Abstract
This paper explores issues and opportunities for new university police officer uniform designs by utilizing a User-Centered Design Methods course as a qualitative pedagogical research approach. As a way of introducing problem-based learning, we brought the uniform redesign project to the junior level class in the School of Design. Since the design brief focused on university police, we viewed this as critical since students are key stakeholders of the uniforms. From the students’ interviews with the officers, key themes were identified about the current uniform items (i.e. hats, shirts, vests, pants, hats, and accessories) among other uniform topics. Findings indicated that while the police uniform was inherently professional and recognizable because of the authority of the uniform, there were issues with the uniform, which largely related to fit, fabrics, functionality, and identity. The collaboration between the University of Cincinnati Police Department (UCPD), faculty, and students served as a platform to strategize and plan for next steps towards new police uniform designs and demonstrates a holistic interdisciplinary pedagogical approach for translational design research.
Keywords
university police uniforms; user-centered design; interdisciplinary design pedagogy; problem-based learning
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.643
Citation
Brandewie, B., Kim, I., Kim, M., Engel, R., and Karpiak, K. (2018) Pedagogical Design Research for University Police Uniforms, in Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28 June, Limerick, Ireland. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.643
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Pedagogical Design Research for University Police Uniforms
This paper explores issues and opportunities for new university police officer uniform designs by utilizing a User-Centered Design Methods course as a qualitative pedagogical research approach. As a way of introducing problem-based learning, we brought the uniform redesign project to the junior level class in the School of Design. Since the design brief focused on university police, we viewed this as critical since students are key stakeholders of the uniforms. From the students’ interviews with the officers, key themes were identified about the current uniform items (i.e. hats, shirts, vests, pants, hats, and accessories) among other uniform topics. Findings indicated that while the police uniform was inherently professional and recognizable because of the authority of the uniform, there were issues with the uniform, which largely related to fit, fabrics, functionality, and identity. The collaboration between the University of Cincinnati Police Department (UCPD), faculty, and students served as a platform to strategize and plan for next steps towards new police uniform designs and demonstrates a holistic interdisciplinary pedagogical approach for translational design research.