Border Town Design Jam

*** WE HAVE AN OFFICIAL DESIGN CHALLENGE ***

Design a Border Crossing Kit

Please Consider:

• What border town is this for?
• Who is the person who will use it?
• What are their weight requirements?
• What can they afford?
• What are the challenges they face in crossing?
• How will they carry it (do they carry it?)?
• What’s the crossing like?
• What’s their relationship with the border?
• Where do they live?
• What are they crossing?

During our Friday night kickoff, teams were asked to design a border crossing kit. They have also been assigned a border town and a specific customer. 

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Teams

Unproven Storm (San Diego / Tijuana | Octogenarian)
Legendary Sunrise (Baarle / Hertog | Single Low-Income Mother) 
Necessary Dragon (Stanstead / Derby Line | Flex Worker)
Mountain Hatchet (Detroit / Windsor | DINKs)
Midnight Tiger (Niagara Falls | COG)

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From Friday March 2, 2012 to Saturday March 3, teams of clever people will get together to solve a User Experience problem relating to border towns. Would you like to be one of them?

Border Town Design Jam (#btdj)
Using border towns as a point of entry, we’ll approach political geography as a design problem. This design jam will take place over 1 day (and a half), from March 2 to 3, 2012. Tickets are now available on Eventbrite. This event is presented in collaboration with ThingTank Lab.

Interested in seeing and hearing the results of this jam? We’re opening up our final show and tell to the general public - get your free tickets to attend here! 

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Topic
The topic and design challenge will be revealed at the kickoff party on Friday March 2, 2012, 6PM. However, here’s a hint:  ”Everyone must pass” 

About Design Jams
Design Jams are one-or-two-day design sessions, during which people team up to solve engaging User Experience (UX) challenges. Learn more about Design Jams. 

Who should attend Design Jams
Anyone really – Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) & Design Students, Interaction Designers, UX Researchers, Information Architects, UI Designers, Web Designers, Graphic Designers, Hardware Hackers, Policy Nerds, Developers + more… The day aims to improve collaboration skills and help attendees learn and practice various UX techniques including but not limited to Research, Brainstorming, Sketching, Wireframing and Prototyping. 

What happens at a Design Jam?
Attendees sign up in advance. Upon arrival they assign themselves to teams based on the skills they could contribute and what they’d like to learn. Teams are then presented a design challenge that they tackle by doing research, sketching, guerrilla testing and other UX techniques. They are encouraged to share their process and ideas halfway through enabling them to get feedback from other teams as well as other mentors in attendance during the day. The day concludes with final presentations to the entire group. Outcomes could take the form of sketches, storyboards, a video or even a prototype – whatever communicates the idea best. 

What happens to the ideas we come up with?
All output materials will be shared on the Border Town and ThingTank Lab websites, and teams will be asked to compose a blog post about their design process and ideas. 

Licensing
To facilitate the free exchange of ideas, all outputs, visualizations and other contributions made during the day must be contributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. This basically means anyone can use ideas generated at the Design Jam, as long as they credit the original authors. 

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Organizers
Feel free to contact any of the following with questions and queries.

From Border Town design studio (@dividedcities)
Emily Horne @birdlord & Tim Maly @doingitwrong

From ThingTank Lab (@thingtankTO)
Marie-Eve Belanger @wrongposture

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Event Details

Kickoff
Date: Friday March 2, 2012
Time: 18:00 to 21:00

Jam Day!
Date: Saturday March 3, 2012

Time: 10:00 to 20:00 (Public show and tell: 18:00 to 20:00) 

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Venue

ThingTank Lab, 376 Bathurst Street (just North of Dundas Street West) - view maps 

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Full Schedule

Friday March 2, 2012
      6PM: Team Creation
      7PM: Lightning Talks
      8PM: Initial Brainstorming 

Saturday March 3, 2012
      10AM: Participants Arrival
      11AM: First presentation
      12PM: Lunch
      1PM: Design time
      4PM: Prepare final presentation
      6PM: Show and Tell open to the public and judges 

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Lightning Talks
We will be hosting lightning talks during our kickoff events. Presenters will be some of the designer-artists from the first Border Town studio. Full lineup TBA.

Mentors
Mentors TBA 

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Other important info

When will the teams be formed?
Teams will be formed on the day, so don’t worry about that for now. Please think about what skills you contribute, and what you would like to learn – you will need that information. 

What happens to the ideas we come up with?
To facilitate the free exchange of ideas, all outputs, visualizations and other contributions you make during the day must be contributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. 

What do I need to bring?

• laptop, plus chargers and cables (please bring one, you’ll need more than one per team). Mac users: DVI to VGA adapter for the projectors. Wifi is available.

• whatever tools would make your design better. Flipcharts, pens, markers, brown paper and post-its will be available (we would be happy if you bring some of your own, though), but the rest is up to you.  

Food and drink
Drinks and snacks will be provided at the kickoff event and at the final show and tell. For the jam days: while there’ll be breakfast, coffee, tea and snacks, we won’t be providing lunch. It would be great if you could bring your own. You can also head out to grab something from nearby (many options in Kensington Market, right next to us!)