10.14 // Design research + project work
This class was predominantly focused on getting all the project teams to begin thinking more deeply about their project for the semester, which questions they wanted to answer and plan how they were going to make that happen.
To get everyone in the right mindset, Francis began by explaining multiple different design research methods that the teams would use as well as when they could be useful.
Each of the teams then broke out into their groups. To help structure their thinking and discussion discussion, Francis provided them with two worksheets.
On the left, we have the research project canvas that asks the basic questions that teams need to answer about their project and will ultimately help them figure out the timeline for their project too. Of course, given the time limit of the class, it was meant to act as a thought starter and get the teams to do light desktop or user research outside of class to validate the direction of their initial thoughts. Each of the subsequent classes we have will dive deeper into some of these boxes so that each of the groups has time to consider what they’re doing more thoroughly and build the case from their project.
Many teams didn’t get to planning their work as they were still scoping a lot of what they wanted to do. As a result, most of the discussion centered around scoping and coming up with a variety of research methods that could be used to get to the research objectives the teams had. The teams will also have next class to continue working on their projects!
