The Zoolander Approach to Creatively Researching Creativity
For many people, the first thing that comes to mind upon hearing the word research, is a bunch of scientists in a field or lab manipulating variables and observing phenomenon. Research topics are meant to be specific, so that researchers can derive thoughtful conclusions from testing, retesting, and observing. However, this is not the case for designers. User research occurs in many phases throughout the entire design process, even before an idea can be tested.
Kicking off the Project
Our capstone project began a few weeks before our teams had even assembled. We were given project descriptions from each client, and the project description provided by Zazzle (while excitingly open-ended) was disconcertingly broad. Thankfully, the scope of our project was narrowed significantly during our kick-off meeting with our client. The meeting was our first opportunity to meet with members from the client’s design team in person. After some small talk about customizable plates, and poorly executed dad jokes over lunch, we got to discuss the project in detail during a three hour meeting. Guided by the Analysis-Synthesis Bridge Model through a stakeholder diagram, brief Q & A, reverse assumption activities, and Crazy 8 ideation, we were able to analyze the client’s interests with more specificity, as well as collectively ideate solutions for potential future states.
Synthesis of Ideas, Notes… and Personalities
A prior assumption of the capstone project that came to fruition very quickly: you spend a lot of time with your teammates. This past week, our team held a meeting almost every single day, not only becoming familiar with each other’s work styles, but also each other’s favorite snacks, dorky past times, and tease-worthy quirks. We recognize each other’s strengths. We acknowledge each other’s weaknesses. We continue to challenge each other, and we don’t plan on stopping any time soon. Since the start of capstone our meetings have become more cohesive, resulting in more efficient and valuable discussions that continue to push the project forward.
Right now, we are in the stage of preparing to do primary user research. But how did we get here? Who are we interviewing?
Following the kickoff, we as a team got together and started to debrief our meeting with the client. We were able to structure our understanding and identify three research directions:
- Creation — Understanding why people create
- Community — How communities are formed, and how individuals align themselves with certain communities.
- Lifestyle — Identifying attributes that constitute a lifestyle brand
With still such broad directions we decided to tackle them in parallelly, starting with creation and creativity.
Conducting Primary Research
Stemming from our current understanding of creation, we got curious to explore four different facets of creativity: creating by yourself, creating with other people, daily instances of creativity, and drivers/motivations of creative expression. Through research methods such as directed storytelling and semi-structured interviews, we hope to understand more about what people do when they create, collaborate, get inspired, get bored, and/or when they are a part of a community. We are going wide in exploring what characteristics lie in creativity and creation.
Deciding who to interview was also a challenge when you take into consideration the fact that everyone has the capacity to be creative. Everyone has, at one point in his or her life, created something. What makes one person’s experience with creation more valuable to our research goals? The team ultimately decided to focus on groups of people that had experience in analogous areas: gamers who collaborate in MMORPG games, parents with young children, influencers on social media, artists and designers who create for money, and a mix of “Average Joe’s” who give insight into people who don’t consider themselves “creators’’. The directed storytelling interviews themselves take an average of one hour and fifteen minutes to complete.
Following the interviews, we will come together to aggregate notes from our research and synthesize them through affinity diagramming. This particular activity involves deconstructing interview notes to be categorized based on commonalities and patterns that emerge from this aggregation. We plan on cycling through this process again for the other two directions as well. Next, we will also be learning from the great minds of HCII at Carnegie Mellon, especially the experts of social and gaming communities to get a deeper view on creativity, collaboration, and community.
We are excited to realize what we find and how we can employ that in our next steps to affect Zazzle’s future!
Till then stay tuned!
