Sensory garden
A safe space to de-stress for all
ABOUT the project
In our 3rd Year Applied Psychology module entitled Group Project: Applied Psychology in Practice, we were asked to solve a problem within the theme of environmental psychology. Our team identified the problem of not having a sensory space on the campus to relax and recharge, something that is vital especially for individuals who are neurodiverse. We incorporated elements of a specific type of environmental psychology - ecotherapy (or nature therapy) - to create a digital prototype of a sensory garden.
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Why a digital prototype of a garden?
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The research we conducted included a lot of helpful suggestions for what to include in a sensory garden and designing it physically would have cost a lot of money, and we wouldn't have had the space and time to carry it out. Digitally designing it helped us to showcase what could be achieved for future projects.
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This website displays the process of our project, from the background research that was conducted supporting the benefits of sensory gardens to the user research. After gathering this comprehensive research, iterative paper prototyping was carried out, after which high-fidelity mock-ups were created using both 2-D and 3D modelling.
Overview of project
Meet The Team
Carmel Mueller
Project coordinator and website designer
Organised responsibilities and divided workload, helping to address what each section requires. For the website, I was in charge of the design, homepage content, and wrote other paragraphs for the website. Organised and conducted the interview and the user testing, the latter of which was written up by me. Defined the user group (persona and empathy maps, user needs statment).
Ciara Dixon
User Research
Contributed to initial background research and proposed ideas on sensory gardens. Conducted competitor research to create a basis for prototyping, including visiting gardens. Assisted in user testing. Constructed and distributed user surveys. Writing up an analysis and summary of the user surveys from both students and professionals to contribute to the prototype. Website editing.
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Eleanor Keane
Project Prototyper
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In charge of creating the low and high fidelity prototypes of the sensory garden. I created the 3D model of the sensory garden with the feedback from professionals in mind and made changes to the design post user testing. Assisted in the interview with a professional.
Lauren McBride
I was in charge of the ethics section, along with the reflection section. I also designed the logo for the website, and came up with questions for the interview. I created a transcript of the interview following this. I contributed to initial background research, and uploaded photos, relevant papers, proposed ideas and paths for the project onto Miro.
Sinead Casey
Background Research and Rationale
My role consisted of conducting the background research into sensory gardens, their benefits and the academic research surrounding the topic. I also designed our survey aimed at college students and wrote the the rationale behind our project. I also aided in the creation of our powerpoint presentation and