My Everest

I give up.

It's taken me a long time to admit it, but I've struggled on for far too long now.

About nine months ago, after a couple of months of commuting through to Edinburgh from Dundee, I decided it would be a good opportunity to get some reading done. I have about an hour in the morning and another hour in the evening every Monday to Friday, and so I thought I could use the time productively.

I'm usually more likely to watch a film or TV programme than read if I have some spare time. Although it is a completely different media, I can watch some films over and over. It’s a lean-back media where I can immerse myself in the story or reflect on the cinematography. When it comes to reading I tend to leave it for when I'm on holiday, as it can take me ages to read a book. However, I thought the concentrated time would compel me to focus more.

Spending my time reading on the train also tied in to another idea I had a while back, which was to read as many ‘modern classics’ as I could. I was happy to be selective enough, as I know I prefer certain styles and genres. I also included a few novels that possibly aren’t referred to as 'classics' by everyone, but I knew they were still well revered.

Over the last couple of years I have read:

• The Catcher in the Rye
• The Great Gatsby
• Lord of the Flies
• American Psycho
• Trainspotting
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• The Road
• The Beach
• Nineteen Eighty-Four

Looking at that list, with the exception of 'The Catcher in the Rye', you can see the influence of films, so I thought I should try and begin leaning more towards books without film adaptations*. This brings me back to my opening statement, and my latest reading material, Catch-22.

I have come to hate this book. Hate is a strong word, but I have been toiling with this book for the last six months or so. At first I thought that I was possibly too tired, and I was only able to manage a chapter or two at a time. I’m sure there are many people who would shake their head at me, and give me a look of disbelief. I’m sure there are many people who love this book, and see me as some form of blasphemist for my aversion to their masterpiece.

In six months I have managed a grand total of 135 pages. It has felt like nothing but hard work. I’ve found it so confusing, with a new character appearing every couple of pages and the writing style tying my brain in knots. Perhaps I missed the point. Maybe it is all meant to reflect the madness and absurdity of the environment and the story, but it does nothing but frustrate me further. I’ve not enjoyed it, and with that is my confession; I give up.

One day I may pick it up again, but I doubt it.

My Everest

*Catch-22 does have a 1970 film adaptation, but I had never come across it until writing this post.

Long overdue update

As the title suggests it has been rather a long time since I last updated this blog. I will try to quickly summarise what I've been up to, and hopefully this will instigate more regular postings.

So, I have now begun my career in user research at One to One Insight in London. I'm doing customer experience research and learning more and more every day. London life is hectic but enjoyable and definitely gets a bit more sun than Scotland in the summer!

From now on I will attempt to more frequently document my thoughts and observations on people, design and technology. I am also now the owner of a twitter account, and so may use it to give brief updates.

Research Proposal Presentation

Today we presented our research project proposal, as if pitching for funding from the Research Councils UK for their proposed research programme on "Connected Communities".

As a team were very happy with our proposal, and I think this aided us in the presentation. All four of us believed in and had confidence in our concept, and were comfortable with pitching the idea. I hope that we managed to sell the idea as well as we could. We have all been thinking about the project for a while now, and so the most important factor will be if we have managed to succeed in communicating our thoughts to other people.

In conclusion, after this project I feel that I have a much better sense of how I would go about planning a proposal for a research project in a real situation. At the start of this module it's fair to say that I wouldn't have a clue how to even begin thinking about costing a 3 year research project, however now I hope I could get somewhere close.

In a general sense I hope I can take some of what I have learned and I apply it in my own work. As Tom said, it is the theory behind what we have learned that we will be able to apply. It doesn't matter what the subject matter of the project is, but it is the design methods and approaches that we have learned that will be applicable across many realms.

K.N.I.T.

Our group has finally come up with the name for our project proposal. It is Kommunity Networking for Information Transfer, or the acronym KNIT, and the tag-line is "weaving the community together". It arose from a discussion about how to incorporate all of our ideas, and we felt it encompassed our concept as a whole quite well.

As it is an important factor of how we would brand and advertise the project Grace has also worked on a logo, which encapsulates the concept quite well. We have done some work on branding previously but I feel in this particular project the branding of it would be quite significant. If the project was not branded correctly then it would be very difficult to get support from local people and businesses. It would have to be able to cross a wide range of stakeholders and incorporate both new and old associations with Dundee.

