KS4/KS5: Water Bottles (UCD - User Centered Design, one hour lesson, user needs, sketching)

A lesson which could be used as part of an induction process for KS4 or KS5.

Lesson focusses around refelctions on a user profile, followed by the design of a water bottle for the user (handouts include space for itterations).

This resource was designed to be used alongside ‘user profile boxes’ which is where you make up 4 boxes, with each box containing 10-15 posessions of a key person e.g.

Retired lady - china mug, saga magazine, item of clothing etc.
Young boy - plastic dinosaur, lego magazine, etc.

Initial ‘investigation’ and user profile would be carried out in groups (one group per box). Students complete profile sheet. NB: you will never answer all questions from the items in a box, so assumptions are needed reflecting on evidence to hand.

Students then individually design their bottles, but then present them back to the sub groups afterwards, and a ‘professional argument’ to cross check the design suitability is structured in.