PLAYING FOR THE FUTURE. ENRICHING DESIGN STUDENTS' USER RESEARCH SKILLS FOR SUSTAINABLE TOY DESIGN

Since 2030 is quickly approaching, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda has gained urgency and relevance in recent years. Thus, industrial product design becomes crucial in promoting sustainable behaviour and good design principles. This idea is the core of the Laboratorio di Sintesi Finale, section P2, of the Politecnico di Milano Bachelor course in Industrial Product Design: the students design toys for kids that promote sustainable practices and behaviours linked to the SDGs. As in the framework presented at INTED22, students can develop products that: - Educate and raise consumer awareness of sustainability (awareness-raising), - Be designed through sustainable materials and technologies (product development) - Be included in a sustainable product system (strategic-systemic design). The Lab has developed yearly from those foundations, incorporating course projects and events to explore design themes further. The multidisciplinary teaching team identifies three primary phases: - Research and analysis - Concept - Products development The initial part of the course underwent modifications during the first semester of the 2023/24 a.y. Specifically, the goal was to support the students in approaching the user analysis and research phases in a more structured way. First, the SDGs are assigned to the student groups. As part of the standard course procedure, students search the literature, analyse the scenario, and develop free user observation strategies. However, this year, it planned to step actively at this point to produce more aware briefs and, consequently, more relevant and valuable products. To better assist the students in getting to know their target users, the teaching team sought the assistance of two Neurodevelopmental Therapists who work in the healthcare sector. Two meetings were crucial to educating students on play, child development, and behavioural dynamics. The first, a theoretical lecture on child development, was organised by professionals providing a worksheet for arranging observational tasks. Students, as passive or active observers, then designed activities to observe kids' behaviour in specific situations tied to the selected SDG after their initial investigation. The second meeting consisted of Neurodevelopmental Therapists' support in reviewing and supervising the observation worksheets. Through the observation worksheet, students could organise their activities more effectively and recognise the values they could depend on. After this procedure, students received approval to complete the task at a Milan primary school. This process made it possible to make the user analysis phase more organised. Thanks to the observation sheets, the students could modify and adapt to any issues or unexpected circumstances in conducting the activities. When deriving conclusions from the observations obtained and creating the brief, the support of the worksheets was also helpful. The processed product is a structured user observation worksheet that enables the activities' repeatability and student awareness of their experiences. Ultimately, this process helps narrow the research phase to produce more thoughtful and aware briefs regarding the SDG target user's nature. Thus, the study demonstrated how the involvement of different specialists can help students acquire new tools for user-aware design and concretely improve their knowledge base.