Design Research Studio: Reflections and Process
--
8/28/2017
Today’s Topics: Donella Meadow’s reading, notes from the first lecture, and my thoughts on the first day of class
Donella Meadow’s Reading Notes
Leverage Point — A leverage point, by Meadow’s definition, is essentially a malleable portion of a larger system enact or cause large change if it is altered in anyway.
People long for leverage points because they see them as a solution or at least an answer to questions they may be pondering.
Leverage points can also have negative affects even though they may help one problem positively. It is important to examine a leverage point from all and perhaps unusual angles.
I find the list that Meadow’s puts forward interesting because it almost outlines the places you can find leverage points but they are also good measurements of a system and probably a smart place to begin in a critique of a system.
A leverage point is not exactly a “point,” but rather a piece of the larger system, meaning that it has many exterior factors that affect it, making it almost a micro-system of its own.
Parameters are pretty steadfast in their ways due to being attached to so many other circumstances and previously created systems. However, this does not waver people’s passion and interest in different types of parameters.
A buffer has the ability to undo or negate certain portions of a problem or issue. However, the larger the buffer, the more it can cause a system to stay static.
People over or under react within a system because of delays that occur. They do not realize a delay is occurring, and so their response is stronger than it needs to be, or, inversely, too weak. This causes odd high and low levels of response when unnecessary or even causing harm to the system.
“A negative feedback loop is self-correcting, a positive feedback loop is enforcing” (Page 11)
In Class Notes
Reflection of Class
After today’s lecture, I’m not quite sure how I feel about practicing transition design, and frankly, if my feelings towards it matter. What I mean by this is that transition design is happening, has been happening, and will happen whether or not I am interested or invested in the practice of it, and by making the small (or large) everyday choices I do, I am inevitably becoming part of some kind of transition.
Of course, I believe transition design exists, and I believe that it is important, but I have yet to figure out a way to mold it and grasp onto it as something that I can affirmatively nod that I understand the concept of. To clarify, it’s not that I think transition design is too “large” of a concept or confusing, but I have not yet found my place in it.
The closest example I can think of in which I was truly a transition designer was when I worked President Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012. I chose to take a gap year before attending university, because at that time in my life, politics (and the futures they can lead to, though Meadow may disagree with me on this) was more important to my (and allies, friends, and perhaps future children of mine’s) future than attending University.
As I said earlier, I do believe transition design is real and very important. I think that as CMU students, we have the privilege of perhaps solving or at least aiding some of the world’s (and even locally, Pittsburgh’s) unsettling or harmful problems and questions. I am intrigued by this, but also hope to retain some of the release and excitement I was given in previous studios through the art of making and using communication design to explore and visualize whatever was thrown my way.
I am excited to work with classmates who have more deeply explored different disciplines (products and environments) and look forward to see what comes from our collaboration.
8/30/2017
Today’s Topics: Assigning themes and learning more about Pittsburgh
9/3/2017
Today’s Topics: Terry Irwin’s “Mapping Ojai’s Water Shortage” Workshop briefing.
Mapping Ojai’s Water Shortage Thoughts
When beginning to read the workshop briefing, I liked how the problem was first clearly defined and then supported by several facts before it transitioned into why the water shortage is a wicked problem. I believe that sometimes with larger scale design workshops, it can be hard to bring in designers or other workshop attendees who are new to a problem, and in this briefing, I feel like anyone can be introduced to the problem and feel well versed.
I’ve heard the term wicked problem widely used, but I was never able to truly define it (I’d usually tell people it was a very difficult, complex problem, or a problem that when solved leads to other problems). However, I find Terry’s definition to be helpful, which states that a wicked problem is “a type of problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because it has incomplete, contradictory and continually changing parameters. The term ‘wicked’ refers to its resistance to resolution.” (Page 4)
Since my group for studio is focusing on clean water in Pittsburgh, I find Terry’s discussion of Ojai’s water shortage being related to other wicked problems a very important point. As my group continues with our research, I am almost certain we will start finding parallels between clean water problems in Pittsburgh with other issues that are currently affecting Pittsburgh.
I am excited to try mapping the wicked problem of clean water in Pittsburgh as well as stakeholder relations. Through the little bit of research my group has done so far, we already can see that the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority has a lot of control over what has happened to the Pittsburgh water source in the last few years. I’m interested to see how this pans out, and if maybe we will be implementing Meadow’s Leverage Points for Change as part of our envision for the future.
Since water is a necessity for life to survive, I am also looking forward to see how the problem of contaminated water falls on the lifestyle scales. Even now, I am beginning to think of the levels of context, and I realize that so many small factors can contribute to contaminated water. I am excited to tackle this problem with my group, and found Terry’s outline of how to map Ojai’s water shortage a very helpful resource, and I know we will definitely reference it as we move forward.
9/5/2017
Today’s Topics: Initial group meeting and research session
Initial Group Meeting and Research Session
Due to the long weekend, our group decided to first contribute to research in a shared document on Google Drive and to then meet up in person to figure out how to best sort the information.
For the shared document, we didn’t assign topics to look into, but rather encouraged everyone to investigate portions of the clean water in Pittsburgh that they were interested in.
We began by going over what we had found individually and sharing the information by informally presenting it.
We then further researched topics we were confused on or wanted more clarity about.
Since water is a complex system, we decided to use the whiteboard to draw out the beginning to end stages of the water cycle (where in naturally comes from all the way to when it gets into our cups to drink) and to add facts and information we find on top of this drawing.
Once we finished the diagram, we added post-its of two groups. The blue post-its represented people, stakeholders, and those at risk. The green post-its represented problems or questions we saw in the system.
9/6/2017
Today’s Topics: In-class Workshop
As we got into our groups today, we realized something about our charts. Our task at hand had been to post problems related to Access to Clean Water in Pittsburgh. Though we had thrown a lot of interesting concepts on the board, some of them were not problems, and most of them that were lacked context and didn’t make sense to anyone except for the person who had wrote them.
We decided to go forward with rewriting the post-its to make sure they were framed as a problem and made sense.
We ended up making 3 categories of post-its. These categories were:
Blue Post-Its: Categories or overall descriptors
White Post-Its: Problems
Dark Green Post-Its: Stakeholders
Once we rearranged the post-its and replaced our old ones with new ones, our chart looked more like this:
Though we were happy with the direction we were moving in, we still wanted to make sure we were really providing context to the problem as well as making sure that the problem made sense. A way that helped us think about this was make sure that a reader knew what the problem was, who it was affecting, and why it was a problem in the first place.
