Chair Activity

Research Methods Reflection

Rachel Legg:

I had trouble filling the two minutes about myself, but I was also the last to go so my rotation went a little more quickly. It was difficult to sit in silence for the remainder of both mine and each person’s two minutes, I think especially through zoom because we were all in separate locations, staring at each other through a screen. After sharing my response, it was weird to then stay silent and see what other people absorbed from what I said. I think it allowed me to reflect even more. When I was not in the speaker seat, it was super interesting to see how a change in perspective (different chairs) would affect how I interpreted someone’s response and how I would give feedback. The head chair seemed most direct, while the heart chair was interesting to consider more than just the basic information, but also the emotion and how the information related to the person on a deeper level. I liked being the will chair and trying to understand someone’s motivation by the context of their statement. Overall, it was a fun experience in discovering different perspectives and how each of us have the capability of approaching questions (or really anything) from multiple directions to learn more and then possibly make a change.

Proud Taranat:

I wished that this activity was able to be done in person, because having physical chairs would definitely better facilitate the way me and the people in my group interpreted and handled our respective roles. As the Head chair, it felt awkward having to interrupt the speaker and make people sit in silence, especially when someone was having a conversation. As the speaker, I didn’t really feel comfortable sharing a lot of what I wrote down so my response was really quick, short, and surface level. I tried my best to speak as long as possible but it was just really difficult to do in the online setting. I had trouble understanding the motivation chair because there are many different ways you can approach motivation; as the speaker motivated to share their feelings? Were they motivated to work on their personal weaknesses? I didn’t really know how to interpret the question so I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to approach the conversation. As the heart chair, it was really interesting to look at how the speaker felt about the activity, as well as how they felt about themselves. Once again, I think I would’ve enjoyed this activity a lot more if it was in person, and it felt too directionless and awkward when held over zoom. However, this activity was useful in highlighting the different perspectives and approaches a designer has to take on to gather diverse and valuable information.

Sarah Xi:

As I was the first to be the speaker chair for my group, I was unsure of how the exercise would go and how I’d be able to talk for more than 30 seconds. In the end, I was able to at least talk for almost a minute — despite using filler words and pausing often. The silence afterwards was awkward, but I could tell it gave time for people to reorganize the thoughts they wanted to share. In addition to that, it also gave me time to reflect on why I said what I said and why I thought of myself that way (in a sense, did some introspection on myself). Experiencing the different roles of each chair was also interesting, as the head chair felt straightforward while being the heart chair forces you to take a more empathetic perspective. However, even though being the head chair seemed like one of the easier tasks, it was equally as challenging as the other chairs. Knowing I had to state facts forced me to be more observational, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but think beyond their words and had to stop myself from overanalyzing. Lastly, being in the will chair was also something I’ve never tried before, and I think it was the most interesting experience as I found that the weight of their words mattered more for me than how motivated they sounded. Overall, even though this exercise may seem unrelated to research methods at first, it really highlights the valuable skills you may need as a designer when making assumptions and observations.

Eric Zhao:

As the speaker in my group, I ran out of answers to talk about in the two minutes. It actually may have been for the better, as the silence afterwards allowed each person to process my responses in the lens of the role they were assigned for that round. However, it felt like I was talking into a screen and not having a conversation due to this exercise being held over Zoom; I wonder if I would have been able to go on longer if we were in person and I could get clear visual feedback that people were listening and interpreting the things I said. I played one non-speaker chair before being the speaker myself, and did two more roles after being the speaker for one round. After being the speaker for 2 minutes, I found that I was able to play the other chair roles much better; I wonder if being the speaker helped me understand what the next speaker was going through and allow me to sympathize and understand them better. I found the will chair to be something I had never tried before when conducting research. However, paying attention to speakers’ motivations throughout their responses made me realize that observing this aspect was crucial to being able to pick up the most heartfelt and honest parts of the speaker’s response while being able to pick out what was filler.