05/25/2022 Transcription of my reflection presentation for GDES-S3002 Special Topics.

For this reflection, I'm gonna share a few takeaways from our trip to Paris in the Designing for Diversity program with OCAD and ENSCI. Being in a new place, I wanted to first talk about our role, designers as observers. Being students, we're always learning and trying to take in everything around us, so I wanted to go over some of the things I first observed on this trip. ​

Designers as observers One of the first things that I noticed was that everything is so small, and there's not a lot of space. This is one of the escalators on the métro, and it's so narrow compared to the ones I'm used to on the TTC. This is the first café I went to, and like many cafés, it was on the side of the street, right next to where people walk. And I was like wow, even the ice cream is so small. And when we were on the bus, the streets were so crowded. This is a car that was so close to the side of our bus, everyone inside of the bus was watching, and I can't believe that the driver ended up making their way out, and everyone was safe. I also remember one time walking on the sidewalk and seeing a car literally hit a guy on a scooter, but like nothing really happened and everyone just went about with their day after.

The second thing I noticed is that French people really like to read. I feel like I saw so many bookstores, and also there were way more independent stores versus chain locations, which is also a common theme across restaurants and shops in general in France. I learned that France has a fixed price book law, which requires all book sellers to sell books at the same price as their competitors, which makes knowledge more accessible to people. Also, I found that in a lot of schools, tuition is free, which kinda blew my mind.

Going into our project, we also took on the role of observers as we visited L'Île-Saint-Denis to see how kids play, and interviewing some of the caretakers to learn about designing for a different culture and age group. ​

Designers as hackers Next I wanna talk about designers as hackers. I feel like a lot of what we worked on during this trip encapsulates a lot of elements that come to my mind when I think about hacking. So first, scarcity. On our first day, we learned about vernacular design and coming up with design solutions based on resources that already exist in the environment – solutions don't have to be complex. Our constraints actually enabled creativity, and I found that together, we actually accomplished a lot in 24 hours, in 5 days. Something as simple as drawing on the ground can create a way to bring people together.

Second, when I think about hacking, I think about trying things out right away, testing early and often, and getting feedback as soon as possible on ideas that take minimal effort to conceptualize. In our case, we were able to do this right in front of ENSCI. Third is the element of play, hacking is fun, it's playing and experimenting with others. Sometimes you play and get hurt. You fall and get back up again, and learn how to make things better.

​ Designers as public servants On this trip, I also learned more about designers' roles' as public servants in creating spaces for people. When we were drawing on the street, sometimes people would walk by and ask us what we were doing. I was so happy when they would interact with the games, and smile and talk with us. It kinda gave me a small taste of what it's like to bring people together through these shared spaces. After all, our whole purpose as designers is to design for people.

And with that also comes the role of imagining the future. Our group specifically looked at areas on the island to foster play. We tried to build on top of existing artifacts that were already part of the land. For example, this abandoned lot with a spray painted circle. We had this idea to bring more fun and warmth into it, while also thinking about what we can do to help people come up with their own games and use their own creativity in the space.

And further, how might we encourage people to go outside, explore and see their environments in a new light? With this comes the responsibility of building inclusive communities. During this trip, I also learned that designing for diversity means designing with diversity. It was really fun to collaborate with people from different parts of the world, and who also had different backgrounds and skillsets in design. I think I learned a lot from seeing other people's approach to design, and talking and sharing our perspectives as well. I thought it was so cool that all of our teams kinda started from the same place, but we all arrived at really different solutions. ​

Designers as people Finally, I wanted to end on this note – designers as people. This project definitely made me want to learn more languages and experience more things to broaden the way I see the world and relate to people. But at the end of the day, we're all people, whether we're eating snacks from Franprix, madeleines from the métro, Pocky, or whether we're watching SpongeBob, 海绵宝宝, Schwammkopf, or Bob L'éponge. So thank you for listening and that's it.

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