We moved towards the digital note-taking application Mural (a collaborative tool that teams can use to map out ideas or problems) so that we could edit these post-its without constantly writing them over. We came up with a way of notetaking that looked something like this:
We created larger blue stickies to represent sub-categories within larger sections. We then tried to write the problem on an orange post-it, and substantiate it with a green-post it that gives extra explanation as well as a source (in this example, an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
9/10/2017
Today’s Topics: Fritjof Capra’s reading entitled “Deep Ecology– A new Paradigm” and a meeting with a group to finish the assignment due 9/11/2017.
Deep Ecology — a New Paradigm
I find it very interesting when Capra states that “the more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realize that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systematic problems, which means they are interconnected and interdependent.” I have found with studying access to clean water in Pittsburgh, there are so many choices in the past that have led to the problem we have today. Many of those choices had nothing to do with clean water (or did not have clean water in mind when considering the options), and it’s extremely interested to see how they affected clean water over time.
I wonder what exactly Capra means by the concept that many of our problems are not solved to due a crisis of perception. Personally, I find that many arguments I tend to have do come from the place of me having a different perspective than someone else, but I am interested to figure out how this idea can be applied to the wicked problems we are tackling.
To me, the idea of time really factors in to that of perception. In our topic of water, many of the problems that are affected the ability to access clean water are sprouting from choices that occurred a long time ago. In many cases, the people who chose to go in one direction over another did not think far into the future about how these choices would pan out. I agree with Capra that the idea of sustainable solutions to problems must include the idea that the solution we put in place today should not “diminish the prospects of future generations” (as quoted by Lester Brown).
Having never heard of shallow ecology versus deep ecology before, I found the difference of the terms very helpful, especially when discussing wicked problems. Simply, deep ecology describes the natural environment as encompassing and equal (in that humans, nature, etc. are all on a level of equal importance) while shallow ecology values human life as its core, and outside of nature, leaving nature as more of a use value (Page 3). Though I don’t want to admit it, I think that when I face most decisions in my life, I am thinking from a standpoint of shallow ecology, and I am putting humans (usually those I know and care about, or myself) as the most important portion of the decision making process.
Once I got to the portion of the Capra reading that spoke about Ecofeminism, I found it interesting how self-assertive values were associated with men. Though in many instances of history, men were in charge of their respective civilizations, I find this idea of a fear of change of perception as one of the key elements that is holding us back from solving wicked problems.
I remember in watching interviews before the 2016 American Presidential Election, several women were telling reporters that they did not feel “comfortable” voting for a women as president because women are not “assertive” enough. I would bet that many of these beliefs stem from outdated stereotypes that these specific women have come to believe is the way the world should be.
Important Terms from the Reading:
Sustainable Society (Lester Brown): “A…society that satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations” (Page 2)
Deep Ecology: “Does not separate humans — or anything else — from the natural environment” (Page 3)
Shallow Ecology: “Anthropocentric, or human-centered. It views humans as above or outside of nature, as the source of all value, and ascribes only instrumental or ‘use,’ value to nature.” (Page 3)
Social Ecology: “The recognition that the fundamentally anti-ecological nature of many of our social and economic structures and their technologies is rooted in what Raine Eisler has called the ‘dominator system’ of social organization” (Page 3)
Ecofeminism: “Addresses the basic dynamics of social domination within the context of the patriarchy” (Page 4)
Working with the Team
As a team, we went through all the post-its we had (the ones shown above on the wall) and moved them to the digital platform Mural. As a group, we went over each of them, rewrote them, and added a piece of evidence or context to the problem.
Once we finished with Mural, we had organized our problems into categories and sub-topics. The key goes as follows:
Blue Post-it: Sub-category within a larger issue
Orange Post-it: The problem
Green Post-it: Context or an example
Purple Post-it: Stakeholder
After we finished on Mural, we transferred our final post-its that held problems (the orange ones) to our physical graph, and added the sub-categories when appropriate.
9/11/2017
Today’s Topics: Adding string connectors to our map of a wicked problem and notes from Terry Irwin’s lecture.
Today, we decided that we wanted to start connecting our ideas from separate categories that happen to relate. To demonstrate this, we used string as well as pins to draw physical connections through ideas that relate even though they are technically part of a different sub-problem. Since we did this as a group, we had a good discussion while doing this, and I think it helped a lot with clarifying how portions of the wicked problem of clean water in Pittsburgh do tie together.
Terry’s Lecture Notes
Adding to Our Map
After Terry’s lecture, we decided, as a group, to not only add stakeholders, but opinions that these stakeholders might hold. Using red string to show disagreement and blue string to show agreement, we connected some of these opinions together to show where stakeholders were aligned and where they were opposed. The final chart ended up looking like the picture below.
9/13/2017
Today’s Topics: Creating a map of opinions and thoughts and figuring out if these opinions are in agreement or opposition. Making a list of concerns, fears, hopes, and aspirations for our assigned stakeholder.
Today, we were delighted to learn that our in-class activity was something that our group had already tried to take a stab at. This activity was to narrow in on a few key stakeholders and make a list of their hopes, fears, concerns, and aspirations, and map over these to find which opinions are aligned and which ones are opposed.
After some deliberation, our group decided to focus on 3 stakeholders, which were PWSA (Pittsburgh Water and Sewage Authority), Residents, and the Water Ecosystem. We started by mapping these stakeholders on a sheet and adding post-its about their thoughts and opinions.
After we mapped together, our group broke into 3 pairs and we were each assigned one of the stakeholders. I was assigned Residents and paired with Maggie Banks. Together, we made a list of hopes and aspirations for residents as well as fears and concerns.
9/16/2017
Today’s Topics: Block and Jungk reading and thoughts, overview of process of working on scripts and drawings for 9/18/2017 class.
Process of Working on Scripts and Drawings
On Saturday, our group decided to meet and write the scripts together, that way we could ask each other questions and act as fact-checkers for each group’s skit. We first went to the library in Wean hall, but due to a fire alarm (which by the smell, we suspect was burning toast), we worked outside. This allowed us to walk around, run our script a few times, and converse while we were writing the scripts (and it also happened to be a beautiful day).
