Design Research Studio— Readings, Assignments & Reflections

Fall 2017, Instructors: Stacie Rohrbach, Stuart Candy, Terry Irwin

Bettina Chou
Aug 28, 2017 · 48 min read

8.29 | Reading: Leverage Points

Physical, structural, psychological areas in a system we can target for change

Reflection

Where my head is right now

If I mapped all possible changes in the world, from small to large scale, from physical to intangible, it feels like this paper and this course focuses on the large and intangible. That makes sense since that is the most unruly yet most opportune: small and physical might barely have impact and large and physical are expensive and time consuming. I do wonder about these information/control parts as numbers 8 and below are defined as but on a smaller scale.

The shift of paradigms/system goals seems to counter the idea of leverage points — why have points at all when one is simply rethinking an entire piece? Or does this syntax suggest we consider pieces as systems as well, similar to what we learned about holacracy in class?

I hope this course addresses my skepticism of actually realizing such shifts in the real world: working with Doblin and meeting people in impactful industries this Summer has revealed that those in power/those who make money are difficult stakeholders to work with. Rather, the goal has to benefit the company that is sponsoring the work. Healthcare companies would want us to improve well-being habits/lifestyles of people because lowered health risks means insurance companies pay less for their customers. However, a pharmaceutical giant might not want that because ailment medication is their main source of revenue.

Perhaps one would then suggest shifts in pharmaceutical companies to creating health supplements as opposed to sickness treatments? Or even tackle the popular opinion that capitalism is flawed? I suppose this is why they call it a wicked problem!

Nevertheless, there are so many non-profits and government sponsored work out there, I hope we discuss opportunities companies could actually pursue to design with social good in mind while balancing the needs of revenue.

8.30 | Class: Wicked Problems

We discuss the 6 wicked problems in Pittsburgh the teams will be tackling

my right hand stopped working after this so I will be getting notes from other people~
  • Our team got gentrification, defined as: a process of renovation of deteriorated urban neighborhoods by bringing in more revenue sources. The core problem is that this ends up increasing the housing value to the point where lower income people who used to live there can no longer live there.
  • Gentrification has a lot of cultural and political issues behind it. Lots of people think gentrification is inherently bad because it displaces lots of local shops and lower income people living in the area. I think people our age have a term for gentrified areas called “bougie” and they've tend to say it with a negative tone.
  • In exploring this topic I'm interested in changing that perception. I think the intention of increasing the revenue of relocation benefits the city or state as a whole. Clearly it currently doesn't consider the smaller scale effects on individuals living in the area

Reading: Ojai, CA Water Shortage

1. Mapping

  • I appreciate how parted this workshop encouraged the participants to map the problems themselves. It reminds me of the Chinese proverb “teach a man to fish”. Teaching someone how to continue doing something would have longer impact than simply doing it for them one time. It also might be more worthwhile because those people are experts in their topics, whereas the designers in this brief are the facilitators
  • Researching stakeholders’ issues is important so that envisioned futures are inclusive/equitable
  • It seems like the importance of imagining big scale (i.e. future lifestyle changes as opposed to specific solutions) is to make sure the short term pokes are in the right direction

2. Future Casting: 5 Aspects of Lifestyle

  1. Consuming: food, household, and leisure consumer products
  2. Living: the built environment and homes
  3. Moving: individual mobility and transport
  4. Health & Society: health, well-being, aging, and equity
  5. Work: How we earn our living and create meaning
  • Lifestyle relates to daily practices, what we own, and our identity
  • Develop lifestyle narratives around places/activities like school, home, on the road, at the market, at the workplace, and in communities.

3. Backcasting

9.6 | Class: Research Debriefing

Re-framing our research post-it’s so our problems are more grasp-able

During our meeting, we discussed our findings and took notes of salient topics. It was such a mass of information, and we had difficulty categorizing most into just one group. Many topics, such as “black homes matter” and “culture” were technically social but have become such a strong political issue. Thus, we tried making a “venn-diagram” with string: pictured above, the closer a yellow post-it note is to the teal topic, the more strongly it is just that one topic. ones in the middle, close to the lines show a strong overlap of two or more topics.

The theme of feedback in class was “more specificity”.

Our team has a unique topic in contrast to other groups, where there is a duality within our topic. No one is going to say, “Yes, polluted water is good, we should have more polluted water”, but there are many aspects of gentrification that benefit certain groups of people, thus presenting challenges in balancing stakeholder desires. This revised organization helped us more clearly see the types of problems we are facing (BLUE) and analogous benefits (ORANGE). The professors are still unsure whether we should include benefits at this stage.

Get used to discomfort; if you’re too comfortable, you may not be working at the most productive level.

crit with professor

Sometimes to get that mid-level requires understanding specifics

Our group and the professors got stuck in a confusion-stew for a bit. At first, our problems were too vague, such as “small businesses pushed out”. We were confused: did the teachers want us to list all the case studies? How could we fit all that granular information on a post-it note? Finally Jasper clarified that what we need is more “nouns and verbs”, and Stacie added that the middle-level we should be aiming for would trends across demographics and geography to help us see how this problem specifically manifests in Pittsburgh.

9.8 | Meeting

Adding nouns and verbs to our problems and mapping them on the STEEP diagram

We each took a couple post-it notes from our vague problem set to do more research and make revisions.

Overall pretty productive meeting! We notice that there are no environmental issues related to gentrification so far — perhaps increased population and traffic leads to increased air/water pollution, but it hasn’t been a focus of any research. We’ll keep our eyes peeled. We also saw that we identified less technology/infrastructure and politics related problems than social and economic ones.

9.9 | Reading: Deep Ecology— A New Paradigm

How Ecology relates to sociology, human rights, economics, etc. Hint: Everything is connected

Thoughts on this piece

This piece began with themes that aligned with what we’ve been discussing thus far: asserting that because everything is connected, it’s imperative to understand the big picture in case one change leads to more problems (don’t want this to turn into a hydra).

However, I am critical of the way it presented domination and patriarchy as an issue. Admittedly, society conflates patriarchy with men, as patriarchy is the system that puts men in power, so men and women are at fault. However, the author doesn’t make that distinction clear and even ousts men for fearing changes to the established hierarchy.

“Ecofeminism” makes sense if we agree that everything is connected, and therefore ecology can be analogous to social movements. But by too closely associating present-day negative traits with men, this paper shuns half the population who can effect change.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the historical anecdotes. Understanding where we came from helps us understand where we are and as a result, where we are going. Like how Takashi Murakami writes in his exhibit, The Octopus Eats its Own Leg, that sometimes we need to feed on ourselves or our past to move on.

