EDW 2026: Underworld of Edmonton - Navigating Our Downtown Pedways

In this workshop, explore a user's literal journey through Edmonton's pedways and prototype new ideas with a team at the downtown library. Have you ever ventured into Edmonton's pedway system downtown? How easy or hard is it for different users to find their way through this complex maze of walkways and underground tunnels? This workshop will give participants a real-world scenario to tackle using the key methods and processes of design thinking. The event format guides each group through a fast but complete iteration of the British Design Council’s Double Diamond process model, which takes them from gathering research and insights to ideation and building a first prototype that they can share and add to their portfolio. This event will start mid-morning in a meeting room at the Stanley A. Milner Library where participants will be briefed, watch a short presentation about the history of Edmonton’s downtown pedways (in connection with the history of the LRT), then view the publicly available map and hours from edmonton.ca/pedways. Next, they will form into groups and each group will receive a user persona/scenario (for e.g., a university student looking for a place to eat on their way home after studying) to be the focus of their discovery and ideation process as they tour and make notes on a small area of the pedways leading away from the library. After a lunch break, the groups will spend part of the afternoon brainstorming and prototyping ideas for new signage, possibly with web/app/AR elements, then presenting their prototypes and doing a brief critique of each others' designs. Event Time 10:30am-12:30pm 12:30-1:30 (lunch break, meal not provided) 1:30pm-4:30pm