Since I was working on the Residents script with Maggie, we wanted to focus on an interaction between two residents who just got a notice that they have to pay for replacements of their pipes due to lead corrosion.
We decided to write from this angle because through our research we discovered that many of the people who end up having to pay for infrastructure are part of vulnerable populations (the elderly, the lower income, etc.), and we wanted to illustrate that something as mundane as replacing a pipe can actually cost a lot of money and be a tough decision for families to make.
In our script, we also wanted to illustrate that there is a lot of misinformation and questions about the water supply, the pipes, and who the responsibility for this infrastructure ultimately falls on. I’m proud of our script and excited to see how it plays out in our next class.
Block Reading
When beginning the reading,
I immediately connected with Block’s point that caring and helping our communities is “not about guilt, it is about accountability.”
I believe that too often when we speak about helping our communities, it becomes this conversation of people feeling guilty about not doing this or not helping with that, when the point is not that we should feel guilty for not helping our community, but rather there should be a sense of accountability that as members of a community, we are accountable for how the community is doing as a whole.
I also appreciate how Block touches on the fact that the qualities of leadership are not something someone must be born with. I think too often we equate leadership to people who fit inside a specific mold, when in reality, leadership can come from all different types of people, and I’ve found in my time that the best leadership is made from a combination of traits and personalities.
Personally, I had never really heard of this idea of “belonging” as the central portion of community. I always thought of relation (similarities, common interest, etc.), faith, and support being core pillars of why one wants to be in a community, but belonging is a more deeply entrenched, almost instinctual reason for someone to want a good, healthy community.
With the idea of belonging as a main pillar for one to join a community, I can see how the fragmentation that Block is writing about can cause harm when one is looking for a community. If a person tries joining the community through one outlet or another, they can become isolated since that portion of the community may not be attached to others.
Hospitality and generosity, to me, are important to a community. Though this may be too small of an example, it makes me think about how at home (NYC), I am part of the Syrian community, and if I were ever to need shelter there, I would only have to make a few phone calls. However, at CMU, I would also be able to find hospitality or generosity if I were to call my community of classmates. Interestingly, though, I was not invited to these communities or welcomed with open arms. For my community in NYC, I just happened to be born into a Syrian family, which allotted me access into, to most, a very private community. In terms of CMU, I had to apply to that community (by getting into the University), and there was no guarantee that I would get in.
Jungk Reading
I was immediately taken aback by the fact hat Jungk speaks from the perspective of someone who was a victim of Hitler’s regime. I think it is honorable and noble that he took those experiences and turned the knowledge he gained from it into a way to help others.
It is essential for people to know what they are fighting for, not just what they are fighting against (Page 5)
Though I can tell that this piece was written some time ago, I believe Jungk is making a good point about how things are often designed with only the elite making the decisions behind this design, and often, not taking into account the actual users of the design. I can think of countless examples of when I’ve seen design in the world, and though the product or design was targeted for a certain demographic, it is clear this demographic had no say or their feedback was ignored, and therefore in many respects, the design failed.
The future belongs to everybody (Page 9)
Last semester, in my Interaction Design 2 class, one of our projects was to create a workshop for a set of people who are currently dealing with a problem (which was assigned to us). Our “problem” was the waste of food on college campuses. Though we did not get to run the actual workshop, we talked to key stakeholders (in this case, chefs at CMU, Culinart (the company that runs food service and production at CMU), and the University board) and the idea of this workshop really excited them. When you are able to provide a platform that allows people who may not usually get to have their voice heard, they share very powerful ideas an insights. I am very appreciative of Jungk’s work of making this happen for those people.
I find the analogy that Jungk uses of asking participants what the first instance that they felt “put down” was like as a way to make them overcome their reticence very interesting. I think we all have instances when our creativity or dreaming was shut down by someone, and it can be hard to bounce back from that. I think the way he approached it (in a calm matter with simple, non-accusing questions) was a positive way to let people know they are in a space where their ideas and creativity are valued.
Could the wealth of creative and constructive proposals for a more human existence be enough to reverse the climate of opinion in both the industrialized countries and the Third World? (Page 18)
9/18/2017
Today’s Topics: Future Haikus, reflection on Dator reading for class.
My Life in 2047
Limbs artificial,
Feel as young as I once did
Does anything change?
My Community in 2047
Passion flowing free,
Hands shoot up like skyscrapers
We all learn as one
Dator Reading
“What are the obligations of present generations towards future generations?” (Page 1)
On the first page of the Dator reading, this question is posed to us as the reader. I find this really interesting because I am in this odd dichotomy where I was able to go to college and pursue higher education, but much of my family has never attended college and will, in a sense, continue to live off of the wisdom passed down to them from previous generations. As someone who has had experiences to benefit my future opportunities and prosperity but who also is very close to a world in which no one goes to college and the sole goal of life is to have children and grow your family, I find this question a very interesting (and difficult) one to answer.
I also found it interesting how Dator promoted a “just do it” attitude. I find, that as a very “type A” person, I am often worrying about outside factors when I want to create. Examples I can think about are when I’m doing calligraphy, I worry about spilling the ink, and I always am worried about cleanliness and organization. I realize though, that this is based on the training I received, and that it’s okay to let these things go when I just want to create.
I really liked Daton’s list of characters of creative individuals, and I am going to paste it below so I can refer to it when maybe I’m having a moment of self doubt (Page 5)
- Awareness of and concern about the existence of problems
- A good memory of lots of facts in varied fields
- Fluency (the ability to generate a large number of ideas easily and quickly in many different forms, not just as words, but also as visuals, sounds, smells, etc.)
- Flexibility (the ability to produce a wide variety of ideas)
- Originality
- Self-discipline and persistence
- Adaptability
- Intellectual playfulness
- Humor
- Nonconformity
- Tolerance of ambiguity
- Self-confidence
- Skepticism
- Intelligence
Though I appreciate De Bono’s model of the six thinking hats, I think the characteristic that makes a good creative, and perhaps a great designer, is the ability to be empathetic and forward thinking. I think what De Bono touches on to with his six hats of thinking is that designers need to be able to be malleable, but also confident in their beliefs. The greatest speakers I’ve seen do have beliefs, but they are able to connect and talk to anyone, even if their beliefs or core values vary. The future is imminent, of course, and the farther we try to push it away the fast it comes. I have hope, though, that at least a few people in my generation are very aware of what is happening and do want to answer the questions of how we can make a better tomorrow for people and to instill a sense of obligation for caring for the future.