This paper raised some interesting questions; I hope I’ll have a chance to discuss these in class

9.11 | Class Lecture

Reviewing STEEP mapping, worldview, stakeholder beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and answers to class questions

  • The most powerful leverage point for change is the mindset out of which the system arises (beliefs, expectations, etc factor into roots of problem). That’s why the social problems of our STEEP maps are the largest
  • EX: America be like: GOD, BASEBALL, APPLE PIE
  • Belief systems can blind you, like how people in The Giver couldn’t see color
  • How far can you go before you can’t find a bigger problem than the one you’re looking at? What are the roots vs. what are just the consequences?
  • EX: If we all believed healthcare was a universal right, we wouldn’t have all the problems associated with repealing Obamacare.
  • EX: Increase in next year’s tuition → rising cost of higher education → lack of value placed on education, widening gap between rich and poor, belief education is luxury not a right, increased terror threat spending more money on military

Where is Our Role?

  • Acknowledge that we won’t be in the position to do this kind of disruptive systems thinking as junior designers, but it’s nevertheless imperative for us to know how to think this way.
  • There isn’t a fine separation between “society” and “the company”, one could affect society through the company.
  • Even junior designers could help persuade through presentations and meetings.
  • Solve the problem and then think of something extra “yes and”

Do things in a posture of Wonder & Speculation

  • Transition Design = Formal Design Skills + Understanding Systems + Empathy/Ability to Dance + Ethos: people and planet

Multiple Stakeholders with Conflicting Agendas

  • Include living and non-living members of the system
  • The “connective tissue” within wicked problems
  • Where are the lines of conflict/affinity of needs?

How do designers work with the topic experts in these respective wicked problem spaces? EX: Wouldn’t the Ojai city council already have water experts proposing solutions? How can we bring insight without stepping on their boundaries? (see post-it below for Terry’s answer)

Thoughts on “falling in love with the process”: my experiences these last two summers helped me realized that to fall in the love with the process, I also need to fall in love with the work environment and the people around me.

For Wednesday: take a crack at describing/defining stakeholders and revise current STEEP post-its

9.12 | Additional Research & Identifying Stakeholders

  • Pittsburgh’s identity as the “most livable city” in the United States, Mayor Bill Peduto’s (DEM) mantra that “if it’s not for everyone, it’s not for us,” and the City’s commitment to “inclusive innovation,” which has been its guiding philosophy on urban development since 2015 are reasons why Pittsburgh should strive to make the city livable for everyone.
  • Since the 1950s the Mayor’s Chief of Staff has a large role in advising, long term planning and as a “gatekeeper” to the mayor.
  • The Pittsburgh City Council is a nine-member (all DEM)
  • “Environmental gentrification,” which is the process by which the push for sustainable cities has been coopted by high-end real estate developers at the expense of the low-income residents.
  • Health: the places low-income are pushed to often have food deserts, less walkable streets, further distances to drive, and industrial pollutants near housing
  • Landlords/renting companies like LG Realty Advisors Inc
  • More cars lead to increased pollution and traffic safety concerns
  • CLTs are community-controlled nonprofits that acquire parcels of land — either through municipal land banks or other inexpensive means — and maintain them at an affordable price for people in the neighborhood, such as families looking to rent or buy homes at below-market-rate prices, in perpetuity. First CLT came to Pittsburgh in 2016. (in Lawrenceville only)
  • Matthew Galluzzo: executive director of the Lawrenceville Corporation
  • Oakland currently campaigning for a CLT as well.
  • Lack of access to both public transportation and personal cars, thus creates an additional challenge for job employment
  • Pittsburgh currently has a budget proposal floating in the state House that could force it to cut nearly half of its transit routes, getting rid of weekend and evening service and raise fares.
  • Some Republican lawmakers in the House want to shift money out of certain dedicated state fund accounts, including some funding dedicated to transportation. The Port Authority says that would mean a loss of $80 million in its operating funds during the fiscal year that’s already underway.

Questions

  • How much voting/policy making power do the low-income have?
  • What percentage of Pittsburgh residents rent vs own homes?

Add to STEEP Map

  • Extending streets to accommodate growth in traffic costs millions of dollars
  • Most of the new residents in Pittsburgh bring cars, which lead to increased pollution and traffic safety concerns
  • The places low-income are pushed to often have food deserts, less walkable streets, further distances to drive, and industrial pollutants near housing, causing health concerns.
  • Lack of access to both public transportation and personal cars, thus creates an additional challenge for job employment
  • Current event: Pittsburgh currently has a budget proposal floating in the state House that could force it to cut nearly half of its transit routes, getting rid of weekend and evening service, and raise fares.
  • Pittsburgh’s reputation/history could lead to trouble in attracting new residents with modest incomes and people of color
  • Outlying suburbs are crippled by services they can’t control, such as transportation

Add to Stakeholders

  • CLT (community land trusts) are non-profits aiming to maintain affordable housing
  • Landlords/renting companies (ex: LG Realty Advisors)
  • The Pittsburgh City Council (9 people)
  • Mayor Bill Peduto
  • Mayor’s Chief of Staff
  • Native Pittsburghers and long-time residents
  • New residents
  • Students
  • Entrepreneurs looking to bring back revenue to city
  • Tech companies looking for affordable land/space to grow

Statistics

  • Number of owner-occupied units has decreased by 10,000 from 2000 to 2014, some likely from the black American families who’ve moved out to suburbs like Penn Hills.
  • “Cost-burdened”: those who pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing may have trouble paying for other necessities, like food, clothing and medicine. About a third of Pittsburgh’s houses are cost-burdened.
  • 10% of the city’s residential units are restricted to renters with low incomes, but the city needs another 20,000 to provide for all households earning 50 percent of the area’s median household income or less
  • Peduto’s administration tried several times to purchase Penn Plaza for affordable housing; but residents blame Peduto for the loss

History of Gentrification

Helping me understand from then until now

  • The 1980s and 1990s saw deindustrialization: 7/9 of Pittsburgh’s major steel plants closed and 153,000 workers were laid off.
  • 2011: East Liberty opens Target. Building Penn Circle cut off traffic and revenue
  • Hill district and Civic Arena: In the 60s, many homes were pushed out to build the Civic Arena; however that cut off the Hill district from downtown. Civic Arena now closed and abandoned, with remaining land used for parking spaces.
Lower Hill community vision found on the district’s site

9.13 | Class

How does mapping stakeholders help?

  • Help us ask, “Who’s problem is this?”
  • Who has an opinion about the problem? Those may also be stakeholders
  • Who has the power to change the problem?
  • Stakeholders aren’t just living people. EX: for air quality and water, soil is a huge stakeholder
  • Social media stakeholders may have a stake in providing a platform to help or exacerbate an issue
  • NATURE AS A STAKEHOLDER~
  • Nature does have an opinion; look at the violent storms that are popping up. It has a voice; it just speaks a different language we usually speak

Activity

Picking 3 stakeholders and mapping their hopes and desires

Our three stakeholders: new people moving into gentrifying neighborhoods, lower income residents already living there, and developers
new people moving into gentrifying neighborhoods
developers
lower income residents already living there

9.14 | Meeting: Diving Deep into Stakeholders

Pairing off and each pair diving deep into a stakeholder’s hopes and concerns

The “J”s in our team

Natalie and I wrote a skit acting out a conversation between two young people (one who recently moved into East Liberty and one who’s lived there for two years and owns a trendy coffee shop) to show their hopes and concerns. Below is an accompanying illustration showing the hopes and concerns we bring up in our skit.

