Class Senior Project: Capstone 1
Year Spring 2023
Tennis in NYC
Project Type Design Research | Strategic Intervention
Understanding the NYC tennis player’s experience through design research
Project Aim
For the first part of our senior project, we had to develop and deliver a self-initiated research project. We were expected to demonstrate an awareness of prominent issues in a field of our choice and to identify opportunities for meaningful creative intervention. We had to follow rigorous design research and implementation processes involving fieldwork, community engagement, analysis, synthesis, prototyping, testing, and refinement of insight, ultimately leading to the delivery of a robust and innovative strategic intervention grounded in rigorous research.
Challenge
As a newcomer to the tennis scene in NYC, I found myself confronted with numerous challenges similar to those experienced by my peers. These obstacles ranged from the struggle of finding suitable hitting partners and dealing with the city's overly crowded tennis courts to grappling with the constraints of limited playing times. With this project, I wanted to find answers to one leading question: how can we improve the overall tennis experience in NYC?
Project outcome
In this first research and discovery phase of my senior project, I explore a topic that I hold close to my heart – being a tennis player in New York City. After encountering many problems I share with other players in the city, this project allowed me to figure out how some of those problems could be turned into opportunities. By raising some leading questions and following a rigorous design research process encompassing desk and field research, I gained awareness of the prominent issues tennis players in the city face and identified opportunities for creative intervention.
