Glasgow Innovation School Product Design

Zuzanna Agata Konieczna (she/her)

Dreamer, doodler, maker and self-proclaimed hot glue gun master.

Contact
zuzanna.konieczna@gmail.com
z.konieczna1@student.gsa.ac.uk
@LinkedIn
Projects
Hiding in plain sight
Cancer Empathy Network

Collaborative Work
Personal Wellbeing in Cancer Care: 2030

Hiding in plain sight

Only one girl for approximately three boys gets an autism diagnosis, not because girls are less likely to be on the spectrum, but because of the stereotypes, bias and no clear portrait of how Autism Spectrum Disorder manifests among girls. Many girls hide their autism, sometimes evading diagnosis well into adulthood. These efforts can help women on the spectrum socially and professionally, but they can also do serious harm.

This project started with a focus on women, however, it developed to cater to anyone who might be on the autism spectrum. The result is a website, advertised via poster campaign, with three different areas of interest: diagnosis, knowledge and community. These help people, who are potentially on the spectrum, learn more about autism, how to get diagnosed, see real-life stories and connect with other people on the spectrum.

Campaign video

Portraits of women on spectrum

During this project I have interviewed many women on spectrum. The synthesis of these interviews are three portraits of women on spectrum.

Preview of the website

Cancer Empathy Network

After the end of treatment, cancer patients often describe that they feel “like they have fallen off a cliff”. This project addresses this issue and attempts to solve it by helping people after cancer treatment connect with people with specific knowledge, such as other cancer survivors, carers, or doctors. Users can also add their family members and friends to create their own empathy network to notify their close ones whenever they are in need of support. Additionally, there is a suite of tools, handy objects with different textures, that can be used to soothe the user while waiting for a connection.

Video

This video shows a user using Cancer Empathy Network.

Texture exploration

I have looked into various textures to determine how they make a person feel. Findings from this research were used in creation of the suite of tools that come with CEN kit.

The suite of tools

These come with the CEN kit. Top left object is used for communication, while the rest are used for soothing. Each has unique texture helps with anxiety and stress.

Personal Wellbeing in Cancer Care: 2030

Future Experiences part 1: Group work

Future Experiences is a project which explores the impact of collective intelligence on the future of cancer treatment in 2030. For the first part of the project, we focused on personal wellbeing, for those living with cancer in 2030. We created a future world, based on speculative research surrounding the future of healthcare, which we carried out as a group.

After the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic the world will be changed forever. The UK will aim to never let something of this severity happen again and to take more precautions in the future.

By 2030 the UK will become a health focused society, and in order to track health risks, the Ministry of Health started calculating health risk factors for every citizen, with the H.R.F (Health Risk Factor). News broadcasts regularly have alerts issued by the ministry of health. This is all so people with high HRF can take necessary precautions whenever they might be exposed to danger to their health, for example rising cases of flu in their area or pollution cloud.

Context

An overview of life in 2030.

Context

The HRF is embraced by many members of society, however many believe that the government has too much control over their personal information.