Dundee Waterfront

Yesterday Annabella and I went to Tayside House to find out about the Dundee Waterfront redevelopment. We thought that it might be interesting to look at in regards to the DIR project as their vision has some similarities to ours. Their vision is "to transform, energise and connect the city to the waterfront, threading the city and water together to create a special sense of place". We were lucky enough to meet with Les Banks from the Planning and Transportation Department, who shared a great deal of information on the project, and explained the whole process and the wider factors that effect it's progress. He also talked us through the recent 3D animation, and explained the reasoning behind many of the new waterfront's features.

I found the meeting really useful, particularly for the DIR project but also in regards to my own interests in urban design. It was surprising to see the large amount of factors and considerations that have to be consulted when undertaking a project as large as this - traffic counts, local business losses during Christmas, local residents opinions on the greenery and the strengthening of the rail tunnel were just a few of the things mentioned.

Fibrecity

Our group met to discuss our DIR project, where we talked about the title for our project, as we felt it may help us to tie it all together. We were considering how to relate the project to Dundee, as we thought that the general population may not actually relate to the Art/Design and University based culture in the city, and would identify Dundee with the past associations such as Jute, Jam and Journalism. We thought it may also be useful to look into the language used in promoting the idea, as it would be important to look into the mindset of the people that we would hope to involve.

We found out that Dundee is to be Scotland's first Fibrecity. We really liked the term, and thought about ways to incorporate the idea of "weaving" the old and new images of Dundee to connect the people of the city together to form the "fabric" of the city.

The concept of Fibrecity also brought us onto a discussion of the digital divide, and how something like this which proposes the connect the community better to the outside world may inadvertently cause some people to become more detached.

Networking

In DIR this week we discussed how to establish credibility. Tom suggested to give "seeds" to people by allowing them to find out about you from more than one direction. I think this is could be difficult to accomplish. I suppose it might mean just giving yourself every opportunity to be seen, and then hoping that word of mouth will play its part. It may also mean being strategic in choosing the right people to speak to. It all goes back to selling yourself, which means making sure anything which represents you, does so as you wish it to.

In relation to the project Tom said it was important to actually sell our idea in the presentation, as they are more likely to be convinced to back the project if we believe in it ourselves.

The Price Is Right

On Tuesday morning our DIR group had a meeting with Tom to discuss our idea in a bit more depth. One of the key words he mentioned was legacy. This was in terms of what we wanted the outcomes of our research to lead to i.e. what it would mean for the community in the long run, or what it could mean for other communities.

It seems that for this project he is really wanting us to work out the mechanics of conducting a research project, and really consider how much time things take and what the costs of various tasks may be. My first reaction is that I'm not great at doing this, and I agreed with Brandi in that I was always pretty terrible when playing along to The Price Is Right. Attempting to guess the price of things often requires a bit of knowledge on the matter, so I suppose doing research into the area will help this.

Nice to see you, to see you... nice

Hopefully I'll be better suited to help out in other areas of the proposal. However we were also encouraged to find out for ourselves how much it would cost for different tasks, for instance enquiring how much it would cost to include a documentary filmmaker in the process. As Tom put it at the end "it's not rocket science" as these things can all be worked out.

Creative collaboration in the community

Our group in the DIR module have been shaping our research proposal. We had originally been looking at the idea of a neighbourhood swap shop, where communities would share and trade skills etc.

Yesterday the idea altered slightly, we are still looking at engaging a community in collaboration however I think it is now more concerned with creativity, and looking at ways to rejuvenate a community through social networks.

I think we are all a happier with this angle, the passion was somewhat down on last week for the skill swapping idea, plus we felt it would be difficult to find an innovative approach as there are already quite a few examples along the same lines.

From doing a bit of research into this new idea, and combined with the general research I've been doing for my 3rd semester project I'm beginning to find some research fields that I'm really interested in. I think it could be really valuable to use design thinking in contexts such as urban/community planning, and also utilise the methods available to involve the people of that community within the process.

I think through community participation and inclusion people can really get a sense of ownership of a space, and this has great potential for expansion into a variety of contexts.

Butterfly Minded

This week in DIR we critiqued the list of research proposals we had come up with by putting them through a framework. The point Tom made about the sheets being a form of knowledge management was useful. As he said, a mind map can be a good way of brainstorming, but is less useful at recording the ideas. A week later the data might not still make sense. Even if filling in the sheets can be tedious at times.

