Data Portrait
In the previous classes, I was inspired by a couple of artwork, The Open Daybook by Stefanie Posavec and One Year Performance 1980–1981 by Tehching Hsieh. I was amazed how they persistently capture moments in their lives and display them in a simple yet powerful format.
For the self portrait assignment, I choose to capture my everyday meals to be my dataset, and show them in the format of Post-it notes, the medium I’m familiar with as being an UX designer. Both the meals and the Post-it notes reveal my identities of my cultural and professional background.
While working on UX design, there are always user interviews conducted during the early stage. Observers of user interviews would write down key points or quote what users say onto Post-it notes for the sake of convenience of sharing observations. Later on, the similar notes would be organized and sorted into groups. These groups would then be identified as patterns and themes.
Post-it notes may seem analog, but its move-around and quantifiable nature has made it interactive and become one of the best tools to help to find insights and form consensus. This qualitative research activity has completely demonstrated the spirit and process of capturing, analyzing, and displaying data.
