Project sketching

This week in DIR we have been working on our project platforms, and mapping out some project sketches for possible ideas. 

On Tuesday Tom Inns had given an overview of the research study journey. Similarly to others he mentioned the need to know the network around, and what else is going on in your field. I feel this is really relevant to what we are doing in design ethnography as we are currently trying to build up a network in relation to our projects. I'm trying to include a variety of sources including people that I may use as contacts, various literature materials, companies that I have looked and what they are doing that relates. I'm hoping to map out the connections between them all as well, so I'm playing around with a few ideas about how to do this at the moment.

The project in DIR revolves around the theme of Connected Communities, and we have come up with a few ideas for a research proposal. I think the section that I am most interested in is how to engage the community itself within the process. I'm keen to look into methods such as participatory design and workshops which use the community to help generate ideas and give them a sense of ownership in regards to the final outcome.

Kitchen Stories

I watched Kitchen Stories last night, a subtly humorous Swedish film that plays on the idea of observational research being done by a impartial scientist. Although slightly surreal, the film actually made me think about some interesting points. There was a scene where the observer and subject are in a discussion about their situation where one of them says "How can you understand someone else just by watching them? You need to communicate..." which made me think a bit about selecting when it is right to observe, and when you need to speak to people to find out required information. Another similar point it illustrates is that it is almost impossible to impartially observe people, as just you being there will have an effect on their actions in some way.

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces

Found this short clip from William H. Whyte's "The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces". It's has some really interesting observations of human behaviour, but sadly this is the only clip available. Chris said that the book of the same title is definitely worth a read as well.

Case Studies: Nesta

Yesterday we received talks from Brian Carlin on his Resqroll, and Mel Woods on her company ambaba. They had both received assistance from Nesta, however I noticed that they both seemed more appreciative of the networking and exposure they received in comparison to the actual funding, although I'm pretty sure they appreciated the cash as well as they had both sacrificed their own money for their relative ideas. I thought about the stress which must be involved when you have to keep supporting your ideas with your own money. I always feel sorry for the people in Dragon's Den who have poured their life savings, various bank loans and borrowings into their product, which they believe in relentlessly, only for it to get shot down by Duncan Bannatyne.

Whilst Brian was talking I though about the notion of myself being an entrepreneur. I suppose wherever I am I will have to either sell myself, bringing back the question of trust, or sell my ideas. It's about convincing everyone else what I will already be convinced about, as Brian had had to do with the Resqroll. 

Going back to the point about networking, another thing which I picked up whilst Brian was talking was the importance of being selective with who you get to back you. If you need to convince someone about something, then there's nothing better than getting an expert to put weight behind your argument. Although I kept thinking through Brian's talk that it must be pretty difficult to argue with something which saves lives! 

The last thing I took from both of them was the fact that you have to find the motivation to keep you going. For Brian it was the fact that he knew his product could make a difference, and meeting people in the spinal fractures unit would put him back on track if he wavered. 

A day in the life of a mobile phone

Over the last week or so we have been working on a mini project where we have had to develop an account of a day in the life of a mobile phone. As I would be away for a large proportion of the project I really had to manage the project to a fairly strict time schedule.

I decided to attempt a cultural probe, where I gave two participants a notebook and pen and asked them to record their mobile phone usage. I also conducted some observations, primarily in pubic spaces. I also set the research aims, although on reflection I maybe didn't specify these well enough and they could have been more precise.

Once I had collected all the data I used a grounded theory approach to analyse the data, where I went through the information and picked out various concepts. I then grouped these into categories, which I gave titles, and then based my ideas on them. 

For my poster I presented the outcomes through the following narrative account from the perspective of a phone. It was interesting to try and write this way, as usually I would illustrate it through a different means, and I'm not too sure how successful it is. 

This morning I started the day with my alarm. My owner silenced me several times before getting up. I’ve been on all night incase someone wants to get in contact. The first thing my owner does is send a text message to their partner to say good morning. Later they look at my clock and realise how late they are for work. Quickly they put me into my pouch to protect me, and then into their bag for the journey. Once on the train they take me out and check through the messages. They realise they haven't replied to a friend and send an apology. They agree to meet later this evening. They then plug in some earphones and listen to my music for the rest of the journey. At the 11am meeting at work they realise they forgot to put me on silent. Slight embarrassment as their mum phones and the ringtone is loud. During the meeting they text their mum to say they will phone back later. At lunchtime they show a work colleague one of the photos in my albums. It will probably never be seen again. They phone their mum and realise the call was about a trivial matter. They don't reply to the message from their partner, they are annoyed about something. I sit in their bag the rest of the afternoon, they are unaware of the messages I receive. I will let them know the next time they pick me up. It's time to leave work and my owner looks at me and realises the missed correspondences. They get back in touch with them all on the train ride home. I spend the rest of the evening in their pocket. They go out to meet friends. They use me at various times to find out where other people are. On the walk home they check their pocket to make sure I'm there. The alleyway is dark and they're glad I'm there in case anything happens. I do know a taxi number but they don't use it tonight. Back at home they phone their partner. They're no longer annoyed. They say goodnight, and I go back on charge.