9/20/2017–9/23/2017
Today’s Topics: In-Class Activity continued to homework: Imagining a “disciplined” world in the year 2050 from a STEEP perspective (Social, Technological & Infrastructural, Economic, Environmental, and Political)
After beginning the activity in class as a group, we met again today to go over the post-its we had come up with on Wednesday and to add to them or remove some that we felt no longer applied.
When we first began brainstorming again, we realized that discipline in 2050 did not have to mean the society had become dystopia-esque or horrible. We decided it would be a fun challenge to see if we could make a utopia-style future even under the category of a future that is disciplined. With this in mind, we came up with the following guidelines:
- Pittsburgh had a huge drought which caused water and other natural resources to become extremley sparse
- The government became in control of all natural resources and allotted equal amounts to all Pittsburgh residents
- There was a big rise in environmental behavior and technology, causing global warming and other related problems to self-solve to an extent.
Once we finished making our post-it ideas, we decided to individually write our paragraphs about one of the STEEP topics before coming back together to polish it as one.
I was assigned the Technological/Infrastructural paragraph and wrote the exerpt of our total essay below:
Since the drought lead to extreme regulations and rationing of natural resources, the environmental technology market has seen a boom. Companies are competing at unprecedented levels to provide citizens with cutting-edge environmentally friendly technology at affordable prices. Many citizens also find themselves employed at these companies, and in Pittsburgh alone, there are 5 solar power companies, 3 water purifying companies, and 1 solar car company.
Since the Government controls the natural resources, they have several factories in place around Pittsburgh where they will provide gallons of water, gasoline, wood, and other natural resources at the regulated amount to citizens who require it. The ration has led to smaller workplaces, and companies do not want to be seen as wasteful with natural resources for frivolous reasons.
I’m excited to see how our narrative comes together and to see what other groups came up with for this assignment.
9/24/2017
Today’s Topics: Four Futures for Hawaii 2050 Reading and Thoughts
Four Futures for Hawaii 2050
In the Orange Future, I find the way that students are educated is very interesting. I can’t really imagine a future, at least not in 30 years, where no public education exists, especially in America, because it is such a vital part of our current education system. I also find it worth pointing out that in this future, natural resources (such as oil) are so rare and limited that they are only used on humans (moving them in planes) instead of on things like agriculture and moving food around. I wonder, logistically, how the idea that all votes for representation are done by corporations instead of by people would hold up, but in certain sectors of government, I could see this happening in our future.
In the Silver Future, we see a breakdown of all former powerhouses (technology, the hospitality and travel sectors, and oil and big banks), and we see it replaced with militia making sure everyone is following the rules of a post-collapse society. In this future, I think shame is a large driving force of why people are living more modestly and are not partaking in activities that can hurt the environment. It seems that social acceptance also plays into people abiding in behavior that is seen as “good” for the future and the planet. This future also reminded me of the premise of the book The Giver, because in the novel, families are constructed by assignment, and the entire community works essentially as one, and the idea of a nuclear family construct is no more. Similarly, couples are pared, and attraction is not an important necessity in procreation.
In the Maroon Future, I see similarities to the silver future, but differences arise in transportation, attitude, and feelings towards families and how they form. Personally, I think I feel more comfortable with the Maroon future because of how important family is to me, and how I think deconstructing it to something as trivial as random assignment is a scary concept. In the Maroon Future, I also like how society has pushed towards solving problems in energy-efficient and environmental ways instead of receding back in time to handle tasks we do everyday. It seems that good and environmentally friendly designs are praised and encouraged, and as a designer that is important to me. I also think it’s really encouraging that the arts flourish in this future, as I do find it is a great way to bring communities together and encourage thought.
In the Blue Future, we’ve turned into a society that is one step more evolved than we used to be, and now we are all part cyborg. To be honest, this future to me seems like a rouse from a sci-fi thriller, and I don’t think it holds the same legitimacy to the other 3. Also, I believe that augmented reality and immortality is a big stretch for 30 years from now (though I do know this reading is from over 10 years ago). Maybe this future just scares me or feels so inhumane that I can’t really wrap my head around it…
9/25/2017
Today’s Topics: Lecture Notes and In-Class Activity
In-Class Activity
In class, we heard the scenarios of the other topics, and as a group, we went through a sheet that evaluated the positives, negatives and possibilities of the differing futures.
Lecture Notes
9/26/2017
Today’s Topics: Meeting with Team and Writing our Final Snapshot into the Future
Before our group met as a team, we decided to each individually write what our ideal water future is for the year 2050 in relation to Pittsburgh. I wrote the following paragraph:
Tainted water pipes in Pittsburgh are a thing of the past. The rivers surrounding downtown Pittsburgh are clean, and people love swimming, rowing, and enjoying water activities around and near the point. Every few blocks are public water fountains where in the warmer months, people crowd around to fill reusable water-bottles as they enjoy the changing weather. Also, much of Pittsburgh is now powered by energy created by water. The city has won several awards for its work and being one of the leading examples for clean water in the United States.
When we met as a group, we pilled all of our visions onto different post-its, and plotted them on the STEEP map
After that, we grouped our ideas with one another’s that matched or paired nicely, and then assigned each member a category to focus on when writing for tomorrow. Maggie volunteered to draw some of our scenarios so we could have a visual idea in mind.
The final paragraph I came up with is below
Pittsburgh has now become synonymous with a water city. Though it is not costal by any means, the city has boomed since the rivers have been cleaned up and made safe to swim, boat, and relax in, leading to Pittsburgh residents being more active. With public, cool water fountains every few blocks, many residents have switched to drinking only water, which has increased public health and walking efforts.
9/27/2017
Today’s Topics: In-class lecture and activity
Today in class, we began by having each of the 8 groups read their scenarios of how they invision a future around their topic. I took notes on each of the groups, including my own (water) below.
After the activity, Stuart gave us a lecture about unfolding a vision before we did it as a group during the remaining class time.
Lecture Notes
During the lecture, we went over the Three Horizons model of change, and learned the differences between the H1 phase, the H2 phase, and the H3 phase, which are defined above.
