Cara Miller ∞ Design Thinking

“In English, the word design is both a noun and a verb (which tells one a lot about the nature of the English language). As a noun, it means—among other things ‘intention,’ ‘plan,’ ‘intent,’ ‘aim,’ ‘scheme,’ ‘plot,’ ‘motif,’ ‘basic structure,’ all these (and other meanings) being connected with ‘cunning’ and ‘deception.’ As a verb (‘to design’), meanings include ‘to concoct something,’ ‘to simulate,’ ‘to draft,’ ‘to sketch, ‘to fashion,’ ‘to have designs on something.’”
– “About the Word Design” by Vilém Flusser

Let me begin this by stating that this is just a thought. I haven’t done any heavy digging or research. I am using this blog as a way to document my thoughts and ideas for thesis.

The confidence artist is usually thought of in a negative light. I’m proposing that instead of immediately dismissing the con artist, we, as design researchers, should learn from their actions and ways of thinking.

The confidence man is known for being untrustworthy, sly, and deceitful. But he is also known for being smart, systematic, and cunning. The confidence man demonstrates similar goals as the design researcher. Both must gain the trust of the people. Design researchers call these people, “stakeholders.” Con artists call these people, “marks.” While design researchers may take hours, days, or weeks to build relationships and formulate trust with their stakeholders, con artists have mastered this skill because their actions depend on gaining trust as quickly and easily as possible, taking them mere minutes to develop trust within their mark.

What is the purpose of gaining the trust of the people? For design researchers it is to gain participation in the design project. Including the stakeholders gives meaning to the design process and the solution. For a con artist, the purpose is also to gain participation in the con. Though the outcome for the con artist is often times vastly different, (and let’s hope it stays that way), from the outcome of the design process, the mode in the beginning of the process is often the same. They are both trying to gather information about the people and context.

So how can design researchers learn from the confidence artist?

We can start by looking at the con artist through a different lense. The lense of process. Let’s stop looking at the negative aspects of a “game” and start looking at the process that makes that game successful. How do con artists read people so easily? How do they know how to build trust with each individual mark as quickly and easily as possible? How to they build empathy with their mark? How do they extract valuable information from their mark? How are these skills useful to the design researcher?

There is one HUGE difference that I cannot ignore, (there are many other differences). While the con artist seeks to hide his true identity and process, design researchers put it all on the table for the stakeholders to see and understand. Is revealing the design process to the stakeholders too early affecting their desire to be involved? One reason many con artists succeed is because they appeal to their mark’s curiosity. Are design researchers taking the element curiosity out of the process by showing everything? Or, does showing the stakeholder everything actually increase the stakeholder’s curiosity in regard to the final outcome?

I’m not suggesting that we build relationships with our stakeholders through a web of deceit. I’m simply suggesting that we analyze the process of the the con artist in order to understand how the essence of those skills are transferable to the design researcher. By being able to connect with the stakeholders more efficiently, design researchers may gather more valuable information in less time. This may not only give more meaning to the outcome and process, but also may give the design researcher more information to work with and time to find patterns and key insights.

-Cara

Today I am starting to think about missing pieces in the research that I’ve analyzed so far,  my interests, my values, my strengths, and my future goals in terms of how they can work together to formulate thesis statements or research questions. I know there is no magic formula for the perfect thesis statement, but this is just my way of taking into account all of the things that I’ve been studying/doing these past 6 weeks.

Ok, so thesis is becoming a very stressful but fun process. In order to clear my head and reflect, I’ve decided to write a post about what I’ve done so far and how I’m working toward defining my thesis.

First, I worked on defining my interests. Diverging on my interests and then defining why I am interested in each subject allowed me to see the underlying areas of interest.

Then I moved on to process. Reading case studies and other readings helped me to see how others were doing things and why they were doing things. This will help me in the future when I am planning my own process.

Now I am defining three terms. “Design research”, “Thesis”, and “Proposal”. In order to organize my thoughts and document my findings, I’ve compiled all of the information into a rough document. You can view the PDF here.

In thinking about what is next, I really think that I need to begin to define my future career goals. This will help me determine which thesis topic is most relevant to the field in which I wish to work.

This semester, I was sent out into the world to find a context that I would like to do research with.