Case Studies: Scottish Arts Council

This afternoon we discussed how we were reflecting in our journals. It was suggested that we try writing about today in the form of writing a letter to someone, so here goes...

Dear blog, today we listened to both Sara Keith and Sarah Kettley talk about getting funding, mainly for research. They appeared to me to be from similar backgrounds i.e. art and craft. The first thing that struck me was that I don't think I consider design to be a craft for some reason. I've always associated craft more with "making things", which makes me thing of a person who uses their creativity and skill to produce something by hand. I suppose because I've not thought too deeply about going to do further research and so I've not really thought about where I would go if I did need funding. I suppose for my interests I would look in to more computing, design, and now anthropological/sociological areas, however more and more I am seeing projects that come from all sorts of areas that use "design thinking" to solve problems.

I think the most interesting ideas that I took from these two talks were the idea of building trust with people, which Hazel highlighted, and professionalism. These two notions also go hand in hand, and as I seek a career in industry it will be important to be both professional and able to build trust with a variety of people. I see building trust as important with everyone I will deal with, from the people I will work alongside to the people that may be part of a study.

Another thing I thought about, when Sarah Kettley was talking about research questions, was the importance of defining these. This year in my 3rd semester project it will be crucial to make sure these are well shaped, but also adaptable as the project may alter over time.

I (heart) public space

After a discussion with Catriona today I feel a bit happier about the direction for my 3rd semester project. For a while it seemed to be moving towards an exploratory kind of research project, where I would open up a range of questions or issues. As we agreed I am a more problem solving oriented person, and so need a project which relates to this. We discussed the possibility of observing how crowds of people behave in somewhere like a train station and so the project summary would be something like:

"Provide train station designers with insights into how to design a station concourse" and these insights would be formed from the observations etc. from my research.

I had a little browse for ideas this evening and came across The Design Trust for Public Space, who are trying to improve the design of New York's public spaces i.e. streets, plazas, parks and buildings by working with a variety of people. Some of their stuff is really cool and they seem to appreciate the likes of sustainability, innovation and generally making the world a better place.

The project that resonated with me the most was Problems and Possibilities: Re-imagining the Pedestrian Environment in Times Square. The report illustrates the problems, some insights and ideas, and some solutions. It's the sort of project I could see myself working on, where I would be working with a variety of people from different communities and looking to solve problems and issues through design thinking.

Their blog, I (heart) Public Space, has even more information and other ideas around the theme of public space. And what's more they love a bit of ping pong! 

Interactions in the Urban Environment

I'm still researching into interactions in the urban environment for my project in the Summer. I read The street as platform by Dan Hill at City of Sound.

I really liked the narrative account he portrayed to describe the "data cloud" that has become invisible to us as we go about our daily lives.

"We can’t see how the street is immersed in a twitching, pulsing cloud of data. This is over and above the well-established electromagnetic radiation, crackles of static, radio waves conveying radio and television broadcasts in digital and analogue forms, police voice traffic. This is a new kind of data, collective and individual, aggregated and discrete, open and closed, constantly logging impossibly detailed patterns of behaviour. The behaviour of the street.

Such data emerges from the feet of three friends, grimly jogging past, whose Nike+ shoes track the frequency and duration of every step, comparing against pre-set targets for each individual runner. This is cross-referenced with playlist data emerging from their three iPods. Similar performance data is being captured in the engine control systems of a stationary BMW waiting at a traffic light, beaming information back to the BMW service centre associated with the car’s owner."

It was a fascinating read, and reminded me of some science fiction writing, like Snow Crash, which I read a couple of years ago in relation to an undergrad project on the future of interactive entertainment. However, as Dan states, this is not fictional and the technology described is either already in place, or could be used for the concepts illustrated. 

It is interesting how he mentions that systems will be rarely used if they are not adequate or suitable for the user's needs:

"An on-street information kiosk stands beside the screen, offering a scrollable map of the local area and directory of local businesses. It’s little-used, as the directory of businesses was always incomplete and intermittently updated, its data now rusty and eroded by time."

RCA Design Interactions: Tribal Futures project

Whilst reading the Putting People First blog this afternoon I saw this post, which led me to the Matt Jones' blog, Magical Nihilsm. Here he described his involvement in the "Tribal Futures" project with the RCA's Design Interactions course, in collaboration with Vodaphone's user experience group. 

The brief they were set asked them to:

“…focus in on the mundane and the extremes of our behaviour in groups and propose design interventions to support, subvert and celebrate our tribal connections. We encourage you to extrapolate the current trends in mobile, social and other technologies in terms of their failures as well as successes, and examine what technologies intended and unintended consequences might be.”

I was pleased to see that an ex classmate of mine, Alison, got a mention. Her Waltz of the Orange Men described the flows of movement she observed whilst following the council's recycling removal men. It was really interesting to see the insights she found from observing their work, including their reliance on each other to work effectively.