Our group went through the sheets and seemed to gravitate towards the community swap shop idea. Although some of the other ideas that might be just as good are rejected, Tom said that these can be put away in a box of "future projects". This could be useful for me as I often find that during a project I come across other really interesting subjects, and I have to refrain from going off on a tangent. Catriona described this likely trait in ethnographers as being "butterfly minded". I suppose it's my habitually curious nature that led me to study design ethnography in the first place.

I'm still not sure if it's a strength or weakness yet. I like the fact that I am inquisitive and try to learn about everything, and when researching a subject I look around for all the connections and related material. However sometimes I feel it might prevent me from understanding a specific subject in any depth, and at other times it will lead me away from the route I should be following.

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.

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. 

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! 

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.

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.

Case Studies: Design Against Crime

Yesterday in the Designing Innovative Research module we were initially given a lecture by Mike Press and Lisa Cresswell, who is a research assistant on the Safer Spaces project. It was on the Design Against Crime project, which I have heard about previously on more than one occasion, so I was a little worried that it might be going over old ground. However I was pleased to discover that the emphasis of the lecture was on the process of conducting a research project.

Mike described how the whole project had evolved over the last decade, and gave examples of how they often had to adapt for various situations. He also illustrated a series of "tips" for research, some of the ones which resonated with me I have listed below:

• Say "yes we can" even if you think you can't
• Build tactical and strategical alliances
• Finish a report with "clearly more research is necessary" 

(I particularly liked this statement, Mike referred to it in the context of gaining further funding and more work. However I feel this will often be the statement required after a research study, as it's more than likely that you will not find all the right answers after conducting an investigation and will undoubtedly need to look further. I suppose in ethnographic research this will often be an issue, as there is always something else interesting to look at. It will be a matter of establishing what the designer is looking for and the boundaries of exploration).

• Work with the best people and give them their heads
• Innovate your methods
• Go for targeted audiences
• Keep evolving your research focus
• Interdisciplinary teams work best
• Versatility and adaptability is required.

One of the key principles from the talk, which was referenced in a few of the "tips", was this idea of choosing the right team, and having space to adapt. I am a firm believer in the concept of interdisciplinary teams, and I am always keen to see what different perspectives people from different backgrounds can bring to a team.

Mike also remarked on the subject of knowledge transfer, specifically in relation to the conversations between academics and the MI5 for the Design Against Crime project. Again it reiterated the need to be able to find a common language when communicating with people out-with your own domain.

Lisa made an interesting point in regards to the interview she had for her research assistant position. She said don't tell them people what you "do", but instead convey the skills you have such as communication, facilitation and critical thinking, which can be applied in a variety of contexts. 

We were also given talks from Jamie Henderson from the Innovation Portal and Ken Edwards from the Enterprise Gym. I do try and find the relevance in every lecture we have, and see how I can apply it to my own practice. I did struggle to engage with the content of these two talks, however I do see how they could be useful if I did want to set up a business on my own, and they did make me think about the fact that there is often a business model behind research and it is something to consider at all times.

Being Human

Yesterday afternoon we met with Richard Harper, a senior researcher at Microsoft, as well as attending the public lecture he gave in the evening titled Changing Humans. 

It was interesting to hear him talk about understanding how people think, and how this can be aided by developing an understanding of how you think yourself. He related this to the conversations between designers and non designers, and said that it can involve creating a common ground together.

I liked the point he made when describing communication as a human act, as in some environments it can be interpreted as an exchange of data, with humans seen as machines. However he also stressed that neither of these are necessarily wrong, but are simply a different viewpoint.

I thought about this a bit more while we were discussing reflection, and reflective writing with Jonathan Baldwin in the first session of the Designing Innovative Research module. When describing the action of making a cup of tea or brushing your teeth most people will go through the process in a systematic way. We were encouraged to question why you do certain things in order to evaluated and reflect on the action i.e. why do you have a cup of tea? I though back to what Richard Harper had said and realised that often when people make a cup of tea or coffee, they are not doing it because they are thirsty and need a drink, but it is like a performance. They do it to take a break, gain comfort, or even to make a social gesture. People don't go for coffee to drink coffee; they go to have a chat.

I think I would like to relate this to my ideas for my 3rd semester project, and particularly the social interaction aspect of design.