people power: designing for protests

For this project, my team mate and I were tasked with designing for the Occupy Wallstreet movement. Below is the final presentation for the project.

The Concept

Candace and I focused on one of Occupy Wall Street’s biggest problems: it’s inability to effectively communicate it’s wishes. Occupy Wall Street was run as a “pure democracy,” which meant that no single person or group of people could represent the entire group. To help solve that problem, Candace and I created a mechanism by which the Occupy Wall Street protesters (or any other group of protesters) could vote on beliefs held by people of the movement.

Each protester would be given a portable radio-like device that would allow them to easily listen to a nearby speaker, who would have a specialized microphone for the event. For each statement that the speaker makes, the protester could choose to “agree” with that particular statement or not. The data collected from each speech would be represented on the Occupy website, allowing the public to visualize where the movement stands on each particular belief. We also focused on using the website to show the sheer numbers of people involved in the movement as a strategy for motivating change.

Project Responsibilities

  • Mindmapped to find project’s focus
  • Sketched and brainstormed concepts and concept systems
  • Created Fireworks mockups of final project
  • Researched concept feasibility

Project Timeline

4 days. Oct. 17 to Oct. 21, 2011

Team Mate

Candace Buggs