Toolkit for activewear design
2020, Design research, OCAD University, masters in Design for Health
I developed this research toolkit for uncovering the needs of non-athletes for activewear design. It consists of three activities to help gather the emotional resonance, sociocultural constructs, and contextual knowledge of activewear and physical activity held by participants. In my evidence-informed design process I used primary and secondary research to develop the activities. The final toolkit was tested in one workshop with older women before research activities were halted due to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.
Role / Researcher, designer, facilitator
Timeline / January to March 2020
“How might arts-based research methods be used to engage older women in the design of activewear for older women?”
The design process
Brief
This is a component of my final masters project. The objective was to innovate on a solution related to design for health.
Research
I conducted various research activities to inform the development of the toolkit prototype, including a self-directed market study, and expert interviews.
Secondary research included peer reviewed studies and grey literature on topics such as fashion, physical activity, arts-based research, and behaviour.
Prototype
I designed the prototype to be simple enough for almost anyone to conduct the workshops and generate high quality feedback from participants. Images were found in magazines (acquired at the Toronto Reference Library) and fabric scraps were sourced from a local sewing studio to limit bias in key materials.
Testing
The toolkit was intended for workshops of four to 10 participants and one facilitator. A recording device was used to capture the discussions. The audio was transcribed and coded into final insights.
Several testing workshops were planned with the YMCA of Greater Toronto to include older women of various backgrounds in different parts of the city.
In this photo participants engage in picture-word associations, the first of three activities. This activity was intended as both an ice breaker and an inquiry into personal and/or shared narratives of the participants.
The second activity was to create a personal collage to express what it feels like to get dressed for physical activity. Participants were asked to write both a title and a description on the back of their collage, which would not be shared with anyone else. After the participants created their collages they silently walked around to see one another’s while leaving sticky notes describing what the other collages made them feel or think of. This then led to a group discussion.
For the final activity participants were asked to design their ideal outfit for physical activity using paper dolls. Participants used a variety of materials and approaches to their designs, and were asked to describe their choices on the back of their final creation. Once everyone was finished each participant took turns describing their ideal outfit and an open discussion was encouraged.