Reflection — week 4
What’s this inquiry really about?
Damien Newman — ‘The Squiggle of Design’
My father, a principle scientist there, told me that for them the design process started with the abstract, moved to the concept and then finally the design. So I used to use these three words, back in the day, to convey the process of design to my unsuspecting clients. It wasn’t as effective — even if I knew what it meant. So I found myself saying, “Here, it looks like this…” and drawing the squiggle (Newman 2010).
It was meant to illustrate the characteristics of the process we were to embark on, making it clear to them that it might be uncertain in the beginning, but in the end we’d focus on a single point of clarity (Newman 2010).
4th week reflection
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Week 4 marks the end of phase 1 interviews with time to reflect on what I’ve collected and what it might mean. I had a midweek highlight, followed by confusion, a good snooze, a diagram and lots of questions. I’m taking this to mean I’m exactly where I should be — in the thick of the squiggle…
Key insights from the week
- Interviews with Lead Service Designers — I interviewed 2 Lead Designers last week both working in service design, one clientside and the other from a consultancy.
Each had a different take on my research question and its potential usefulness, both provided excellent insight into their discovery process, with tips on how to know when you’re doing it well, and how to know you’re where you should be.
Key tips = Go deep, choose a method that doesn’t ripple the moment you’re trying to understand, the analysis / synthesis is more important than the research, and if your insight scaffolds (or links across themes) — then that’s called ‘Unfair Advantage’. - Permission given by Montsalvat Mgt team — I had a great meeting with the Mgt team, and was provided permission to conduct the research with their involvement. We agreed a group of customers, and an approach for good value exchange for this research. I’m so happy to have the team onboard and willing to get involved in the process, despite my focus being the effectiveness of sensory walking research (for this project at least) - it’s still important to provide quality insights to make things better. Its a reciprocal exchange for permission to work in such a stimulating environment, and a place I’ve come to care about.
- Final interview with Museum Experience Designer — I met another designer with amazing experience who had worked on many international projects, with teams and businesses that sound amazing. Another raft of examples were provided for me to review — both practical projects and thinkers from within the industry who have been contributing to development of experience design within the museum industry.
- Literature review & the trail to the missing pieces of the puzzle— Having felt uncertain about my grasp on Sensory Anthropology, and how to navigate my way to it via design literature — I think I’ve found the path to understanding it, with the help of a very learned professor.
The link was explained at a high level, and several references were provided to guide my understanding of sensory walking research and its relationship service design. After an evening of contemplation about this missing piece and how it could slot in - I awoke and sketched out the diagram below. I’m going to use it as a structure to evaluate my reading and see if it really stands up.
Zen moves on meaning
The same conversation had me asking bigger questions about where and how I had arrived at this point of the inquiry and what questions was this project really putting in front of me.
I was reminded, that I am my vehicle, the reliance on tools and methods is necessary for newcomers to start making the change making process (they are used as guides to capture meaning). But the role of the designer is deeper — an agent of change, facilitating it collaboratively with people via a phenomenological process (Akama and Prendiville 2013).
As design researchers, it is our responsibility to curb our tendencies to detach methods from enactment, embedment and performance, and remind ourselves to re-stitch it back into the ‘meshwork’ of living, re-connected to the lives and contexts of people, places and time. Integrating Ingold’s perspective in service design and using phenomenology as a guidance could help us remove our blinkers and see what extends beyond, and falls in-between, the cracks (Akama and Prendiville 2013, p 39).
It also linked the conversations I’d had with the Lead Service Designers who mentioned that there was too much focus on the deliverables than the change being effected, and the difficulty this created to provide perceived value in the form of a deliverable vs creating the change with people. The process of asking more questions, has led me back to the process of change via design, and the very reason it has been appropriated by business, is also the very reason it was being appropriated by academics — for change.
So the breadcrumbs of understanding around ‘designing for change’ have been cast, and another theme has emerged. This week I intend to review literature, conduct a final synthesis on themes from phase 1 discussions and reflect on what I’ve discovered means for my practice, my process and my sensory methods. I am keen to have a framework for this thinking before I head into phase 2 — so I can Go Deep with my observations!
References:
Newman D 2010, ‘The Squiggle of Design’, image CargoCollective.com, viewed 3rd April 2017, <http://cargocollective.com/central/The-Design-Squiggle>.
Akama, Y and Prendiville, A 2013, ‘A phenomenology of co-designing services: the craft of embodying, enacting and entangling design’, in Mina Dennert (ed.) Crafting the Future: Proceedings of the 10th European Academy of Design Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, 17–19 April 2013, pp. 1–16.
