Next Steps

After conducting my survey and collating my findings I have come across quite a few pieces of very useful and informative research data, these mainly being the areas where recyclable materials are stored by householders and also the areas of a room that are classed as wasted or dead space which can be seen in previous posts below. These two pieces of information have led me on to thinking about concentrating more about the kitchen and utility room in general with in the household as well as the areas of wasted or dead space.

So my next steps from here are to develop my concepts taking in to consideration the following:

- wasted or dead space and how this can be solved/utilised
- kitchen and utility sizes and layouts

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas ....

Wasted, dead, or unused Space

After thinking about storage space and of how important it may be to a user when it comes to recycling I wanted to gain a further understanding about what people class as wasted, dead or unused space in wih their household. I decided to do this through my survey and was quite surprised and trilled that the outcomes were as I'd thought. From my research finding the majority of people surveyed classed behind a door or the corner of the room as the biggest areas of wasted or dead space in with their homes.

No Storage No Recycling

From my second survey I found that storage space is a major problem for many householders.

This lack of storage can then cause a knock on effect with regards to problems and barriers people have when it comes to thinking about recycling. This can then discourage people from thinking about recycling. This is what I would hopefully like to over come with my final product. Designing a product that solves this problem of storage as well as being attractive, user friendly and practical.

Where do you store yours?

From the second survey I carried out which focused on household recycling I found out some information that I thought was important and key to my development of my concepts. This was where users stored their waste materials for recycling. The illustration above shows the areas most commonly used by the user to store their recyclables. From this the three main areas are the kitchen, utility room and the garage. I found this quite interesting as from my initial survey and also of observations back in 1st semester I thought that more people would choose to store their recyclables outside the household.

This helps me with regards to how to narrow down my concept development. And from now on I am going to solely look at concepts that would fit in to a kitchen or utility environment.

Initial Concepts & Ideas

Above are some of my initial concepts. At the moment these concepts are quite broad in regards to subject area as I do not want to concentrate too much on one specific are too soon. I have created a second survey to help me refine these concepts to one specific subject area. Results of this survey are to come later.

Branding myself ...

Ive decided to brand myself and design myself a logo, seeing as we will be having to do business cards etc for the degree show and also because I thought it was about time I went about doing so.

I have decided to stick simply with my name as after all I am who I am and that says everything I want it to. I have also gone on to purchase myself some domain names, www.laurenstrachan.co.uk and www.laurenstrachan.com which will soon become a live website and will be creating a website to go along with my blog and also to put on my business cards for something possibly to use later on in my career. This will be getting done either during the easter break in the next few weeks or the few weeks after the easter break. I thought this would be the best time to do this before I get busy busy busy with the rest of my project. You will see my final choice on my business cards etc at a later date as I don't want to give away to much just now!