Imagination Station
A custom experience designed to delight two students at the Hartford Regional Autism Program.
Project type
Experience design
Timeline
7 weeks (2019)
Team
Me (designer) Maxine Perroni-Scharf (designer) Winston Wang (designer) Cindy Yuan (designer)
Skills
Accessible design Designing for play Fabrication User testing
Designing for delight
As a final project for the undergraduate course Impact Design, my team was paired with Tyler and Zeke,* two autistic students at the Hartford Autism Regional Program (HARP). Our challenge was simply to create something that would bring them delight. We learned about autism and the psychology of delight, conducted observations at HARP, and talked with Jessica (the director of HARP) to understand Tyler and Zeke better. *Names have been changed to protect their privacy. I was granted permission to use images from HARP.
Prototypes
Inspired by their shared love for art, we created and tested three prototypes with a special focus on accessibility and safety.
Mix and match blocks to create unique characters
I created this set of six blocks with sanded acrylic panels on each face. Each panel is attached with Velcro and they can be completely rearranged. The panels include a mixture of favorite characters (featuring illustrations by Maxine) as well as whiteboard and mirror surfaces.
A private space for inspiration
This acrylic trifold was designed to create a private area around Tyler and Zeke while they sit and draw, keeping out distractions and even providing erasable surfaces to draw on. Velcro enables the panels to be swapped to create new backdrops.
Delivering and measuring delight
Tyler took to the Imagination Station immediately, playing with the blocks, drawing on everything, and acting out scenes with his action figures. He even used the station in ways we didn’t expect, showing us that we had succeeded in fostering creativity without being too controlling. Special thanks to Tyler, Zeke, and Jessica for welcoming us at HARP!