onto a small wooden board that could be shipped in a flat rate USPS box. The top was laser cut with wood pins to loop string around. The back has instructions printed on it to assist anyone playing with the board.
A sticker sheet with additional information and resources was added to the package.
