Henlo, Thesis!
First week of thesis! Already!
Over the summer I did a lot of thinking about thesis topics, as recommended by my senpais who just finished theirs, and came up with a pretty solid list of ideas. Many of my favourite thesis projects from previous years were centered around mental health, self care, and inner reflection, and I’d always expected myself to choose a topic somewhere within those areas as well. We’re encouraged to find something that overlaps what we care about with what’s important to the world, and as a silently angry intersectional feminist it’s been pretty easy for me to gather a lot of those.
On the first class, our thesis coach Christina had us do a series of short activities to kickstart ideation. We reflected upon our lives, remembered our parents’ and grandparents’ stories, speculated our futures, and found areas in our body and mind that we want to ‘keep’ and ‘grow’.
We then extracted themes out of each activity and turned them into sticky-notes. I generated 27 stickies in total, and plotted them onto a 2x2 matrix to prioritize and narrow down:
I modified the suggested axes of [the world needs — doesn’t / I care — meh] because I didn’t feel ‘meh’ about any of my themes, and I also needed to include another important factor: am I ready?
Being a spoonie means I need to be extra careful of what I commit myself to and how much time and mental capacity I spend on it. Over my 5 (going on to 6) years at CCA, I’ve learned something crucial that people tend to dismiss or forget about when selecting a topic of their choice: yes, you care, and yes, it’s important, but is this the right time? I deeply care about suicide awareness and prevention, and it’s definitely something important in the world, but I’m not always able to comfortably and safely talk or think about it. I’m sure there are plenty of opportunity areas for design✨, a lot of scientific research and scholarly articles, and amazing organizations I could work with; this would be a pretty solid theme to work with, but is this the right time and am I ready for it? Nahhhh. Gotta take care of myself first 💅
The smaller blue stickies are sub-ideas and clarifying keywords for each yellow idea. I noticed a lot of similar themes across the matrix and tied them together:
Out of this cluster I am selecting 3 ideas to write about their +s and −s:
1. Having Difficult Conversations / Conflict Resolution (top right)
I strongly believe in the power of dialogue as a way to resolve conflicts, however, I’ve always been terrible at it and to this day I’m terrified of communicating my thoughts and feelings when I know that the person/people I’m communicating with do not accept or agree with me, which tends to happen when that person comes from a different background as mine. My Japanese upbringing has made me prioritize the peace of the group’s atmosphere over the feelings of the individual (myself), and I hate disrupting when things seem ok on the surface. I always rely on more assertive teammates when a team faces conflict, and oftentimes it’s something that could’ve been resolved easily if we addressed it at an earlier stage, but we were all too anxious and kept saying “maybe tomorrow”, and eventually that small thing snowballed into a bigger issue and *reeeee*. Nobody likes having difficult conversations! Unfortunately we all have to have them once in awhile, and I want to help people (including myself) become less uncomfortable with it. I think it’s especially important in this time and age because there is so much violence stemming from fear and ignorance, and if we become better communicators and listeners, maybe the world would be a little bit more empathic.
+: the world needs it, I need it, it’s a pretty broad topic that can be narrowed down, I’m sure there are lots of resources both scholarly and personal/professional, I think a lot of people would be interested in it, it’s not super triggering. A lot of the subtopics/keywords of the other thesis ideas I have tie to this, so it’s obviously something I care about & interested in doing.
−: is it too broad? could it be triggering? would it be a medicine or would it be a vitamin?
2. Making Data Meaningful
I’ve had a jawbone UP, I’m now using an apple watch, and recently I got the Eight smart mattress, all to track my health in hopes of improving it and reporting back to my doctors. What do I (and probably others) hope to get out of these trackers? ‘Healthier’ lifestyle, more walking, better sleeping, muscle gain, weight loss, better hydration, etc. What have I gotten out of these trackers? How many steps I’ve walked, how many hours I’ve slept, how many times I’ve tossed and turned, what my heart rate was over the day, how much kilograms I weigh, data, data, data… and is any of this data influencing my behaviour? Nope! Yet people are still so fascinated with tracking all their activity. There’s got to be better ways of presenting and interacting with data to bring actual influence and change that people are looking for.
+: pretty relevant, very much an IxD topic, also want to challenge what ‘health’ means, matters to me a lot especially regarding chronic conditions, behaviour change is always interesting & difficult, I want to help people achieve their goals!!!
−:it’s interesting but i’m not SUPER passionate about it. maybe i’m coming in with too many assumptions? is it just a me problem?
3. Accessible Financial Management
This one came up the evening after class ended, as I was checking out of Safeway. Ever realize how long receipts can get, even if you’ve only purchased a couple items? When you glance at a receipt, you can probably see where the receipt is from, but how quickly can you find the date, time, how many items purchased, and any other info you need without having to squint your eyes? I’ve come across well-designed receipts here and there that are more readable, but in most cases they become long, crumpled, unpleasant-to-read sheets that are only useful for when you want to return something. What if receipts were better? What if they were a well-designed touchpoint for a system of financial management for people who don’t have access to services like Mint? It’s easier to be aware of your spendings when you use cash because you physically see it flow in and out, as opposed to a magical card that is connected to a magical place that may or may not have the amount of money you think you have. Could we start a cash revolution? (Or more realistically, let’s design a way to help people without bank accounts and/or cards (AND CHILDREN) manage their finances?)
+: I think it’s really cool, I don’t think this exists and I think it should, receipts are ugly but I need them to track my spendings granularly, I think it’ll be a pretty cool idea, children matter, money matters, finance matters especially for those who don’t have equal access to existing tools)
−: am I the only one who thinks this is cool? am I too obsessive with tracking finances? tracking in general!? is this a problem worth looking into? does this matter!? is this classist? how feasible is it even?
~stay tuned~