As a group, we began mapping some ideas within the three sections. Some of the guiding questions were:
For H1 (Current System):
- What needs to decline?
- What are the seeds of change today?
For H2 (Space of Transition):
- What issues or conflicts will arise in this transition?
For H3 (Future of the System):
- What needs to happen?
- What must be avoided?
After pondering these questions, as a group, we came up with a bunch of different ideas.
Next, we will be looking more closely at the timeline of events, and we will be creating artifacts that represent or explain these events.
9/30/2017
Today’s Topics: The Three Horizons of Innovation and Culture Change reading and my thoughts on it
The 3 Horizons of Innovation and Culture Change
When I first looked at the framework in class, I thought it was oversimplifying the categorization of the current system, the time of transition, and the future system. I think, though, that after we worked on the mapping during class, I began to see the complexities within each category, and I noted that though they may be simplified categories, the ideas they can garner are much more detailed than that. I think a concept that is hard for me to grasp is the fact that all 3 horizons “co-exist” at the same time, and I think I’ll need to reflect more on what the fact that we are always in transition really entails.
Something that I noted from this reading is the idea that even though the future or the period of transition may seem more important than one another, all 3 horizons are equally important to build upon and create solutions for. If one of the three horizons is ignored when thinking about a long term problem, the people trying to solve or help the problem are essentially missing a piece of the puzzle.
10/1/2017
Today’s Topics: Meeting as a Group and creating artificats
Three Horizons Timeline Plotting
As a group, we created a timeline that maps from now (2017) until 2050. In this, we broke it up into three sections, H1, H2, and H3, similar to how it was split in the reading and in the notes above. We then posted stickies to map out different ideas.
- Teal stickies above the timeline (the red tape) were earlier post-its from our in class exercise.
- Teal stickies below the timeline were overarching questions that could change the horizons.
- Yellow stickies were big events that could promote transition or change.
- Blue stickies represent negative occurrences that we could see happening or that have happened.
- Pink stickies represent positive occurrences that we could see happening or that have happened.
We then each chose a post-it to create an artifact off of. I chose the post-it that said re-zoning of the USA due to a natural disaster. For this, I am thinking of making a map of what the USA would look like should ocean levels continue to rise.
Final Artifact
10/1/2017
Today’s Topics: Porritt reading and my thoughts on it.
In this reading, I immediately resonated with the idea of tracking thoughts and photographs on a regular basis in order to document change. Before I attended CMU, from about the time I was 11 until I was 18, I documented my life through photography and writing quite regularly. Over this 7 year span, I took over 100,000 photographs, many digital but also hundreds of rolls of film. Once I got to CMU, though, I lost the time and passion to document, and I think it’s taken a toll on how I view the world and my place in it.
I also found the timeline that Porritt put forward very interesting. In our group (Clean Water), we’ve used the idea of a “peak oil moment” as what could be a moment of transition. We also spoke about an act of cyber-terrorism, but more in relation to water instead of nuclear reactors. We also spoke about a Hurricane or a large storm hitting Florida/the south east of America, and devastating the USA. It’s interesting to see the parallels between our ideas and those of Porritt.
Coming from NYC, I found the section about Urban Makeovers super interesting. I think that it is crazy how many buildings in Manhattan are not residential yet use energy 24/7. I think it would be great if the future portrayed in this reading (where by 2030, non-residential building energy consumption goes down by 55%). I also have seen a growth in vertical farms and recycling in NYC, which to me, is a positive indicator of the direction we are going in. Also, the addition of the citibike program has really increased the number of people who bike around the city instead of driving.
10/2/2017
Today’s Topics: In-class notes
10/2/2017
Today’s Topics: Max-Neef Explained activity, and Sustainable Lifestyles 2050
Max-Neef Explained Activity
After yesterday’s lecture, we were asked to create documents showing two items and how they satisfy or impair the varying genuine human needs. For my first object, I chose headphones, and for my second object, I chose Planned Parenthood.
Below are my final two documents.
Sustainable Lifestyles 2050 Explained
Immediately, I find it very interesting that the SPREAD Sustainable Lifestyles 2050 project has some of the same key domains that our class is focusing on, though I wonder why we don’t have health as one of our domains. I also agree with parts of the executive summary, such as the idea that policy measures that are currently in place are not “doing their job” in an ever changing world to help shrink the gap between the rich and poor and keep up with societal and technological changes and growths.
On Page 14, the idea of sustainable neighborhoods and more co-creation communities is brought up as a possible future for infrastructure. We also touched upon this in class with the idea of Cosmopolitan Localism. Though this idea sounds nice in practice, I feel like it is uprooting many people’s way of life (for example, in the United States, there are many rural communities throughout the country, or in other parts of the world, such as India, asking billions of people to move out of rural areas to cities would require a massive effort and undertaking).
I liked the section that charted Global Megatrends and European Lifestyles. I think whenever creating a document around futures thinking and goals, it is very important to list the possible challenges or hardships that could arise when trying to reach a goal. This goes along with what I’ve written about in the previous paragraph, because whenever one is doing futures thinking and planning around a certain goal, they are inevitably hoping for changes that could affect far more people than they imagined and in ways they can maybe not immediately empathize due to a lack of experience with these people or their situations.
I also found the section on the 10 principles of sustainable communities helpful, especially since my group is looking into ways that Pittsburgh could become more sustainable in ways that relate to water, such as sustainable water, land use and wildlife, sustainable materials, and zero waste.
10/4/2017
Today’s Topics: Redoing our Timeline, Studio Notes, and working on the Ideas and Consequences around our theme of Clean Water.
Redoing our Timeline
Studio Notes
Ideas and Consequences around Water Intervention
After Terry’s lecture, we broke into our group to begin mapping out certain directions and possible solutions we came up with on the timeline. To make it more organized, our group first listed what all the possible directions were, and then went through if they were satisfied or inhibiting each of the Max-Neef Needs.
10/8/2017
Today’s Topics: Service Design 101 reading and thoughts, Possible Interventions and Consequences plotting, and creating an artifact for a possible intervention.
Service Design 101 Reading
When beginning to read this article, I liked the concept of temporary ownership. Right now, there are so many companies sprouting up that take advantage of this concept (AirBnb, Zipcar, Citibike, etc.), and I believe that moving into a sharing economy which would use temporary ownership is a positive direction for the world to go towards.
