What is the goal of the design intervention?
The goal of our design intervention is to provide separation and privacy in the common areas of the courthouse. The intervention will create a sense of separation and privacy for lawyers, tenants and landlords in order to make for more comfortable waiting spaces. There is also a need for the people to be brought together in order to achieve the same goal. This intervention is a way to have separation and privacy, then after there is opportunities for these people to work together. We are focusing on two areas: the waiting room in the clerk’s office and the benches in the hallway.
What problem[s] does this design intervention address?
Our design intervention addresses the lack of separation between opposing parties while waiting in the courthouse. The intent is that the design will separate tenants and landlords in order to relieve the awkwardness and tension between them. The design will also address the lack of privacy and will create a sense of privacy in the waiting areas. Currently, the plaintiffs and defendants are all given the same open area to pass among one another, creating no separation.
What is the design intervention?
The design intervention will feature dividers that separate the chairs in the waiting room into different areas so that tenants and landlords may chose to sit in the opposite location than their opposing party. The intervention also includes dividers on the benches to separate the long bench into smaller pieces and allow people to have privacy when sitting by themselves or talking and meeting with their lawyers. The dividers on the bench will vary in sizes to allow for different numbers of people to occupy the privacy pockets. These dividers may also have general information embedded within to provide resources that people may not know to look for on their own.
How will this design intervention be evaluated for success/failure?
The design intervention will be successful if people chose to sit on a specific side of the dividers in the waiting room and if people chose to sit in the privacy pockets of the bench rather than sit on the more open parts of the bench. This intervention will be a failure if people do not take advantage of these dividers.
How will you collect data on how this design intervention actually worked/didn't work in the field?
The design intervention can be evaluated by observing how people interact with the dividers. It would also be beneficial to talk to the people experiencing the dividers and ask if they think they are working well and what can be improved. We can create a prototype and study how that works before committing to an actual installation
