Fractal Nature of Design Research (Part 2)

In my previous article, I had proposed a table of 16 possible modes of research in a Design Thinking project.

In this article, I will share the ‘fractal’ flow of our research from a live voluntary project that Aloke, Devanshi and I are working on. We are studying the dynamics of Covid-19’s spread in densely populated urban areas- chawls and slums of Mumbai. In typical Design Thinking ethos, we hace framed our challenge as:

“How might we empower slum and chawl dwellers to prevent/minimise the spread of coronavirus in their localities?”

We are merely ten days into our research, and we have already jumped in and out of six of the sixteen boxes in the table. Let me a share our flow of research so far with brief descriptions of our activity and outcome in each box.

Box number 3: Qualitative and exploratory secondary research in problem space

Activity: Extensive google search with search phrases like ‘covid related challenges in urban slums’, ‘key challenges with pandemic spread in urban slums’, ‘spread of diseases in densely populated areas’ ‘innovative healthcare solutions for urban slums’. Ok yes, box no 11 has crept in here 😉

Outcome: Multiple urban planners, architects, and policy makers seem to be aligned on an idea: for any successful intervention in urban slums, solutions must bubble up from the bottom and for that local informal leadership must be encouraged and supported. So, what do we do? Drop the rather obvious threads running in our head (sanitization solutions, customized videos and posters for better information)

Next box, number 1: Qualitative and exploratory primary research in problem space

Activity: We reached out to our friends from Save The Children India who work extensively in slums of Turbhe, and a friend whose parents live in a chawl in Parel. Our broad questions: how are they dealing with covid spread in their community, what are they key challenges?

Outcome: Turns out, quite as the experts from our secondary research were pointing out, clusters which are doing well have strong volunteer leaders (we internally nicknamed them Jaggu dada, reference to Jacky Shroff wasn’t intentional, though it could actually be quite fair!). Key challenge is coordination among govt officials, NGO workers, and Jaggu dada’s. For ex: an NGO worker remarked “it would be so helpful if we knew clearly who (in the community) needs what when and where”. One Jaggu dada (whose chawl has created a remarkable local system of governance, ensuring zero cases of covid, and adequate service and comfort for kids and elderly) wondered how he could share the lessons and tips from his chawl with other Jaggu dada’s!

Next box, number 2: Qualitative and confirmatory primary research in problem space

Activity: To ensure that ‘coordination and shared visualization’ among the govt, NGO and local stakeholders was indeed the right problem to solve, we crafted a few other problem hypotheses and put each on one ‘vardaan’ card (blessing card) and asked people on the ground ‘if god could grant you only of these vardaans, which one would you choose?’

Outcome: Well, our chosen problem did get confirmed as the dearest problem to solve. Even more interestingly, it got refined and nuanced to “communities are figuring interesting and effective ideas at a hyper local level- how do we enable a) other communities and b) NGOs and govt officials, to learn from and build on these ideas”

Next box, number 4: Qualitative and confirmatory secondary research in problem space

With an exciting problem statement at hand, we were tempted to jump to box 11 and start exploring possible solutions. Before that, however, we wanted to be sure that this is a meaningful problem to solve.

Activity: Back to internet search, but this time with Google’s more evolved cousin- Google Scholar. With simple search phrases like ‘top challenges in citizen participation’, ‘challenges in participatory healthcare’, and ‘challenges in scaling grassroot innovation’.

Outcome: Research paper after research paper pointing out the lack of systematic documentation and sharing of grassroot innovations as a critical challenge.

Example 1: Challenges of citizen participation in regional health authorities

Example 2: Open Government Initiatives: Challenges of Citizen Participation

Tip: Here is a beautiful source for accessing world class research papers: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/

Next box, number 11: ‘Qualitative and exploratory secondary research in solution space’

Activity: Once again, Google it up! And google down, google left, google right, google round the corners. What I mean is- get creative with your search phrases. I started with the basics like ‘platforms to manage grassroot innovation’, and gradually moved to ‘open source technologies for covid related innovation’.

Outcome: Among others, this fantastic compilation of pro-bono services for covid related digital solutions, voila! https://youteam.io/volunteer-developers

Next box, number 9: Qualitative and exploratory primary research in solution space

Activity: Primary research with experts. I reached out to folks who, I had a lurking feeling, would have some directions to offer- Nikhil Mahen and Rahul Shah

Outcome: We learned about some pearls in the ecosystem we can pick inspirations from or tie up with: https://www.karexpert.com/dhs/asha-workers/ and https://haqdarshak.com/gov-res for starters

This is where we are currently at. We hope to move start testing some (raw, stitched together) prototypes with target users, which may further take us to box number 10 and 12 to confirm our solutions, or who knows we may come treading back to explore more solutions in box 11 or box 9, or even further back to box number 2, 6, 4, or 8 to confirm or nuance our understanding of the problem itself. And the fractal continues!

Meanwhile, if you have any ideas or suggestions on the above project, or time/resources to volunteer, please leave a comment below or write to me at kunal@tinkerlabs.in