9.15 | Reading— Community: The Structure of Belonging

Importance of a Community

  • Community: a sense of belonging, to be related to and a
    part of something. The opposite of belonging is feeling like an outsider.
  • Belonging also means ownership, so to foster community through belonging, we must increase relations and responsibility.
  • Many people currently feel isolated. Just because we have technology to help us feel “connected”, they don’t necessarily create a sense of “belonging”
  • Fragmentation is exacerbated by the Western world’s devotion to independence over interdependence
  • In both cities and rural/suburban areas, fragmentation is apparent: “homeless” and “disabled” are most isolated in cities, and we even had to invent “play-dates” to help our children socialize.
  • This disengagement leads to low voter turnout and volunteering

Social Capital

  • Social Capital: A community’s well-being simply had to do with the quality of the relationships, the cohesion that exists among its citizens.
  • To improve community health, we must create a community where citizens know their safety and success depend on the success of others

Future Workshops: How to Create Desirable Futures

  • There is untapped energies in people’s hopes and imaginations
  • To get people who’ve been suppressed, intimidated to open up takes a lot of empathy and patience
  • Questions to open up about being put down:
  1. Did you play as you like as a child?
  2. Did you ever tell your parents your dreams?
  3. To what extent did adults meddle in what you were doing?
  4. What were you forbidden to do?
  5. Did you make up your own fairy tales?
  6. What were your teachers like?

9.18 | Class

Skits and Stuart’s lecture about the future~

We shared all of our skits

Scalability happens not only in size/amount but also across time

And then we wrote some haiku’s about the future

my haiku’s, a lot less angsty than what I heard from classmates

We were asked to write haikus about a day in our life/our community in 2047. Everyone’s haiku’s were so angsty; but it might not necessarily be a reflection of everyone’s cynicism. Instead, the class and lecture content likely primed them to consider the STEEP problems we’ll face in the future if we don’t take action today.

I didn’t put too much thought onto the topic, I simply imagined what is something measurable and realistic yet ambitious that I’d want in my future. As Stuart described, the amount of possible futures out there are a nearly unfathomable number. Perhaps that’s why I turned to something I can count on being constant: myself. Regardless of STEEP forces, the Earth will continue revolving around the Sun, and we will continue aging (yes, yes, there the Sun could somehow explode unpredictably or the plastics we consume could slow our decay) and so, I imagined a hope for myself in the future that would be possible across various timelines:

My hair is thinner/eyesight worse; but i can still/run 8 minute miles

The contrast of my approach vs my peers makes me wonder: Where does inner peace exist in these “futures”? We spend so much time unravelling complex system, but what system has been most complex and most studied than the human mind? Perhaps some would dismiss this as too human-centric, but isn’t ideology the strongest leverage point to changing a system? And then isn’t our self-concept closely linked with our ideology?

The “spiritual” perspective of this proposition may not be so far-fetched. In comparing the differences of the environmentalist movement vs. opponents of gentrification, I pointed out that some people may feel more immediate, personal rewards to supporting environmentalism because it’s associations with tranquility and simplicity. Moving forward, it might be helpful to consider how existing groups tackling wicked problems are successful, particularly, why people are inclined to change their behavior.

Geographies change/cultural norms grow, but hey/Reddit is still strong

I recently wrote a reflection paper for Persuasive Design in HCI class on effects of computer mediated communication on the self-concept. I identified the growth of internet communities as a main contribute to changes in self-concept theories. That’s why when Stuart asked us to think about the communities of the future, I thought about the internet communities we’ve built. Many movements like Black Lives Matter and Gamergate were made well-known and gained traction thanks to social media platforms. Such communities transcend geographic boundaries and even give people of opposing viewpoints chances to interact and even change perspectives. (Ex: social media activist Megan Phelps-Roper gave a Ted talk on how conversations on Twitter caused her to challenge her physical community’s beliefs and ultimately leave the church)

Such platforms have only risen in the last decade. We often think of dystopian futures, or exponential growth in technology (think how the 1950s imagined the future, or even the futures presented in popular YA fiction). But very few explore the role of online communities and how that spread of information and camaraderie will evolve over time.

this reminds me of Sylvia Plath’s poem fig tree poem

9.19 | Reading: Caring for Future Generations by Jim Dator

wow I really like this paper. I wish I’d read it before entering college, but perhaps it wouldn’t have resonated with me as much

I pose a different perspective on the idea of “selflessness” in creating a better future for our descendants: referencing the teachings of the 14th Dalai Lama:

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want yourself to be happy, practice compassion.

Thus, helping others and helping ourselves aren’t mutually exclusive. This simultaneous concept of helping at a small scale to help at a large scale relates to my haiku, as well as a thought I had on Dator’s comment on the social invention of war. War can be described as a scaled version of unresolved interpersonal conflicts. Even as adults, we have difficulty accepting conflicting beliefs and agendas with each other, so it is no surprise that countries still war. While guns and weapons don’t kill people, they sure do enable us to do damage.

The topic of violence and politics raises a disdain I have with opposers of the Trump administration. Indeed, the outcomes of his administration are unfortunate; however the deplore towards his voters and supporters during the election was exasperating. Why are we so adamant that our side is the correct side? How can we claim we fight for equality when we don’t equally respect the perspectives of those different from us? People asked me how I could face my mother after learning she voted Trump; I ask if one cannot give trust, patience, and sympathy to someone that gave them life, how can we give the same to the rest of the world (and future generations!)? These questions are nearly as complex as the problems we try to tackle, which is why I continue to assert the importance of strengthening the self to design for others.

one of the parts that resonated with me the most.

Characteristics of creative individuals

  • Awareness and concern about existence of problems
  • Good memory of facts in various fields
  • Fluency in various forms of communication
  • Flexibility and adaptability
  • Self-discipline and persistence
  • Intellectual playfulness and humor
  • Tolerance of ambiguity
  • Self-confidence
  • Skepticism

Techniques for unleashing or enhancing creativity

  • Quickly generating many different metaphors and analogies for a thing
  • Separate a thing from its normal function (people carriers instead of “shoes”)
  • Reversing everything (ex: car wheels should be square) and consider the implications if it were true
  • Looking at things from different angles, literally and figuratively. “Become” the thing.

I’m still unresolved on why it is our responsibility to provide for future generations because I have difficulty putting into words why I am inclined to do so. I imagine depending on one’s world view, we could direct those views into an assertion as to why it is imperative to provide for future generations. An altruistic person may feel inclined to give for the sake of giving. But even a selfish person who wants to leave a legacy can be persuaded to agree that building a future is one of the most feasible ways of being “immortal”.