I also found the concept of unknown factors within a service to be very interesting. A lot of times I’ll come out of an experience with a service feeling one way or the other due to a random, unknown factor. An example I can think of is when I rented an AirBnB this summer, the AirBnB hosts had a pet I was allergic too, and it made the experience worse than it would have been without that unknown factor.
As someone who grew up right before the technological boom (believe it or not, I remember when my parents did not have cell phones), I find it fascinating how service design has “grown up” alongside the rise of technology. To see how much has changed between 1984 and today in the area of service design makes me wonder if as someone who grew up in a world before cell phones and the burst of personal computers will help inform me of where service design can go in the future.
Plotting Possible Interventions
Today, we met as a group to come up with possible interventions. At first, I’ll admit it seemed we were a little stuck on what we had previously done, and weren’t able to make the jump to actual solutions. However, after we spoke for a while and became more comfortable, the ideas started flowing. We ended up going in six different directions, which were:
- Pittsburgh “Blue-City” Campaign (Faith) — Pittsburgh creates a blue city campaign which encourages people to use water recreationally and to drink water often. This includes the building of public water stations where anyone (including the homeless) can always have access to clean, filtered water.
- Pitt + CMU Joined New major in Environmental Design and Engineering (Me) — CMU and the University of Pittsburgh join forces to create a new major around Environmental Design and Engineering. As part of the grant for the new major, the universities will be working with locals to tackle the problem of polluted water in Pittsburgh.
- Pittsburgh Water Challenge (Tina)— Pittsburgh creates a water challenge with donations going to financing water filters for Pittsburgh residents. This program is centered around the idea of giving power to the people of Pittsburgh as well as being an educational and awareness experiment.
- Pittsburgh Water Testing Start-Up (Steven) — Pittsburgh residents send live-data of water quality and can track their neighborhoods through an online live-map. There is a link to this map above public water fountains and sinks. The goal here is to form a community through addressing the water problem.
- Water Visibility Initiative from Pittsburgh (Jesse) — Pittsburgh creates a campaign around making the water problem in Pittsburgh more visible and “in your face.” Ideas include an AR (augmented reality) experiences, a pipe water instillation downtown, visibility of how water flows through the system, and giving away visibility filters for water.
- Tunnel Through Water Instead of Another Bridge (Maggie) — This tunnel would act as both a means of transportation and a see-through exhibit about water quality in Pittsburgh. We are thinking of some kind of combination of public transportation and aquarium-like instillation.
Pitt + CMU Joined New major in around Environmental Design and Engineering Artifact
10/9/2017
Today’s Topics: Service Design Lecture with Molly Wright Steenson, Notes, and In-Class Activity
Service Design Activity
During class, we had roughly an hour to design a service around sharing music. The prompt was purposefully open ended to allow us to go in a range of directions.
To begin, our group worked as a whole to come up with some ideas around the term “music sharing.” Maggie ended up writing down our ideas and circling and connecting ones that went together.
Afterwards, we broke up into 3 teams of 2. Maggie worked with Faith, I worked with Tina, and Jesse worked with Steven. In these pairs, we came up with ideas separately and then came back as a group to present.
After coming back as a group, we learned about each of the three ideas. Maggie and Faith had the idea of creating an experience at a place of worship in which the music would dictate the feeling and tempo of the space. Tina and I talked about an interactive art instillation based on the city it was being placed in. Jesse and Steven came up with the idea of a playground that made different sounds based on proximity to the different parts of the playground and how people used it.
After debate, we decided to go forward with Jesse and Steven’s idea. As a group, we made a blueprint and began to build the playground so we could use it as part of our presentation.
As we were planning our skit, we decided that Jesse would use an iPad to enact the music that would come about as people interacted with different parts of the playground. This addition of sound really helped bring our skit to life. We ended up going with the name “Junglejam” for our service, and imagined it would be sponsored by the New York Philharmonic and would be sponsored by Sony. The playground would “pop up” in Times Square.
Photos of the Skit
10/10/2017
Today’s Topics: Practical Service Blueprint Reading and Thoughts
Practical Service Blueprint Reading
After our workshop with Molly, I found that one of the portions of the task that was the most exciting was coming up with the blueprint of our service. Often in Design, we only see the finished product (a book, a chair, etc.), and so something I really like about blueprints is that they are all about visibility, beginning to end.
I think a crucial part of a service being successful is being able to justify and see the “behind the scenes” of it. If people are skeptical, questions arise, and the trust in the service declines. I agree with this reading in that the planning and preparation of the actual service is just as important as the final product.
In this reading, I found the breakdown of the blueprint particularly helpful. The diagram on page 7 went over all of the concepts and labels that Molly had taught us, but it was nice to have a chart to refer to.
10/15/2017
Today’s Topics: Three readings and thoughts, weekend meetings.
Breaking into Smaller Groups
The next portion of our project was to break into smaller groups. I was broken up into a group of myself, Maggie, and Jesse. For this portion of the project, we had to choose to elaborate on one of our service design scenarios relating to our topic and showing some of the front and back end interactions. With Maggie and Jesse, we decided to expand upon our group ideas of a “Blue City” that had water stations around the city that tracked not only the quality of the water but how much water people were drinking. We started out with writing in a collaborative document as we were coming up with ideas.
Plotting our Ideas
We then met as a whole group of 6 and presented our ideas to one another. After a small critique, we split back into our groups of 3. My group decided to work with butcher paper and post-its as well as drawing directly on the paper. Pink post-its were meant to stand for front-end touch points while yellow post-its indicated back-end touch points or interactions.
Pictures of our Second Group’s Work
Below are some photos of the work done by Tina, Faith and Steven. For their portion of the project, they focused on developing the idea of making the water problem “visible” through a CMU start-up.
Stuart Candy Foreword
In Stuart’s foreword, I agree with the potential of social entrepreneurship. As a college student, I’ve seen the formula that Stuart lays out applied a lot in different organizations that are centered around bettering the campus community or on a larger scale, the world.
Social Entrepreneurship Formula (Page 3)
business + design + ethics (greater good) = social enterprise.
An example I can think of about this is one of the university organizations that works closely with local community groups to volunteer. On the business side, there are students who reach out to the organizations and speak to the leaders of the respective community groups to figure out what kind of volunteerism they require. On the design side, students create posters and other type of designs to get students interested and to recruit volunteers. On the ethics side, students are creating this organization in order to use their free-time to volunteer and help people who they believe could benefit from student’s skill and time.