Waltz of the Orange Men from Design Interactions

I think this has given me some inspiration of where to go next with my project. I know I need to focus in on an area, but it is encouraging to see the insights that can come from something that appears mundane at first. I'm not sure if I want to focus in on group behaviour in public space, or this idea of individuals and disconnectedness. 

Focus, focus, focus

At the moment all I can think of is words...

urban, space, design, society, people, city, sound, media, social, interaction, art, environment, globalisation, culture, architecture, existence, mobile, connections, communication, place, community, technology, context, flow, simplicity, complexity...

I'm struggling to find the focus for my project, everything I look at interests me and sends me off in another direction. I know I need to narrow down, otherwise I will be going round this loop forever. I feel like I need to grab hold of one bit of inspiration. I found this image here from Robin Howie, which I feel captures some of what I'm thinking about. A Dialogue with Public Space "transforms the public landscape into a conversation."

Via Picacool

Any ideas or suggestions from anyone on how to find focus on the project would be much appreciated. I'm sure I'll get there, I just hope that it's soon.

Case Studies: CIRCA

Yesterday we received a lecture from Norman Alm, who had been involved with the CIRCA project. The project consisted of the development of an interactive device, which could promote communication between carers and family members with elderly people with dementia.

The first insight was that they had chosen the project from a strategic perspective. They were aware of the ageing population, and increase in the number of elderly peoplein society, and so considered developing a project that dealt with computing and the elderly. I feel this would have given them leverage in their proposal as, as he mentioned, there's a lot of competition. If you can present something that covers new ground, it will catch people's attention, and give them reason to be interested.

I think Norman is the first speaker we have had that has mentioned the negative side of multidisciplinary teams. Apart from the usual reference to language barriers, he simply said that "you can't work with people you don't like". This is true, it can be difficult to work productively with someone you don't get on with. I've had other experiences in the past, and it doesn't have to be in a project environment, where I've not worked well with someone. It doesn't necessarily mean that you don't get on with them either, you might just not "click". Inevitably you will work better with someone that you are friends with, but I feel it is important to be able to work with people you are not as comfortable with as well. It's fairly likely that I'll have to work with a variety of people in the future, and not everyone is going to get on all the time, but as long as people are clear on the end goal, then surely it is a matter of finding a way of getting past any differences. I liked what he said about seeing team members "as a person, rather than a representation of their discipline" as people will always come from different backgrounds and have different motivations.

Another point that I will need to incorporate in projects is this concept of convincing people. This could be as Norman described by knowing the field e.g. the background and competitors, or by being able to argue the case. It seems that as ethnographers we will often have to convince people of our validity, and this will only be accomplished through knowing the area and being able to back ourselves up with evidence.

Lastly I thought a bit further about ideas for my 3rd semester project whilst Norman was talking. When he described how the people were communicating through the device rather than face to face, I thought about how this could be incorporated into insights for communication design. The areas I covered with joint attention last year could also be relevant, and the notion of collaboration in space as well. This is still a bit vague in my mind at them moment, but I was seeing images of people looking at screens in stations etc.

In the afternoon we also had a session with Kirsty Miller on CVs. I found this quite informative in the end, and realised the need to design it for the specific audience. I'm probably guilty myself of having a CV which is fairly general, although I haven't had much experience in applying for a "real" job. I think the point she made about researching the employer was useful, and although I've considered this in the past, I think that it is important to get a sense of how they work, and if the place you are going to is actually somewhere that you would want to work. It also gave me more ideas for creating a website for myself, as I think I want to document the projects I have done at Uni better, as most of them at the moment are hidden away in folders.

Public Space

After doing a bit of initial research into how people might communicate in public space I decided to look a bit further into concepts of space. Something which came up in the discussions was how people interact and move through certain spaces. I stumbled upon this video of a scramble intersection via Picocool, which I love. It's the sort of thing I can just sit and watch, and observe the flux of people's movement. 

I also got talking to my Dad about the area of my project, and as he works as an architect he had some really useful points and has recommended some things for me to look at. He talked about his own desire to design for spaces. Rather than worry about how a building looks on the outside, he wants to create spaces that are meaningful and useful for people. He talked about visiting the Neue Wache in Berlin, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and how people behaved when they entered the room with the Käthe Kollwitz sculpture. He said that people didn't just walk straight in and head towards the centre, but would move slowly and quietly around the edge by the walls.

Mother with her Dead Son, sculpture in the Neue Wache

Exploratory Design Research

Recently I have thinking about the nature of my 3rd semester project, and I now seem to be coming to a better understanding of what it is I will be studying. Initially I had skirted around mobile interaction and considered looking into future applications etc. After recent discussions, it seems that I will more likely be dealing with how people communicate in public space, and then seeing how this could inform/inspire design solutions.

I see this as a exploratory design research study, as I will be going out and looking at a situation and then analysing it with the hope of finding design insights.

We also discussed today the difference between our aims and our objectives. In the specific research study the aims and the objectives are very important. I consider the aim to be what I want to get of the project and the objectives as what I should be trying to deliver. I feel this is something which needs to be considered at the start of any research project, and will be how success is measured on completion.