The future design ideas we’ve been learning have been so grand and abstract; how do we persuade those who are overwhelmed by such responsibility and want to live a “simple life”? How can even the filmmaker or the stay-at-home mom learn to live in a way that gives to all future life?

9.20 | Class: Generating Alternative Futures

Continuing Stuart’s lecture from Monday

  • To what extent are preferable futures also probable? The probable is always smaller than the possible, but where does the preferable lie?

Where my head is right now

Admittedly, these lectures on future-ing can get a bit overwhelming — perhaps we’re simply not used to long lecture-based classes. Likely, the abstract content requires extra cognitive load. However, I realized that future-ing could be distilled down to “daydreaming” or “imagining”, not dissimilar to how we used to imagine, as children, what our futures would hold. Except now, as more mentally mature adults, we’re able to ground those imaginations with some proof and use them: mapping emerging trends into future STEEP attributes, illustrating a thorough future scenario, and then using those scenarios to guide our present day decisions. Framing future-ing as an advanced version of childhood daydream could help alleviate some tedium.

One thing I am curious about, in practice, is how our future-ing doesn’t become Sylvia Plath’s Fig Tree poem — are there examples of how future-ing has helped designers make educated decisions? Since we’ve been learning these methods in the context of wicked social problems, I have difficulty applying how it could be relevant to other parts of design work. Is future-ing necessary for product/brand changes? (ex: Mastercard rebrand, Facebook adding new product features)

Something else I’ve been pondering is why the social category in STEEP isn’t divided up into more specific sub-categories. From our first reading, we learned that ideology and paradigms are crucial leverage points, and Stuart even mentioned in class that the social category is the largest because of all the different perspectives people have in these wicked problems. Indeed, philosophy, religion, psychology have such persuasive impact on our behaviors and beliefs. Those three branches could be separated even further into cognition with self and with others. Communication is also a powerful persuasive factor with telecommunication media/internet serving as the skeleton of our information sources. These social factors influence political alignment, as well as how we may react to technology/infrastructure, environment, and economic factors. It also seems like Social lives on a higher level than TEEP.

9.28 | Ideal and Collapse Futures, Getting to Ideal Futures

Collapse 2050 — General

Our group had fun planning our collapse scenario; it was like writing a science fiction dystopian story equipped with technological terrorists and robot-cops. One challenge we ran into was still making the system believable. Specifically, we had oppressed the lower-class to the point where I questioned why, in this hypothetical future, the elite didn’t just kill off the lower-class. After all, by that point, we had automated most jobs and the lower-class live off the UBI anyways. As a result, we had to ensure that 90% of the UBI goes into the elite class’s wallets.

It was interesting how the transform scenario included similar aspects, such as UBI and automation; however their’s simply had more constructive effects. Later, while creating our ideal future, I’d notice that the ideal future has similar components as the collapse scenario, as far as environmental disasters and deaths go; however in collapse, those are consequences whereas in ideal, those are catalysts.

Matrix deconstructing effects each potential future would have on gentrification

Ideal 2050 —Gentrification Specific

Where my head is right now

Our timeline of events to the ideal 2050 had several nature ex machina— from 60% of San Fransisco destroyed by an earthquake to the timely death of Warren Buffet, I wonder how helpful to transition design it is having events outside our control (perhaps it’d inspire conspiracy theorists and fuel climate change deniers that global warming is a political construct).

Natalie also brought up a good point that our group is largely liberal (and millennial) and so, while this is the ideal future for us, is this is ideal future for others? Plato uses the analogy of craft in the The Republic, to argue that just as we trust a trained doctor to cure our ailments, or a pilot to fly an aircraft, we should put the rule of a country to a trained person. (Specifically, Plato argues for philosopher kings but the word “king” likely would not be well-received nowadays) And so, this political/voting system that allows just about anyone participate may seem not ideal for some people. Indeed, if every single person were extremely well-informed then their input may have stronger merit in policy-making — but can we be sure that every voter is?

An aspect of an ideal future, for me personally, is having everyone well-versed in the branches of philosophy, as well as familiar with various theological/spiritual values. Not only would they help someone empathize with other perspectives, but drawing from logic may prevent the kind of “talk a lot but say nothing” political powers of today.

10.5 | Max-Neef’s Human Needs

Left: universal needs; Right: varying manifestations

Max-Neef identified 9 universal human needs that are manifested in different ways depending on culture (show left). Many products, services, experiences exist to satisfy those needs; however, many also satisfy one need while inhibiting others. These are called inhibiting satisfiers. Synergistic satisfiers are ideal: ones that satisfy various needs at one. Such satisfiers tend to be more community based, as many of these needs are met with social participation. Moreover, community satisfiers satisfies the same need in various people at once.

Deconstructing a synergetic satisfier
Deconstructing an inhibiting satisfier

An important discussion point in class: it’s hard to find something in the 21st century that has absolutely no consequences. When we do find something seemingly without consequences, it’s likely because of scale. A service may not seem to have consequences, but once you dive down into the tangibles used in that service you’ll find consequences.

We applied the Max-Neef theory of needs to our wicked problem topic. By better understanding the human needs that aren’t met, we can plan more synergetic interventions and evaluate the contributions and consequences of proposed interventions.

Below, we’ve indicated needs that are met, partially met, and barely/not met using the red circle key.

Needs of local residents and new-comers based on Max-Neef’s human needs.

We connected themes across these needs into 1) housing security; 2) accessibility of services/transportation; 3) political influence; 4) relationships; 5) economic security.

Proposed Solution

I was rather stuck at first brainstorming interventions related to transportation/accessibility of services. At first I’d contemplated two ideas: 1) a shuttle system to help transport low-income residents to and from common locations such as work, groceries, and shopping districts; 2) bi-monthly “markets” in which new and old businesses and services in the area are invited to set up stands. Larger grocery chains and services such as libraries can also set up stands there, perhaps allowing people to order beforehand and reserve items. The latter follows the concept of bringing services to people.

I realized it was because the unmet needs we’d identified relating to transportation all took place after displacement already occurred and residents were forced to move farther from locations they used to frequent. Tackling this seemed insensitive, especially the market idea which may support the same businesses that drove people out.

Thus, I reframed my overarching goal to be “keeping services accessible even as property value increases”. Thinking about how we can continue supporting local businesses even as bigger named brands come in, I came up with the following intervention:

I noticed how my solution (and many other teams’ solutions) are community/service based. It makes sense given what we’ve been learning in transition design, but it makes me wonder:

Where does technology fit in transition design?

Do we have the jurisdiction to dive deep and prototype a specific artifact that would facilitate a change? What if said technology doesn’t exist yet? I think to the inspiring work Microsoft or MIT media lab do and wonder if transition designers could use such technologies as proof of concepts for proposed changes? For instance, one of my earlier ideas to improve transportation was to design a errand-share system based on autonomous vehicles; however that is contingent upon the existence of autonomous vehicles. I’d moved to more currently-implementable ideas since classmates clarified the assignment requirements, but it’d be interesting to do a longer term project diving deep into certain hypothetical technological systems: it’d certainly satisfy both our research in solving wicked problems as well as our desire to tinker with technology.

