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March 24, 2025 – A significant milestone was reached on the ORIGIN project at the Design Day Sprint last week, in the first face-to-face meeting of the Creative Research Assistants from Work Package 4 (WP4) alongside the wider project team.
Partners from other Work Packages, including Rebecca Syed, Consultant Psychiatrist and Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, and Helen Adams, Museum Curator and Digital Experience Specialist at GLAM & representatives of CHiMES Collaborative, came together to present key developments that have shaped the project’s progress so far, as well as align their goals on the next steps.
Presenting Key Developments: Co-Design Kit and Insights
As part of WP4, the Creative Research Assistants at Lab4Living play a pivotal role in creating the stories that will feature on the second iteration of ‘Ways of Being’, an online arts & culture interventional platform that will be built, after research indicated that engagement with such content promotes mental wellbeing in young people.
During the sprint, the Creative Research Assistants presented their work on the ORIGIN Co-Design Kit, a possible resource designed to engage young people in the platform’s co-design process. It includes a variety of tools that allow users to collaborate creatively, ensuring that the platform reflects their needs and experiences. It was received enthusiastically by the rest of the group, & the kit is awaiting further feedback from wider partners before its next iteration. As part of this project, a number of different mechanisms are being explored to enable maximum reach and engagement.
Explore the Co-Design Kit and the processes behind its development on the Lab4Living website.
Insights from Work Package 4.1 were shared too, where interviews with young people aged 16-24 helped gather valuable feedback on their experiences with the first Ways of Being platform. Lab4Living & project partner Imagineear will use these findings to inform UX decisions of the platform in future design meetings.
Additionally, the Creative Research Assistants presented several stories they’d created to go on the platform so far, & included a range of creative mediums including podcasts, written pieces, and illustrated books to highlight the range of creative outputs they’d experimented with.
Evaluating and Evolving the Story Framework
Following the presentations, the team engaged in an important discussion about the conceptual story framework that guides the creation of content for the platform. It was debated whether the current framework remains sufficient or if it requires expansion. Reviewing the stories created by the Creative Research Assistants, the team assessed whether they met the criteria of the existing framework and whether there were areas that needed adjustment. This is an ongoing process, as other work packages feed into the complex shaping of the framework.
Below is a rough sketch by Joe Langley showcasing the interwoven approaches to bring together information from different work packages, which will ensure that the outputs adhere to the diverse requirements of the second iteration of the platform.
Looking Ahead
Last week’s Design Day Sprint was a significant step forward for the ORIGIN project, not only advancing the development of the Co-Design Kit but also strengthening the collaboration between the Creative Research Assistants and the broader team. With valuable insights from young people and an evolving approach to the story framework, the team is excited about the next steps in this journey.
Lab4Living will continue to work closely with its project partners, whose expertise will guide the next phase of the project as the team works toward delivering a platform that will have a lasting, positive impact on young people’s mental health.