About

At the beginning of the project, we were set a brief to create an interactive object around the theme ‘New ways of working’ for our grandperson. We were to choose a grandparent/retired relative and talk to them about their working life.

The research we had gained from our grandpersons showed us what kind of things they were interested in and what they might still like to be informed about or give their opinion on. Something that allows them to apply their valuable knowledge or complete a certain task.

After learning about our grandpersons working lives, each member of the design team brainstormed ideas on interactive objects that revolved around ‘New ways of working’. We all came up with several ideas that were both creative and intuitive, and held their own potential toward the theme of the project. However, we chose to take Sam’s concept further as we believed it had the best subject behind it.

Our chosen grandperson was Sam's grandmother, Granny Hammy, who lives next door to him in Edinburgh. She regularly visits the nextdoor house to feed the family dog, Lily, and take her out for a walk whilst Judy is at work during the day. Generally when Lily is needing to be walked, in the past, Judy (Sam's mother) would have to arrange with Granny when the dog would be walked, and when Granny Hammy had walked the dog, she would have to leave notes around the house etc. This wasn't the best form of communication between the two, as sometimes notes would be lost, and both were unsure if the dog had been walked or not. This is where our networked object we have designed comes in.

The Dog Object is a networked object in the form of a miniature dog. It can be placed anywhere around Granny Hammy’s home, from the mantle piece to the kitchen window. The Dog Object is networked to send and receive emails. When an email is received from Judy at work, the Dog Object will tilt over on its back to signify that Lily will be needing walked that day. This creates a simple notification to Granny Hammy without her first leaving the house. Once Lily has been walked and fed, Granny Hammy returns home and replaces the Dog Object to its original position, on all fours. This notifies Judy by email, that Lily has been walked and fed that day.

Please have a look at our interactive demo and video sections.

Our Company

‘Do me a Favour’ is a small design company with simplicity in mind. Our company consists of an alliance between two design disciplines at the University of Dundee.The design team is formed by six second year students; Sam Grosset (20, Edinburgh) and Marty Dunlop (20, Dunfermline) from Interactive Media Design and Rosanna Martlew (21, England), Jill Pearson (21 , Ireland), Eilidh Williamson (19, Edinburgh) and Morven Mackenzie (20, Aberdeen) from Product Design.

Integrating each of our skills and values, allows us to work together to achieve our common goal. We aim to create and design objects that are both creative and innovative for the present and the future. We all have a fresh and playful way of working and designing. We have been working on this project since January this year, and for the first half each discipline worked individually to create their own ideas. Once we had formed to create our company together, we had started to get to know each other and work together on our ideas, which helped us to work well as a team.

We have aimed to design for the elderly age group and to find a new way of working for them in a community or family situation.

Once defining a design and communication issue, we worked together to come up with a suitable solution for Granny Hammy specifically. Our product has been made with Granny Hammy in mind, and has been tailored to fit into her life style. We concentrated closely on how this would be a new way of working for Granny Hammy, we disided having a points system allowed this to happen. Working to one persons specification made it simple for us, as a company, to deliver a product which is perfect for Granny Hammy.

We really enjoyed working together in this project, and hope that the 'Do Me a Favour' project develops even further in the summer months, with the chance of going to Seattle.