10.9 | Service Design

Service design jam session in class and reading by Andy Polaine, Lavrans Lovile, and Ben Reason

Class

In our table groups, we were asked to design a service revolving around a theme of sharing music. After rapid-firing zany ideas (winners include: head butting someone to send them music and forcing someone to listen to a song you send them before anything else) we identified the theme of using music to start new friendships.

Our goal was to make sharing a song recommendation analogous to adding someone on Facebook, SnapChat or Instagram nowadays.

A challenge we came across was aligning/connecting all our different interpretations of this idea. It was helpful tackling this by simply diving into the storyboarding and body-storming; by having concrete visualizations of how each of us interpreted the idea we could more easily adjust accordingly.

One thing I noticed was that given the nature of a jam, there isn’t much time to refine ideas. And so, I wonder to what extent our proposed service needs to be feasible and whether we need to go so far as to imagine how it’d be implemented? For instance, there was a lot of questions on whether or not people would use this service, how likely would shared music interests happen? Did we need to propose that this would be implemented using connection to Spotify, or could we leave the implementation open?

Trends we saw in approaches

  • Finding commonalities through music
  • Associating music with spaces/embedding music in spaces
  • Ability to share music anonymously

Reading — The Nature of Service Design

  • Now that material needs are met in developed countries, we turn to services to organize all those materials and satisfy spiritual needs. This idea is also presented in Homo Deus.
  • It’s no longer about “having stuff” but how we organize that stuff.
  • There is value and desire in creating things that aren’t so expendable
  • Because products are discrete objects, companies behind products tend to be in silos

Question: What constitutes “pure product” aren’t a lot of products also creating services/experiences? (ex: Tindr) Why can’t we run prodcuts like services then, and not be in silos? Is there a drawback to running “products” like “services”?

  • Because services have various touch points across physical and digital realms, it’s important for actors across those spaces to understand the whole system or customers won’t feel like they’re getting a consistent experience
  • Trust is about repeatedly meeting an expectation, so when each interaction in a service is varied, customers are disappointed.
service experience is made up of the customer’s interactions with many touchpoints
  • Fundamental characteristic of service is that they create value only when we use them.

Question: Isn’t that the case for any product? A computer is just a big paper weight until someone uses it.

  • Customers are part of a service system
  • Necessary incorporation of digital pieces in businesses makes service design more prevalent; businesses need more touch points thanks to the web
  • In developed nations, 75% of the economy is in the service section; it’s where most new jobs are created

Thought: if new jobs are created in the service sector then perhaps we can encourage residents to enter service sector so they can generate better income as their area is gentrified?

EXAMPLES

Core service offerings can be grouped into three primary spheres: care, response, and actions

Care

  • Healthcare: care for people.
  • HVAC technicians, dry cleaners: care for objects
  • Accountants, lawyers, therapists: care for money, freedom, and happiness

Access

  • Services for which access is the primary value are services that give people access to large, complex, or expensive things that they could not obtain on their own
  • EX: School, cinema
  • Access to infrastructure: water, gas, electricity
  • Newer “infrastructure”: internet, Spotify, Google, Facebook

Response

  • Respond to people’s (often unforseen) needs
  • Mix of people and things that are ale to assist us: ambulance, teacher, store assitant

Question: again, a lot of these services are also defined as “products”… so what constitutes “pure product”?

  • Service design is about making the invisible visible; many parts of services are invisible because there’s a lot going on behind the scenes

10.11 | Class — Debriefing our Interventions

  • The issue of money is a prevalent theme across groups when it came to debating the realism of implementation. Ex: halfway homes are a good concept for helping keep kids off the streets but their severe underfunding is a large reason why they currently aren’t effective.
  • We need to have a level of assumption that somehow the money will come from somewhere (as designers we can’t be confined to solely what is fully implementable right now; but at the same time we can’t throw out completely far-fetched ideas)
  • Requires a shift of how we think about capitalism and how profit can’t be the only thing that drives us

Think of your work as “seeds”; interventions not projects.

  • Recognize the prevalence of “un-resolution” when it comes to tackling a large problem
  • Think of these are “proposals”

The sentiment of “re-thinking capitalism” is interesting — many of my liberal peers seem to support more socialist routes instead. Some pro-socialist students tabling on Craig had explained to me that in capitalism, the main goal is profit, whereas in socialism, the main goal is wellness of the people. From a quick Google search, I understand Socialism to have the government control means of production and wealth, ultimately given the government more power/ability to redistribute wealth and resources more fairly. Countries in Europe could be considered more “socialist” than America in that the government has the ability to provide universal healthcare and higher education to people, whereas those are largely controlled by private groups in the U.S.

In transition design, the approach seems to suggest that the problem isn’t solved by how much power the government has, but how much access to resources the power have locally (many failed cases of socialism had the government incompetent to redistribute wealth). Indeed, it takes a lot more resources to access something produced elsewhere, and so sharing of resources with people locally encourages sustainability (less waste produced), interdependence (building stronger relations). I interpret this sharing beyond just physically local people; many digital experiences nowadays involve sharing of information across geographical borders. (In fact, an HCI project I’m working on is aiming to tackle that!)

I interpret the shift from competition to collaboration as how I’ve been learning to view my work as a designer. Often, we want to best our peers or colleagues and prove that we’re the all-around most skilled designer; but I realized through working on the senior show branding team that it makes more sense to recognize each person’s strengths in the context of each other. As a team, our ultimate goal is not to produce 12 super-awesome-designers and therefore compete to see who can single-handedly make the best brand; our goal is to collectively develop a strong brand. Therefore, it makes sense for some people to leverage their color sensitivity, some to work on posters, and others to work on word mark. It would be quite a waste of time if everyone competed to produce the best of each of those components.

Other group’s interventions and how they relate to Gentrification

Affordable Homes

  • Education — life long education provides more employment opportunities
  • Encouraging sustainability to raise value of homes
  • Affordable Housing Task Force

Education

  • After school life skills pop up could help people prepare to better understand the cause/effects of gentrification and economy

Water

  • Underground tunnels: alternative form of transportation during inclement weather

Crime

  • A healthy hand: a platform that helps build relationships between neighborhoods. Helps share resources/services with neighbors

Takeaways from Interventions

  • Many about education and sharing participation/knowledge through digital platforms
  • Doesn’t have to be completely new ideas but how we improve on existing things and build off it
  • A key part of resolving gentrification is to make people who make money have more responsibility
  • It’s also important to foster community dialogue and learn how to solve the problem; a lot of people don’t agree on what the problem is.
  • META-COMMENT: a lot of the research and assumptions we have are from futures, placing, etc but we couldn’t appreciate it as deeply back then
  • HUMILITY: it’s encouraging to look back on how we would have tackled these problems 2 or 3 years ago vs now and see how we’ve grown

Mapping the Service of an Intervention

Jake, Juliana, and I worked together to map what the “support local businesses” intervention would look like as a service, or as a system with multiple touch points over time.

