What if....Self Evaluation

What problem did you identify?
The problem identified was that many rough sleepers are not aware of the medical care that are available to them

What evidence did you find to support your decisions?
- many rough sleepers and over 50% of Big Issue sellers use A&E everytime they need medical care and therefore non-emergency medical care would not neccessarily be treated. ( Bigg issue)
-the life expectancy of someone sleeping rough is 42 uears and that is half the national average ( Homeless Links )
-Rough Sleepers who do not have any identification nor a fixed address can not register wiith a GP and therefore have no access to the normal NHS care.( internet research and asking a member of the medical team at the walk in centre in The Light, Leeds)
-There is at least one health centre for Homeless people, LEEDS PCT, 68 York Street, LS9


What methods did you use to gather your evidence and what forms did it take?
Secondary
-Quantitative: Internet, Big Issue- numbers of rough sleepers, where they can access help
-Qualitative:

Primary
-Quantitative: talking to a member of staff at the Leeds Light Walk in Centre


What methods of research did you find useful and why ?
The internet was the most accessible and easy way to find information. However it was a secondary research and therefore the information that I was looking for wasn't neccessarily obvious and would be amongst loads of other unwanted information.
it was hard to look through a large amount of information to find what i was looking for.
However, by talking to people ( which was also done for the research that didnt directly lead us to our final solution ) there was no need to filter out the unwanted stuff.


How did these inform your response to your problem?
We identified what the problem was and what needed to be done. As many homeless people lack proper healthcare and we were able to find a place where they can obtain that. What we needed to do was to inform them of such place.

What methods did you encounter as problematic?
It was difficult to obtain a lot fo primary research ( we created a questionaire but that was directed at the public rather than those who are homeless). We didn't manage to talk to any homeless person directly as we didnt know how to aprroach them without offending them, miss communicating or evern endanger ourselves. It may have been useful but at the same time we didnt think it would be most appropriate either issue that there was so mucn information that weren't useful to what we were doing at all. The internet was also tricky as homelessness is such a huge problem I had to be very selective.

How did you overcome this?
We talked to those who deal with homeless people, such as volunteers at homeless shelters who may have had close contact with them and know what problems there are in homelessness.

What research could you have carried that would have proved more useful?
Talking to a homeless person about their experiences in health care and how much they do actually receive when it is not an emergency.


List five things that you have learnt about the design process over the last two weeks
-You have to specify your target audience before you start designing something
-You can't design something to get through to that audience without researching- the best way to communicate to this group of people
-The more range of research method the better informed your design will be and therefore the better the design.
-Keep the desigm simple and direct to the audience>>therefore, it cimmunicates
-the problem needs to be identified and well supported by research in order for the design to be effective.


List five things that you would do different next time
-Not rush straight into Design ideas without identifying the neccessary things( depending on the brief, this one>>the problem that needs to be solve)
- more planning
-time orginistaion-it wasnt so much a problem in this brief but that in a group project, if we had better time organisation we could have achieve more work.
-not create a solution before properly identifying a problem
-more efforts put into primary research - they're also going to have credibility than researching on the internet.