Seeds of Ama’r

How might we design a service that
invites families and children
in Amager to spend more time
in areas with lower UFPs levels?

→ WHEN
2020

→ WHERE
Copenhagen, Denmark

→ CLIENT
Gehl Architects

→ TEAM
Marialuisa Dubla, Amalia Francisca Robinson Andrade, Chantal Christine
Beck, Javier Campero Nunez, Tommaso Daverio

→ MY ROLE
The team was very balanced with our different skills, which helped all the group divvy up our tasks efficiently. In particular, I contributed more to project management, facilitation of the internal workshops, and qualitative & quantitative research. Additionally, I was in charge of visualising the utilised models.

→ CHALLENGE
The aim of this project is to invite children to spend time
where the air quality is better and to reduce the exposure to air pollution where small children spend time.

The focus of the brief was to design a service that would improve the life and health of children between 0 and 3
years old. Furthermore, the service solution should focus on reducing exposure to UFPs particles because as opposed to
other air pollutants these small particles have been regulated and studied less, but studies indicate that they have strong negative effects on people’s health.

→ CONCEPT
Seeds of Amager is an app for parents living in Amager. It provides support in their activities with children, information
about air pollution and the possibility of navigation through “clean” paths and routes in the neighbourhood.
With our concept, we wanted to create an engaging experience to educate users in localising polluted areas and spending more
time in areas with lower UFP levels. The app consists of different features: a map; an overview of quests that
parents can do; an avatar that grows more as you spend time in lower areas; and also a retention part that integrates levels to unlock, by completing the quests that the app proposes.

→ LEARNINGS

• Focus on the big picture of the service to align with the overall users’ experience.
• Focus on the touchpoint design and its features just later on in the process when a strong and validated concept has been found.
• Be mindful of the target group. This project encountered many limitations due to the special target group we had to deal with: kids. Their development and needs change fast, and consequently so do those of their families. Therefore, it is important to focus on a specific age, rather than including a big group – this can facilitate the entire process.
• Avoid unconscious bias: it is important to have a diverse team to represent a diverse range of users. It is also important to work to ensure you are capturing the stories and experiences of different groups in your research and through your design process. Unfortunately, due to our findings in the research, the target groups and the personas developed represent a heteronormative reality where mothers are the ones responsible for their children’s upbringing, and the fathers/other parent were less involved in the design process with us.
• The challenge of the pandemic helped us discover many online and collaborative tools – this enabled a problem-solving mindset and pushed us to innovate our approach with new digital tools.
• Including experts (pedagogues, educators, psychologists, etc.) when dealing with a sensitive target group can push the process forward and provide valuable knowledge about users. 

→ TOOLS USED
Qualitative and quantitative research, Ecosystem map, Users interviews, Visual storytelling, Facilitation techniques,
Stakeholders maps, Service blueprint, Service prototyping, Co-creation activities, Future foresight & Trend research, Scenario development, Video sketches