We started out by mapping the proposed touch points along a timeline involvement and interest. Sustaining involvement seemed to be the trickiest part, because we assume many people are interested in novelty, so a freebie or discount offer would entice them; but continuing to support something after the novelty wears off requires tapping into a different kind of motivation. What we hoped to do is slowly encourage relationships between business owners and customers so that the sentiments and trust with said business is what becomes the motivation to sustain involvement.

10.16 | Social Innovation

  • Definition: intended for social good as a whole. Meant to be more effective, efficient, and sustainable than existing solutions.

THOUGHT: I see “social innovation” more as a label or theme as opposed to a manifestation of work. For instance, there could be communication design, or service design, and either could have the intent of social innovation. I think social innovation describes more of the function and intent instead of the form.

  • Big question: which stakeholders takes precedence? Becomes thorny as you dive deeper
D light, a portable device that generates light from solar energy
Gira Dora, a foot powered washing machine, allowing women to continue doing chores but giving them a chance to do other things
  • D light and Gira Dora are examples of products with a social innovation focus
  • Design is about “how do we design circumstances so people choose to do something different?” A lot of people in a system continue doing that thing that is inefficient/ineffective/unsustainable/etc. because the system enables them to do so. We see in Gira Dora that we don’t immediately get rid of the culture that women are in charge of household chores. Instead, we first provide a tool that helps them continue to do those chores in a less invested manner.
  • Ex: Consumers can’t even “choose responsibly” when it comes to seafood because fish are labeled incorrectly and we don’t have accurate data of what fish are caught
  • Being culturally appropriate is important because social innovation often works with other countries: when it comes to infant mortality, infection is a big cause so some people made a “birthing kit” for Nepalese that included a sterile, sharp plastic coin because in their culture it’s good luck to cut umbilical cord with a coin. (However, dirty coins easily cause infection in both the baby and the mother)

Thoughts on developers…

  • Developers have “ego” in wanting to have “done something” in their career. EX: make a huge architectural impact, work with important person. Leave a legacy.
  • If you have to alter the culture to fit your design then you’re probably not designing well, unless the culture in question is destructive (THOUGHT: who are you to decide what is destructive?)

10.18 | Social Innovation Review

  • Interventions: it’s like introducing product changes; you don’t want to introduce a whole new system at once, you want to have little changes over time so people become accustomed to it and you can measure whether or not your predictions are correct.

QUESTION: How much is “enough” information to get started?

Social design pathways

Social design often takes time and a varying amount of people-power. As such, mapping interventions out in the following matrix helps us see where a proposed intervention falls on the scale and make more informed decisions.

Social design matrix used for a food topic

10.23 | Looking back to move forward

Research never ends; continues through the process of intervening

“Cosmopolitan Localism”

  • Creating context specific solutions. working in a local scale so leveraging what everyone can bring to that situation. Not so much the projection outward, but the working inward. Cosmopolitan aspect comes out from the different groups working together, but locally.

What is our “posture” in approach interventions?

  • When you create an “intervention” you create something with the intention to put something out there to get something back that will give feedback and grow your understanding, as opposed to the concept of a “solution” that isn’t created with feedback in mind. But it’s not necessarily a research generation piece, it should still “solve” something.
  • Can think of interventions as trying to put in “short term victories” for a long term goal
  • They’re trying to challenge the paradigm of “solutionism”
  • Given the resources that we have, how can we gather information/feedback?

10.25 | Team Forming

Criteria/Scope

  • Facilitates critical questions of asking and learning. “What is it you want to learn? How will it help you learn more about the selected domain?”
  • Scaled appropriate to size of team and amount of time available
  • Leveraging content and research we’ve been doing. Build on your skills.
  • Results in an output that you see as useful (portfolio piece, getting feedback from stakeholders, etc.) What output would you need to achieve those goals?

11.8 | Touching-base

What are you guys finding challenging?

~*Scoping*~

  • Particulars of system that we’re interested in probing/focusing
  • Whether we’re educating/providing information or simply eliciting data or a balance of both?
  • Logistics and constraints of implementation
  • How much to make?

What would be the “logical first step”? Do something things need to proceed another?

Feedback from Stacie

  • Discuss with Air group because they’re asking similar questions
  • Somewhat analogous to how early I-pod’s had circle scroll navigation to see how people would respond to touch navigation as opposed to buttons. A predecessor to touch screens.
  • Communication design is beyond graphics, it’s also about language used, where it’s placed, when people interact with it, the experience of going through the interaction, from how far away they see it, etc.

Reframing our understanding of “making”

  • Cultural probes are more of a survey, and broad. “Making as inquiry” is more of “I have an idea down this route and instead of placing down the end destination of that route, I’m just going to put something in that direction to see if it’s the right direction”
  • How “polished” does it need to be to impact the audience you’re trying to reach? (think appropriateness)

11.12 | Building prototypes for speed-dating

This past week I’ve finally understood what we have been doing

The descriptions of “making as inquiry” and “tackling solutionism” and “poking a small piece” refers to the fact that for many problems, we don’t have the people-power or knowledge to plant a flag down and say “this is the solution, here it is, we’ve solved it”.

it’s not this

Instead, what we’re putting out there exists in the bigger context of the problem space, and is merely a step in where we think the ideal future is.

what we make is closer to this, keeping in mind the context of what we’re putting out there grounds our purpose

We don’t just jump all the way to planting down a solution because 1) that takes a lot of time and power and 2) investing that time and power would not be efficient if we aren’t even sure if it would work.

This whole concept is meant to shift our existing schemas of what “solving a problem” means. In the grand scheme of things, reactions to what we put out there may shift our trajectory and re-define where we should even be going.

In a way, this ethos can be analogous to how products release small changes bit by bit instead of releasing a whole new re-design at once (think how Facebook slowly introduced the timeline as opposed to the wall, or how Apple released the ipod circle scroll to see how people would react to touch interfaces).

Applying this to our intervention prototype

My team had formed upon the shared interest of using gardens and peer-to-peer learning of food locals as a way to increase sustainability and relations between locals. However, that would be the long term, “transition design goal” (so one of those blobs up there). To get there, we have to first make something that introduces a component of what we want to implement/teach while allowing us to answer a hypothesis or affirm/refute an assumption.

We assume that teaching children would be the most effective leverage point because they are most malleable at that age, and we hypothesize those children would grow up to make more sustainable decisions. However, we had to adapt to our available resources, college students. This pivot was actually helpful because it allows us to test whether or not children are indeed the most effective entry point. That is because our initial hypothesis assumes that knowledge is the largest gap in the problem. However, with adults, we can compare their knowledge to their actions to determine whether motivational or environmental gaps are also at play.

