
Bachelor of Design, Visual Communication
Matthew was intially involved in this project as part of the Vacation Research Experience Scheme (VRES), an initiative which provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to experience what it’s like to work on a research project for around 6 weeks, which they receive a scholarship for. Matthew was involved in the project from 22nd November 2021 – 22nd February 2022. During this time, under the supervision of CI Aspro Jen Seevinck and Project Coordinator Sarah Johnstone, Matthew created a fully developed concept for a digital interaction (designed for an interactive touch screen e.g. Data Wall at QUT). The concept of the interaction is inspired by experiences shared by aged care workers in submissions to the royal commission and other papers such as ‘A day in the Life of a personal Carer’ which highlight the issues that personal carers face during a standard shift related to being overworked and understaffed. The interaction invites players to conceptually complete the shift of a personal care worker in aged care by completing tasks before a 60-second timer runs out. However, in using a designed-to-fail approach, it aims to provoke deeper reflection on the complex challenges of aged care and hopefully encourage those who interact with it, to empathise with aged care workers.
After completing the VRES scholarship, Matthew was offered a short-term research contract to finalise the interaction called Time’s Up! through coding and iterative testing. Time’s Up! will be exhibited as part of Time to Listen: Amplifying Voices from the Royal Commission into Aged Care through Art & Design, an exhibition which is being held as part of the ‘Design for Change: Designing the world we want’ conference.