Here we go, my first individual design research project. Time to find a place to study. I’ve narrowed it down to three based on certain criteria such as, accessibility, proximity, and my own interests.

In order to work efficiently in a team, you must first understand what everyone brings to the table. The five second year students facilitated an activity in which we gained an understanding of everyone’s skills and useful traits. In this exercise, the eight of us drew a picture slightly resembling ourselves in the middle of a large piece of paper. Everyone writes assets that they believe you posses onto post-it notes and stick them to your self-portrait.

Once all of the post-its were up, we analyzed the post-its stuck to our specific portraits. Below is my low fidelity asset map.

Once we had all of this information, each person synthesized their assets into one, computerized self-asset map. The assets were compared and placed within the bassador process wheel. Steps 1 through 8 are the steps in the design process. The four quadrants, generator, conceptualizer, optimizer and implementer each describe a certain working style. Everyone is classified as a specific working style combining two of the four quadrants. I explained this in an earlier post

This is my asset map:

Last semester, my studio class produced a rough draft of our research document including everything from the NELI project. Today in class, we ripped it apart and used pattern finding to determine the key issues and elements within the document that we should focus on while editing. Issues involving form were written on cool-colored post-it notes and issues surrounding the content of the document were written on warm-colored post-it notes. We split into three teams of either 4 or 5.

After gaining an understanding of how each group categorized their comments, we wrote each of the categories onto individual index cards. Each of the three teams wrote on a different color. We put all of the index cards on the board and, as a group of 14, categorized them again.

While we were categorizing, we made note of relationships between the categories by drawing arrows. This diagram tells us many things. Visually it tells us that all three groups identify the categories, “Layout”, “Visuals”, “Type”, and “Text” as being key elements that we should focus on editing. All of these elements are connected to the “Story” category which means that we all think that telling a story is the most important aspect of this experience. The goal of the research document is both to tell our story, and to present out research results. This tells us that through the Layout, Visuals, Type, and Text, we can tell our story and present our client with our research results.

The next step in this process is that all 9 of the first year students are going to edit a couple of pages of our research document according to our identified major issues. On Friday everyone will bring in their ideas and we will discuss the results.

I’m becoming obsessed! I love researching new ways to research. New methods are like new machines which can generate information if constructed and operated correctly. I think I am starting to be able to answer the question, “So, what are your interests?”, more accurately, specifically, and enthusiastically!

I love discovering new ways to pump people for information! :)

Here is a chart of 72 methods that I researched. I have organized them in a way where they are classified and labeled for easy decision making. For example, if I need an invasive, collaborative method for gathering data, I just have to look at the chart and pick out a method associated with the corresponding colors, (Violet, Aqua, and Red). I know I am still learning these methods and I am sure i will need to make changes to it as i learn, so If I change it I will repost an updated version. The link to the better quality PDF view is at the bottom.

PDF View

-Cara

I am Cara Miller. 

I’m a Grad student at IUPUI, Herron School of Art and Design in the Visual Communication, Design Thinking, and Design Leadership M.F.A. program. I am a teaching assistant for a undergraduate sophomore level typography class. I graduated from the University of Dayton in May 2011 with a B.F.A. in Visual Communication Design concentrated on Graphic Design. I also was a teaching assistant at U.D. for the same class. I have had almost no experience in the “real world” of design. I feel so lucky to be given this opportunity to focus on design for 2 years and learn everything I possibly can about the subject.

This is week 9 of the first semester. Mid terms have just ended and I am starting to get the hang of this. I am enrolled in two classes this semester, Collaborative Action Research Design, and Methods for Design Research. I also just finished two classes, Design Thinking and Human Factors. 

Needless to say, my first few weeks here were incredibly challenging. My lifestyle shifted from a calm, lazy Summer, to a sleep deprived, coffee-crazed Fall. I’m loving it. It is like finals week of senior year over and over again.

I am making this blog to keep track of my progress and transformation during this journey. I will post homework, talk about projects I am working on, and discuss my thoughts and feelings about certain topics. I will be constantly dissecting the world we live in and trying to make it my hypothetical version of “better.” I’ll pose scenarios, conduct experiments, utilize design research methods, and stay curious. I will strive to constantly ask questions, never assume, and always have fun.