To answer those questions, we will create interactive installations that will reveal food sustainability approaches to users while allowing us to gather data on how much people know. By putting these installations in food spaces, we can also observe how much people actually do.

An installation Stacie was reminded of where it asked personal questions but ultimately related the information about birds
Ours doesn’t have to be this big

Planning questions

There are a couple kinds of questions we’d like to ask: 1) How much about the food cycle do they know, 2) What their interest/current habits are 3) How much do they know about what they can do to be more sustainable.

Stacie’s feedback suggests we conceal the intentions of the questions until the end and make the questions more personal. As such, I’m going to try an “embedded” approach, where some more specifically food related questions in interspersed between seemingly general personality questions.

I’m still unsure as to what the framing should be; the above example explicitly states it’s revealing what kind of bird the person is. Since we want to conceal that it’s about food, how should we frame it?

Discussing Questions and Theme

We shared our ideas for framing the decision-tree questions, and how it relates to food sustainability

My approach: I came up with “personality-esque” questions and had the results be different kinds of food. The concept was that through the food persona descriptions, we can embed sustainability tips. For instance, questions could include:

  • “What is your preferred sleeping environment” a question on a person’s particular-ness to relate to how much resources it takes to grow a certain crop
  • “How well do you get along with others?” a question on friendliness to relate to kinda of produce that should or shouldn’t be stored together.

The end results could have each person be foods with varying amounts of impact on the Earth, such as avocados (which take a lot of water to grow), onions and potatoes (which shouldn’t be stored together), or hotpockets (which are neither good for your body nor the environment).

Deniz’s approach: Deniz pitched a superhero theme, to relate to whether the player has the potential to save the Earth. He thought to be more direct with sustainability questions whereas mine were more personality based.

Max and Heejung’s approach: Max and Heejung were a little lost on how to implement all the decision trees, and how one question leads to another. There was also concern about the amount of questions making the piece too large to be user-friendly.

We ended up deciding to go forward with Deniz’s superhero theme, as it felt more personable and more directly related to instilling interest in sustainability in the players.

We decided to continue developing questions through three avenues: motivation, action, and knowledge, referencing our narrowed down research question of gauging correlations between how much people know and how much they actually do.

heejung’s decision tree questions map

Figuring Out Form and Experience

Exploring Spaces in Resnik

We wanted the intervention to be in a dining place on campus, near trash cans and/or waiting areas so we could catch students in action. Below are maps and photos from our observation of the space and decisions on which spaces would be most effective.

Map of garbage cans in Resnik
Places in Resnik we wanted to place our prototype in

We thought the wooden shelf/alcove (bottom right) might be an interesting space to take advantage of since it’s unused and in an accessible yet not high foot traffic location.

Digital Prototype

Initially, we had tried various decision tree forms, such as a path in which people can trace their responses, allowing us to identify most traced paths. However, we decided creating such a structure was too limited to the kinds of questions we could ask, and cornered us into a position to decide how each specific question steered the player towards certain end results.

In exploring the complexity of our questions, and how responses lead to certain responses, we decided a digital piece would allow more collection of data. This decision was also influenced by feedback that the data we were gathering was not “qualitative” enough and trying to code data that wasn’t yet gathered. Thus, we hoped a digital, open-ended format could generate more than “pick A, B, or C” responses.

Some screenshots of Deniz’s web prototype

After Deniz built the structure, we planned on developing the visuals of the digital experience to be more “fun” — so instead of simply questions and answers, we could use pop culture (gifs, memes, etc.) to make responses more interesting. Ex: for a question on how well someone thinks their cooking skills are we could contrast the following images:

Gordon Ramsay as a symbol of peak proficiency
Homer Simpson as a symbol of full inadequacy

Hero Illustrations

We developed four hero personas for the outcomes. Initially, we had 27 personas (3 motivation times 3 action times 3 knowledge rankings) however, we’d decided to nix measuring motivation after feedback that it’d be difficult to accurately gauge motivation.

First round of illustrations for each type of hero

In fact, we decided to not even have motivation/action questions in the intervention itself, since we were advised that we couldn’t guarantee participants to give accurate responses in the given conditions. Thus, we thought to have simply knowledge-related questions in the digital component, and have other team members observe nearby to provide data to gauge a person’s motivation, interest, or action.

Top: sketch of research experience. Bottom: four types of superheroes

Speed Dating Feedback

Seeing other groups work in the speed dating activity confirmed my concern that our direction was too one-sided, as in, we were asking a lot from the participants without providing any takeaways. We decided to address this by putting more attention to the superhero results card, to emphasize the tips participants can do to improve.

We also received feedback on the ordering and coding of our questions, that if we’re going to move from in-the-moment questions like “what did you buy today (at Resnik)?” to “what do you do when a movie ends?” the transition should be more gradual. Another feedback about coding responses was perhaps allowing the participants the ability to select multiple responses, which Deniz noted to work on in the algorithm.

Pivoting Form & Re-Defining Final Questions

After meeting with Stacie for the first time since the birth of our idea, my concern that the form was too clinical was confirmed. It’d be difficult to get people interested in taking what is essentially an online quiz, and having a person approach you would likely make the answers even more contrived.

Thus, we were encouraged to disregard the prior feedback that we should focus on knowledge questions and generate more qualitative feedback. Instead, return to our initial direction of questions based on knowledge, motivation, and action.

You’re doing a superhero theme, so have fun! — Stacie

Sketching the Form

Heejung’s excitement came back since we decided to return to a physical artifact. Her idea incorporated physical interaction, with visual and aural feedback of going through the experience to tap into that “fun” factor. Her idea was to use colored chips corresponding to each answer as a key to determine the player’s superhero results.

Heejung’s sketches (in brown) of the mechanism

While Heejung and Deniz focused on building the physical artifact, Max helped me come up with the content for the questions, hero results, and instructions. We started off with two of each category (knowledge, motivation, action)

We kept some questions from our earlier iterations, such as asking how well they could prepare their favourite family dish or what they do with their waste after a movie ends.

Questions mapping with Max

Revising Copy

After reviewing the content with Stacie, we were advised to make the questions and results more “hero” related. A challenge we came across was finding the right amount of playful jabs: Max inferred that people our age would probably find a bit of sarcasm amusing, but I see sarcasm as a niche interest and pushed for something more inclusive since the fair would have a variety of people.

I took a couple more passes at revising the copy to make sure the questions had clear distinction of “good, better, best”. Another challenge was figuring out how to transition from a general super hero description to something explicitly sustainability related. Fortunately, Stacie took a stab herself and I used format as a model to rewrite the others.

Collaborating with Stacie on Google Docs to revise copy

Unfortunately, due to the scramble to get everything together in one week, we neglected to make an efficient key to match the colored chips to the results. Ideally, the key should have been something the player could match up themselves. Instead, Max and I went through almost every combination and hand-coded the results so that at the fair, we’d take the player’s chips, look at the key ourselves, and hand them their results.