From this reading, I also found it very interesting how time factors in to how a business that is ethical can succeed or find demise. If they are not forward thinking enough (essentially, if they are stuck in the past), they could fail. I think this is a concept worth thinking about as a designer, because no matter how ethical the thing I am designing is, I must also be considering the future.
I also really liked the portion about imagination. In my time, I’ve met a handful of people who really despise the idea of imagination or suspending reality for a moment to consider other scenarios. These people often did not enjoy movies that were fiction, nor reading material of the same genre. I usually felt it hard to connect to these people, because as a designer, imagination, and being able to consider different futures and scenarios for myself, allows me to do this on a broader scale for my design work. I believe that if the whole world were more imaginative, many more problems would be solved or at the very least reduced.
Leap Dialogues by Mariana Amatullo
When beginning to read Tommy’s answers to the interview questions, I immediately thought of the direction I want to go into in the future as a designer and where service design falls into that. I began pondering being a branding or campaign designer, and how service questions such as advertising on a moving vehicle (the subway, for instance) could be part of my everyday work. I really connected with what Tommy said about being able to connect with outsiders when we are designing and therefore be more inclusive in our work.
I also really enjoyed the quote by Saul Bass that Tommy points out, which is that
“Design is thinking made visual” (page 31)
I agree with this quote because a lot of times, I find that my favorite part of design is being able to communicate with others through visuals I make. I think part of the uncertainty I have when it comes to Service Design or Design Thinking is that they do not often reference visual designers, when in my opinion, they are a large part of the foundation behind these newer areas of design research.
As someone who grew up as the personal computer was on the rise, I find it interesting how Tommy divided where Dell found successes. I think that as a Communication Designer, I don’t often think about where the design I make will go after I make it, and who will see it, and who will use it, and a lot of the “after” questions. I think a substantial part of service design is including this in the process.
I also thought the advice that Tommy gave about experience from a small firm being an essential part of his design journey is really pertinent. Though I am going into the tech field after graduation in order to pay for Grad school, I really do hope this summer to work at a small firm so I can gain that essential experience.
10/16/2017
Today’s Topics: In Class Notes and Activity
Design for Social Innovation Notes
10/19/2017
Today’s Topics: Post-It HW Activity
Design for Social Innovation and Services Post-It Excercise
The service of creating water sheds can also relate to the following topics:
- Gentrification (The water sheds could increase property values and therefore perhaps gentrify the neighborhood)
- Transportation (If the water sheds are placed strategically, people can feel more inclined to walk or bike)
- Education (The water sheds can be used to help educate about the state of water in Pittsburgh)
The social innovation of designing a blueprint to help communities water share can also relate to the following topics:
- Housing (This can make neighborhoods work together and be more organized with resources such as water)
10/23/2017
Today’s Topics: In-Class Notes and Mapping Water Quality Intervention Ideas
Today, we met with our groups and chose our top 5 ideas we would like to go forward with. We then connected these ideas to the other topics that our classmates were doing to try and find connections that could form.
After finishing meeting with our groups, each group brought our posters upstairs so we could read the other topics and see where their ideas connected to water. Unfortunately, not many of the other topics did, but it was still very interesting to see which concepts other groups were going forward with.
Once we finished looking at other groups diagrams, some members from other groups indicated if they were interested in our ideas as posted above.
10/25/2017
Today’s Topics: Finishing the Diagram and Solidifying our Groups
After our last meeting, Faith and Steven went forward with moving some of our content on to Mural to better organize it and digitize it, as seen below.
We then further established our 5 ideas by answering in more detail how we would tackle them, what we thought our challenges might be, who would be interested in which ideas, and how we could overcome these challenges.
We then broke up into teams of 3, staying within the Water Group.
10/29/2017
Today’s Topics: Weekend Recap
Over the weekend, we began propelling our ideas forward. To begin, we made a calendar of the remaining days of the class and began to fill it out.
We also broke up into our groups and began putting together our final proposals.
My group also created a slides document where we could post inspiration for our project.
11/6/2017
Today’s Topics: Working on our blueprint and beginning to come up with directions in our two separate groups
In the last few days of studio, we’ve moved much more towards the making portion of the process. Before we dove into that, though, we wanted to make sure we were going over everything we’ve learned so far and that we were factoring these realizations in to our final direction.
We began by meeting as a group and beginning to blueprint on our whiteboard.
Even though we are technically two groups now, we are still working closely together because we want our final directions to be part of the same overarching system.
Steven was kind enough to digitize what we had finished thus far for the blueprint and move it on to mural so we could continue adding on to it, as seen below.
We then broke into our two separate groups and sent in our final proposal. My group (Steven, Jesse, and myself) decided to meet up and to begin ideating on what directions we want to pursue for the making portion of this project. We ultimately decided to break down our ideas into three separate sections, as seen below.
Since I’m really interested in how people would learn about the water problem from their homes and how they can become a part of helping solve the problem, I decided to focus on the Macro Direction (meaning a culmination of all the collected data). To help myself break this down, I created a map of what the entire Macro experience could encompass, as seen below.
- To allow our system to be viewed in a top-down view, we framed the problem of poor water quality as a widespread epidemic such as obesity or heroin. Currently, these epidemics are shown on media, are debated by experts and part of everyday conversations. By creating this sense of urgency and exposure around water quality through the tools we are providing, we increase Pittsburgh residents’ awareness and provoke government action.
- In framing this wicked problem as an epidemic, we are creating a set of tools to help three key stakeholders that we have identified in the epidemic: a reporter, a sufferer and a helper. The reporter wants to spread knowledge and awareness of the problem. The sufferer wants the problem to go away. The helper not only wants to alleviate the problem, but wants to do it in the most time-effective way.
We decided the best way to move forward was to dive right in and begin drawing ideas. I decided to investigate the idea of a tool residents could use to learn more about the water and where the water is traced from.
After discussing with my group and Stacie, I decided to try mapping out the investigation tool through wireframing.
11/12/2017
Today’s Topics: Reframing the problem using metaphors and preparing for speed dating.
After individually working for a few days, we regrouped today to share our thoughts and continue our working process. While we were discussing, we realized that we were explaining our problem in so many ways with several analogies, and that if we wanted to get the most out of the speed dates with other groups, it would be crucial to simplify to one metaphor. After a bit of debate and discussion, we realized that the wicked problem of clean water can actually be framed within the concept of an epidemic.
