I've Been Thinking

I'm not really sure how to articulate nebulous thoughts, so I've been putting off this post. This last week, I spent ideating the landscape of all the different things my tool could be.

Lee gave me a really great article about interactivity called Learning About Interactivity From Physical Toys by Eva Hornecker that was really helpful. It's focusing on interactivity as it relates to HCI and interactive design, but how she discussed affordances of interaction were really relevant to my research since I have identified that my tool will be tangible, interactive, and visual.

Although I've had some incredibly productive ideation, it's difficult to summarize here. I've attached photos of the board I've been working on--don't know how good of a substitute it is:

The whole board:

Detail of Function ideations:

Detail of Interactivity thoughts:

After I got to a point where the exploration couldn't progress without the results of my cultural probe data, I asked Adrienne to take a look at it and give me her thoughts. We got on to a tangent (as all conversations in this studio are wont to do) and started to discuss the relevance of this exercise to my research. Me doing it came out of a suggestion Lee gave me in response to a visualization of Adrienne's similar type of exploration of her own research. Her research, however is intrinsically different in that she isn't using probes. I gave my basic argument for this a couple of entries ago, so I'm not going to rehash it.

Despite feeling like it is relatively insignificant for the process of my research, I do feel like I've gained some connections and understandings from this exercise that I may not have had otherwise. I've also made some decisions that bear mentioning (they're some of the notations you see in red in the images).

• The relationship type that I'm going to focus on is either "Designer to Self + Designer to Team" or just "Designer to Team." This decision will be informed on the results of my probe data. This decision also has implications on my overall research question and sub-questions (see below).
• The decision/conflict type that I'm going to focus on will be informed by the results of my probe data.
• The mediation style will probably involve all three (evaluative, facilitative, and transformational), but will be entirely dependent on the decisions made in the first two points.
• The tool will probably have stages that focus on the actions of: 1. Identifying underlying interests; 2. Creating/Using objective criteria
• The prototype sessions will be conducted by me and will be either individuals + group or just group based on the "relationship type" decision.

All that being said, the nature of the question I am answering has been slightly refined. Previously, it was "How might a tool serve in place of the traditional role of a mediator for the purpose of interest-based negotiation amongst a team of designers collaborating with a group of stakeholders?" Given the decisions I just outlined, "with a group of stakeholders" becomes just a qualifier of "team of designers" instead of being an integral part of what I am researching.

Also, given these decisions, I have begun refining the articulation of my sub-questions so they are less "flaccid." While I don't have wordsmithed sub-questions yet, I know that one or more needs to be concerned with the affordances of a tool given that the people using them are designers. In considering this, I am looking for something along the lines of:

• What about a tool used by DESIGNERS lends itself to _____ aspects of the tool?
• What affordances of the tool are specified/inherent/required/implied because the users are designers?

All in all, I've done what I can with these current explorations. I've gotten my probes back and need to set all else aside for a solid week or two to seriously analyze and synthesize the returned data. What that entails:

• Score TKI tests
• Transpose written card responses by team and question
• Scan and arrange card visualizations by team and question
• Arrange photographs by team
• Analyze all data within each team
• Analyze all data across teams by question/prompt
• See what's what and give it the business

See you in a week or two.