Brief 4, for end of 1st term

As I outlined on the sketch of the programme of this term, see one of the posts below, you need to complete by the end of this term:

• a research question
• a 200 word abstract
• a mindmap or drawing of the thesis topic
• a 1000 word literature review
• a 1000 word people research report
  

For the literature review, you can review not only books but also magazines, articles, films, photos, buildings, parks, etcetera. The complete list of your inspirations can feed into your 'literature review'. You will have to make choices though because you have only a thousand words. Basically this writing should give an overview of the field to which you want to make a contribution. The overview must offer a description and also your perspective on the field. Make sure the reader always knows though when you give a description, and when you give your perspective. Journalists mix the two up often, researcher must not. Use endnotes or footnotes and add a bibliography (these are not part of the 1000 words), using the Harvard referencing system.

For the people research report you need to have done your discovery research with the people you design for. In the report you write who you worked with and the method(s) you used, but most attention must be given to the results: your insights. The insights are built on your deep understanding of what matters to the people you design for. Conclude with a section on the opportunities for design that you see after doing this research.
I advise you all to rewrite your people research plans, because it will help you a lot to get this done. But it is no formal requirement and you don't need to hand it in with me. I'm happy to take a look though if you want me to.

The deadline for all five requirements is Monday 8 December 6pm. Counting back from the deadline I suggest you use the firt two weeks of November to prepare and find participants, the 3rd and 4th week to talk to people or engage with them otherwise, and the remaining two weeks to write the report.
Put all deliverables on your blog. You can link to the literature review and people research report if you want to make them available as a downloadable file rather than putting them up as a post. You can use for instance getdropbox.com for putting files online for free, past the link to the file in your blog if you prefer this.

I see you all at the end of term. Good luck and enjoy!

Interview workshop

On 3 November we had a day of discussing the proposals everyone made to involve the people they design for in their design research. One method almost all will use is interviewing people. In a workshop on the same day, we explored how these interviewed can be semi-structured conversations rather than an interrogation. With conversations I mean that interviewee and interviewer both contribute ideas, as opposed to the interviewer only absorbing stories and not adding to the conversation. This is another example of the design researcher not being neutral and aiming to remain invisible, but instead bringing her/his ideas into the exchanges with the people s/he designs for.
Below are some photos of how we worked with the stories told in the conversations. We made notes of little pieces of paper that we could sort to discover themes. These themes were then the starting point for creating insights, deep understanding of people's practices and motivations. These insights were consequently the starting point for generating ideas, which you see in the lower picture, as sketches.






Sketching is actually a nice way of working through this process. Adaptive Path have perfected this approach as a recent workshop they organised at the EPIC2008 conference demonstrated. You might find some approaches there that could be useful in your design research.

Brief 3, for Mid Terms

For the midterms you already have my hand drawn diagramme. Everything inside the number 1 is what you need to deliver for the midterms, on your blog, on Friday 24 Oct latest.

Choose one topic, your design and thesis topic for this year.
Please make a new post called "Midterms submission" to make sure we as mentors find your materials and send me the link to this post via email.

You need to deliver:
- your research question
- your abstract (200 words, not more)
- a mindmap or drawing of your topic
- a bibliography (see below)
- a people research plan (see below)

Bibliography:
A list of your inspirations: images, books, texts, films, objects, etcetera.
No need yet to use any formal way to make this list, but if you like you can use this guideline:
http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm
Please include separate images in the post itself, for the rest of your inspirations create a separate document, make a pdf of it and attach it to the blogpost

The People Research Plan must contain:
Your research question.
The experts you want to involve in your design research, names if you have specific people in mind or describe their expertise if you don't.
A description of the people you design for and how you want to involve them in your design research.
Research methods you want to use plus a motivation of your choice, both for discovery research and evaluative research.
A planning, aimed at finishing your research report for discovery research before the end of this term and evaluative research by mid term end of the second term.
All together on no more than 2 A4 please, one is even better!

Good luck with the work, enjoy!

Design Research Methods workshop

The second, half day workshop focused on getting an overview of the methods designers use to do research. These can be categorized (loosely) in several ways, and different questions require different methods. We explored a method developed by designers Bill Gaver and Anthony Dunne almost 10 years ago at the Royal College of Art: Cultural Probes. Below are some pictures of the workshop and some links to documentation about design research methods.

Brief 2

Re-iterate on your three topics. Now, in addition to the output asked for in the first brief, also add a drawing or mindmap to each of them.

Drawing workshop

The first skills workshop introduced drawing as a way of thinking about your thesis and design topic. In total some 50 drawings and mindmaps were made during the day. Students drew their own topic first. Then they had to tell a story about their topic to a fellow student who made a drawing while listening. Together, we discussed different approaches to and techniques for drawing ideas and topics. Some examples are below, you will find more on the student blogs.

Brief 1

Develop three different topics you would like to investigate during your final year

For each topic, give:
- Your research question (yes, this must be a real question, one sentence with a ? at the end)
- A 50 word description of your topic (not more please!)
- Three inspirations (a text, a newspaper article, a quote, a book, a photo, a drawing, a film, a service or product.. combine different types please)

Take different approaches to each topic: for instance one you think is fairly easy to achieve, one that would be really difficult and one that is in between. Make sure that all topics fit yourself personally really well.

I would like all of you to start a blog on the internet to put this stuff and also future documentation and assignments for your final year project. You can do this for instance at blogger.com, ask each other for help. If you get in trouble with the blog put it all in a document and mail it to me (bas@stby.eu). Deadline Wed 24 Sep 1am.

Bring the inspirations also to the workshop on 25 September. We start at 10am sharp and will use your responses to this brief to make mindmaps and drawings of your final year topics.