When we looked up what is technically classified as an epidemic, we found that the requirements were: An outbreak or product of sudden rapid spread, growth, or development.
When a water supply, such as the several that Pittsburgh relies on, is affected in a negative way, it becomes a problem for large areas quickly. This was apparent twice this year while we were studying at CMU, both when there was a boil advisory and when bird droppings had made it so that no one was supposed to use water from their drains for a few days.
We realized that in any epidemic, there are three key roles.
The first is the role of the reporter. A reporter can be anyone who is interested in the problem and wants to help spread the word about it and build closer to a solution. In the current heroin epidemic, the reporter could be thought of as the police who are sharing videos of over-doses to show the community how large of a problem this is and to help warn them of the dangers. In the obesity epidemic, Michelle Obama acted as a reporter by promoting the importance of exercise and making sure she spoke of this platform to the entire nation.
The second role is the sufferer. The sufferer is a person who is affected by the problem and is seeking help. In the heroin epidemic, the sufferer would be someone addicted to heroin and drug use. The sufferer does not always necessarily choose the problem, but can be affected anyway. Also, the sufferer does not have to be affected first hand.
The third role is the helper. The helper is a person who wants to and has the resources to help alleviate the problem for a sufferer or group of sufferers. In the heroin epidemic example, the helper would be EMS or another Health Professional who could aid the sufferer.
Once we framed our idea in this way, it became a lot easier to talk about and we could show how the things we were making correlated to these roles. We were excited about this new framework and feel more prepared for presenting tomorrow to our classmates.
11/15/2017
Today’s Topics: Piecing Together Critique from our Presentations
The Data Side Presentation
Critique
After going through the speed dating, our group put all of the critique in one joint document. We then read through each other’s critique and added comments.
11/20/2017
Today’s Topics: Working on the overall plan and beginning our final iterations
Before Thanksgiving break, we met up as a team to make a final blueprint of our entire system. After reading through the critique from the speed dating, we wanted to get together as a group and make sure all facets of the project were being covered. We also used this meeting to begin working more on the visuals and the presentation of our final deliverables.
Final Two Week Process
Because the last two weeks were a whirlwind of making, producing, and iterating, I decided to cover it one post. Below this post is the post of the final deliverables, which, along with my team, I am extremely proud of.
11/28/2017
Today’s Topics: Figuring out the style of our deliverables and concreting our directions.
Today was our first time back together as a team after Thanksgiving break. We had all gotten the rest we needed and were really excited to begin making. After a little time off, we really felt we were going in the right direction.
We spent this day concreting our ideas and beginning to make final visual decisions that would help drive the team forward in unison. We also began making material decisions for the filter, since we knew we would need to allocate time to build them.
On this day, as well, Steven sent an email to several professors in the Heinz college, inviting them to our show. Though they did not end up attending, we will still be sending them our final deliverables.
The email can be read here:
My team and I, as part of our Senior Research Studio project, studied Pittsburgh water issues and will present our findings and deliverables next Wednesday. My team and I would like to invite you to come to our project showcase. The showcase will be hosted in Margaret Morrison Hall in room 107 on Wednesday 1:30pm. My team and I researched on visualizing water pollutants and created digital and physical products to help improve Pittsburgh water. Using a futuristic viewpoint, we set our solution to the year 2025. Since our digital and physical interventions involve data-collection and data-sharing between citizens and government, understanding how public policy affects our intervention is essential to our project. However, we know little about both public policies and risks associated with our interventions. Therefore, we would love to invite you to our showcase and hear your perspectives on our presentation. If you are not able to attend, please forward this email to students and other facultis of Heinz who might be interested. Your help is very appreciated. Thank you so much!
We also began playing with color, but found that we were shooting in the dark. Though the colors were fun and engaging, they really didn’t feel like water at all, and it was very confusing from a user standpoint. After a critique with Stacie, we started moving towards a monochromatic blue palette.
We found that this was much clearer for the user as it helped them make the connection that this product was around water safety.
While we were looking into color, Tina was also looking into different renderings of the actual filter, which would be important to the landing page of our site as well as for promotional materials.
11/30/2017
Today’s Topics: Making a final style guide and pushing ahead
During class, we made a final style guide that included color, type, our logo, and button styles. This helped us not only make the brand more coherent, but made designing the different components faster and easier. Below is a first go at our website with the new branding guidelines.
While this was going on, Faith was finalizing a logo for us to use, as Maggie was interested in making shirts and we knew we would need to use the logo across the board.
We also were very good about collaborating on copy, and working together to make sure our narrative was coming through in our work.
Maggie also hand painted our shirts to have our logo as a way to fit into the narrative that we were a start up coming to Pittsburgh to tackle the problem of unsafe water in the middle of an epidemic.
Maggie also created a base for the sink so that the filter could be attached to it and it could stand alone for our presentation.
12/1/2017–12/6/2017
In the final stretch, we really wanted to make sure our deliverables were ready to go. Below is Faith’s iteration on the water filter, with the new icons and colors.
While this was happening, Steven was also working on iterating on the government tool. He also included the team on the copy writing for this tool so that we could work on it collaboratively.
Faith also created a key so we knew exactly what shapes stood for which containments. Though we didn’t end up using the circle orange containment, the rest of this key did make it into our final.
We then began to tighten our design while also finishing other aspects. Below is Faith’s update of the filter interface design as well as a first go at the packaging.
Since we had so many components, we were all working on separate things, but made sure to use the power of online messaging and pictures to keep each other in the loop in the process and open up the room for critique.
By keeping in constant contact, we were able to really help one another, though half of us were working in porter and the other half in Margaret Morrison.
It was a very enjoyable experience because even though we had a ton of work, we worked together and were able to support one another.
Final Deliverables
Though there were many late nights working on safe2o, we are extremely proud of what we accomplished. Below are the final deliverables we brought in for the show.
Maggie, Tina, Faith and Steven were kind enough to take the amazing photos of our project seen below.
Process Photoshoot
Final Deliverables
Video for the website: https://vimeo.com/246104194
Instruction Book for the filter
Adoption Timeline
Another format of the Adoption Timeline
Government Tool Storybook
IoT Filter Pictures
