The Toy Exchange; an entry into Mad*Pow’s open design challenge

Mad*Pow made an open challenge about “Designing sustainable childhood play experiences”. I did my best to meet that challenge and not only address these requirements, but exceed them.

Sustainability is a subject that I am very familiar with and that I hold dear, I come from a under-developed (realistically it’s just lopsided development) country and we are forced to make due with what we have at, we live a sustainable life because it’s all we have. Kids play baseball with rocks, play soccer shoeless and with a ball made of bundled clothes filled with trash – you get my point, I care.

The challenge reads;

We have often head that design can change the world for the better; that to design a cleaner, more sustainable future is not just in our power, but a moral imperative – since often times, we designers are part of the problem. But sometimes, setting and exploring the problem space is the hardest part.

Your challenge is to explore the problem space of toys as garbage using any materials, activities, or processes necessary to frame the problem to produce a concept that seeks to address the problem.

You can explore it using classic UX techniques like post-its brainstorming, sketching, concept modeling, task flows, mental models – anything that allows you to wrap your head around this large and difficult challenge. Try to think systemically and not just about the creation of some new plaything.

Assume no constraints technology, time line, or financial. If you can dream it up, we can build it.

This is my entry;

Visual mockup of an exchange

The ideal exchange takes over an abandoned location or building, giving it new life and allowing the community to regain that space. It’s designed around kids activities and one of it’s main goals is to become a safe house for kids, where kids are safe and can be kids.

Charts showing toys consumption by audience

These graphs illustrate the consumption of toys based on different the different audiences that play/collect/enjoy toys. The numbers don’t lie and at 68%, kids are the main consumer and the ones with the deciding factor on their favor, kids are our main client.

Here, the kid's run the show!

Kids are the future, this we know. Based on the previous graphs we need to do better by them, we need to also help them do better for themselves, to grow up to be better persons than what we ever will be – we need to help them succeed at whatever they decide to achieve in life.

We make it fun!

The process is simple, kids come to perform a task, once they perform it – we want them to go out and have fun, play with their friends, talk, provide feedback, valuable feedback that will allow The Toy Exchange to iterate on itself and become, with each passing day, a better place for the kids.

A craft prototype

I believe that as designers, we need to be better, we need to do more and thus I decided to not only illustrate the solution but to prototype it, to give it life and to allow people to interact with it.

Come by the Mad*Pow booth on the second floor, by the mannequin, and I will give you a quick 3 minute presentation and why you should vote for me.

If you’re already convinced, go ahead and vote for me (link takes you to Twitter with a populated message), if you don’t care, that’s fine, vote for me any ways.

In the future I intend to bitch less and provide more back to the community, so check this blog every now and then, and if you’re interested, follow me on twitter @EduardoOrtiz

From the #IAS10 with love,

Eduardo