Our unfortunately complex key

Refining Visual Style in Print and Physical Pieces

Color studies I did exploring playful yet not too childish colors. The top right palette in either pdf felt most “food” related so I went forward with playing with those colors.

Color studies

I decided to use circular as the typeface for it’s rounded characteristics mirrored the friendliness we wanted to convey. It’s also legible at a small scale, which works with our trading card print as well as the laser cut treatment we wanted for the physical artifact.

The visual treatment at this stage still felt very clinical, like history flashcards, because the heavy text combined with the conventional treatment of illustration and type on the front was uninteresting to look at.

Laying out colors and illustrations

I went back and looked at graphic elements representing super heroes, drawing influence from American comic books, to come up with the following final iteration. I remained within the initial color palette, but allowed myself to tweak HSL slightly so each card felt like it had its own color system. The combination of various colors in one card also makes it difficult for the player to identify with color coded questions relate to which colored super hero result.

Final card illustrations

As per Heejung’s encouragement, I sketched graphic elements for her to etch onto the physical artifact, so there is visual cohesion between her piece and my print pieces.

Sketch of translating visual style onto physical component

Final Presentation

We pulled through to make a fun game that many people enjoyed at the science fair presentation; people were excited to find their superhero persona and appreciated having a physical and informational takeaway.

Pictures

It was pretty fun to tell participants that we were indeed tackling the wicked problem of “finding superheros”. Even though they knew that the theme was a mask for something else, participants seemed to appreciate the reveal at the end anyways.

Feedback from Fair and Reflection

We spent a lot of time in this project pivoting, but I’m happy with how we pulled through in the end

What I Learned About Working Process

  • Physically collaborative working spaces increase productiveness. Initially, due to the shifting of desks, we’d tried working by huddling around Max’s desk and typing on word docs together. This quickly proved to be inefficient, as not only was it physically uncomfortable, but it also enabled us to get distracted during meetings. Since whiteboards were hard to access, putting a brown piece of paper on Max’s desk and having everyone write together was a helpful solution. I learned that some people are just more particular than others with working environments, and part of teamwork is accepting that everyone needs to compromise.
  • Taking initiative to ask around earlier can help direct our progress. I had an inkling that our approach felt too much like a survey, that we were lacking a “so what”, but it was difficult to persuade my teammates on the grounds of “an inkling”. It wasn’t until seeing others’ work at speed dating that we were all convinced. Seeing others’ work earlier on could also set expectations of scope and fidelity. This still applies to when we’re working in the industry; it’s always helpful to get outside opinion.
  • It can also help us better filter feedback so we don’t get off track. The heavy emphasis on getting “real data” steered us into the direction of making sure what we built was very practical and implementable outside of the science fair. However, that direction only caused more issues, and it wasn’t until the science fair that I realized every other group designed for the context of the science fair. Again, this still applies to industry work: just as we learn to design for context, it is important to understand the context that any prototype will be presented so we can scope accordingly.
We made many copies of the same documents due to pivoting

Feedback from Fair

  • Language indeed varies depending on audience: This relates to the topic I want to incorporate in my project next semester — that there isn’t necessarily “good” or “bad” design, but rather preference. A visual style and language may work for one person but not for another. Some people were jokingly(?) irked at receiving “average joe”. It makes me wonder if we should have renamed it to “hero-in-training” and then scaled the naming upwards from there. Nevertheless, I did notice all the average joe’s bond over the fact that they got that results.
  • Play testing would have made the experience of physical piece more engaging: During peak hours of the fair, there was a long line to play the game, with many people getting restless and wandering away. One person even asked “is this a multi-player game?”

Personal Reflection

  • Even though I don’t enjoy copy writing, I found value in it from a branding perspective: Many peers even tell me I can be well-spoken/well-written, but having no professional training, my ability to “brand” language is quite limited. Even though I’d prefer to approach brand design from a more visual and environmental avenue, I don’t mind flexing muscles in language every now and then since it is still a necessary component.
  • Ask more questions on working process, and be explicit about (if not demonstrate) ideas when working with designers from other backgrounds: I have no idea what the thought and process is like to put together a physical piece. Perhaps it’s analogous to digitally preparing a print piece and then assembling it, except there’s less forgiveness in the assembling process for industrial design. There were several moments when Heejung and Deniz proposed certain ideas and I just went along with it because I couldn’t imagine what was going on. Even as they explained it, there were so many unknown variables that picturing it was quite difficult. I think moving forward, I should take advantage of our common language of drawing to better align on how things work and can be put together. Also always ask if something I have in mind can actually be done.

(a.n. the following point is why I don’t update Medium regularly. I do frequently reflect on my work, I have notepads on my computer and a journal. However, my reflection on my work often is intertwined with more intimate introspection, and I’m not quite comfortable writing that somewhere where I know the content will be read for grading/assessment purposes. In fact, I spent some time on this whole Medium post to have a more neutral, academic tone. Stacie, if you happen to stumble across this part, please send me a note! I’m sure I’ll still be wondering how to tackle this next semester if submission of process documentation is still required)

  • My ability to take feedback during this project marked a moment of personal growth: So I’ve realized that I get discouraged easily, and that discouragement has been what’s made it difficult for me to focus on developing my visual voice. I think in Kristin’s studio, I would be overwhelmed with what I wanted to achieve, crippled by my inability to produce something near my expectation, and then berate myself for “being behind” when in fact all I had to do all along was keep going. I felt splashes of discouragement when I received the feedback that my work is conventional, and that I should simply create mood boards and look at existing work that reflect the tone I’m envisioning — “of course I know to do that”, I tell myself. “Why am I receiving such rudimentary feedback?”.
  • I took a walk.
  • It was then that I finally put into words that I often take critique so heavily because I define my self-worth by my design skills, and even more so, the design skills that I am lacking. Knowledge is liberating, and in that moment I decided to value myself not solely on what I put out, but the characteristics I practice to get there. Indeed, my work may seem underdeveloped because that’s all I ever let myself do before discouragement engulfed me. The suggestion to do such a basic first step was valid because I actually glossed over that part and jumped into making the cards without a decisive concept in mind. So, I went back to studio, sat next to Treat and Hae Wan, and worked the rest of the night. The next morning, I woke up to something I was happy with.
  • I can’t say these illustrations are one of my best work — I’m not even sure if I’m going to show these to anyone (they’ll likely remained buried in my hard drive until uncovered thousands of years in the future with the Moon Ark leads other civilizations to the remains of Earth). But I’m proud of my attitude shift, and knowing I have that energy encourages me to take on my last semester as an undergrad at CMU.

)

Bettina Chou

Written by

CMU School of Design. Process documentation and reflections for work in and out of the classroom. Spring 2016–present. Portfolio at Bettinayc.com

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