Product Design Bootcamp - International Organisation of Migration and Frontend.com.
Updated: Nov 21, 2023
A successful candidate could be selected for a 12-month internship with Frontend.com.
IOM Bootcamp Day 1 - Briefing
The first day at the boot camp started with an introductory session and IOM presentation by John Buckley, a UX designer at Frontend. He briefly described the issues faced by the migrants entering the European Countries, their routes of migration, three ideal personas, contents of the health pack, to be designed, and potential treatments for the illnesses. We had a Skype video call with Teresa Zakaria, Doctor of Medicine, IOM. She clarified the specifications of the health pack for the migrants and the scenarios of distributing the packs to the constantly moving migrants.
It was followed by a talk with a migrant named Kamal from Istanbul, who visited us to discuss what is the situation of the migrants in Ireland currently and suggested how the respective government could aid these migrants towards a better future.
After a short break, we split into groups of twos and enlisted the overall issues of the migrants one on each post-it. The groups then assembled all the post-its on the brainstorming boards and the Directors, Frank Long, and Henry Poskitt clustered the issues. John concluded allocating four projects for the teams.
The Bootcamp projects
Designing the Health Pack (Product Design)
Information Design ( Graphic Design)
Distribution of the packs (Service Design)
Digital presence and aid
The candidates selected their own groups and started working towards potential solutions for the assigned projects. By the end of the first day, every group had a discussion over their individual thought process and initial concepts to work on the following day. My team was working on "Designing the Health Pack" (Product Design).
IOM Bootcamp Day 2 - Research & Wire-framing
The second day kickstarted implementing the potential solutions digitally. I was working with Sussana and Adrian to graphically represent the information design for the set of instructions to use the health pack. We first sketched the layouts for the possible designs and tried incorporating the contents.
The second day kickstarted implementing the potential solutions digitally. I was working with Sussana and Adrian to graphically represent the information design for the set of instructions to use the health pack. We first sketched the layouts for the possible designs and tried incorporating the contents.
We also visited a Pharmacy to research the designs of the medical packs and observed the hierarchy of the elements typographically. For instance, the title of the medicine in big bold letters and the quantity and descriptors in smaller sizes. We also observed the graphic styles of the infographics on the packs.
We did digital wireframes for the set of instructions in the health pack with the help of the research. It was followed by a discussion with Frank Gaine, Design Manager at Frontend.com, who guided us to create a mental model of a medical label design which can be applied across various mediums like print, posters, application design and a digital platform as well.
The mental model displayed could display the category of the medicine, whether it was a pill, or a liquid solution or a cream. A multilingual title for the medicine below the category of medicine was given. We assigned a numbering system to all the contents in the pack along with a colour code for a better visibility in the pack and easy differentiation, which was followed by the Dos and Don’ts related to the medicine. Then the visual representation of the usage of the medicine.
The mental model concluded with the support information of the IOM website and helpline in case of query and also a bar code, incase IOM wants to track the movement of the migrants. We presented our solutions for our respective projects at the end of the day and got a fair feedback in terms of iterating the design.
IOM Bootcamp Day 3 - Research & Wire-framing
We iterated the designs after the Day 2’s feedback session. Design is certainly an evolving process and looking back at where we started and where we reached, was a satisfactory feeling of progress. A simple though essential mental model and its improved graphic representation gave a promising look to the health packs.
I designed mockups for the pack design. We finally presented our designs and the entire process to the entire team of Frontend. We were definitely appreciated for all the work that was put within the span of three days throughout the bootcamp. Our solution and design process was quite appreciated.
Summary
All the projects came together to form a cohesive system of design for the health packs, information and distribution to the migrants on the go. I savoured the three days spent at the bootcamp. It gave me hands on experience working with professionals on a project that was implemented for a good cause.
The solution my team presented was taken on board by Frontend.com. They further developed a web app for creating consistent labels, which could be built by aid workers on the ground and printed. The labels will also include a code that can be scanned by the migrants to access full medication information, instruction videos on the respective medication etc. in their own language.
Awards
This project won three awards at IXDA Interaction Design Awards 2017 &
Grand Prize at the 2017 UX Awards in Palo Alto.
Tools
Adobe Photoshop | Adobe Illustrator
Check out this article for more information on this project.
Check out this article I wrote on this bootcamp.
UX Design: An Intern's Bootcamp Experience
