Presenting my work

The design stream took a trip to Portland to experience some "industry connections" (and of course, have a little bit of fun!). I had the opportunity to present my research at Ziba, which was a great experience of sharing work with those who do and value design research.



More photos here

And in a completely different environment, after presenting my work to those in my program today, I found these images (they actually felt inclined to engage with the activities - the notepad specifically). What can I learn from this?

The reason I do my research

Kit Connection

The kits have made it to Rwanda! My colleague, who is assisting me in the field, had a conversation with me today to clarify the process. It will be really interesting to both hear of his process as well as hear from the women via their images. It's a curious, curious place to be as a designer.

"In order to understand the meaning of dialogical practice, we have to put aside the simplistic understanding of dialogue as a mere technique. Dialogue does not represent a somewhat false path that I attempt to elaborate on and realize in the sense of involving the ingenuity of the other. On the contrary, dialogue characterizes an epistemological relationship. Thus, in this sense, dialogue is a way of knowing and should never be viewed as a mere tactic to involve students in a particular task. We have to make this point very clear. I engage in dialogue not necessarily because I like the other person. I engage in dialogue because I recognize the social and not merely the individualistic character of the process of knowing. In this sense, dialogue presents itself as an indispensable component of the process of both learning and knowing."
Paulo Freire

"Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of most of us and subtly programming us into conformity to the logic of its system. To the degree that this happens, we are also becoming submerged in a new "culture of silence"."
Donald Macedo

This book is rocking me (and giving me language to share my reasons for research). In the best possible way.

"Even at the purely semantic level, the term 'development' is difficult to replace. If you dislike it and its derivatives - 'developing', 'developed' - and try to avoid using them, nothing else quite works. To understand that development is an artificial construct and has earned much discredit does not help get rid of it. The concept has become ingrained in economic language and philanthropic endeavor. In default of some better terminological alternative, we will probably go on using the one we have. It would be helpful, however, if it was more used with greater care, and not assumed to be invariably beneficent and politically clean."

Maggie Black
The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development

(illustration of Freire by Sérgio G. Brito)

Conscientização: learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality.

"...every human being, no matter how "ignorant" or submerged in the "culture of silence" he or she may be, is capable of looking critically at the world in a dialogical encounter with others. Provided the proper tools for such encounter, the individual can gradually perceive personal and societal reality as well as the contradictions in it, become conscious of his or her own perception of that reality, and deal critically with it."

"We simply cannot go to the laborers - urban or peasant - in the banking style, to give them "knowledge" or to impose upon them the model of the "good man" contained in a program whose content we have ourselves organized. Many political and educational plans have failed because their authors designed them according to their own personal views of reality, never once taking into account (except as mere objects of their actions) the men-in-a-situation to whom their program was ostensibly directed."

"To investigate the generative theme is to investigate people's thinking about reality and people's action upon reality, which is their praxis. For precisely this reason, the methodology proposed requires that the investigators and the people (who would normally be considered objects of that investigation) should act as co-investigators. The more active an attitude men and women take in regard to their exploration of their thematics, the more they deepen their critical awareness of reality and, in spelling out those thematics, take possession of that reality."

"Revolutionary leaders commit many errors and miscalculations by not taking into account something so real as the people's view of the world: a view which explicitly and implicitly contains their concerns, their doubts, their hopes, their way of seeing the leaders, their perceptions of themselves and of the oppressors, their religious beliefs (almost always syncretic), their fatalism, their rebellious reactions. None of these can be seen separately, for in interaction all of them compose a totality."

Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed

My random thoughts on reading this book: Does design, like education or political action, have a history of "depositing" itself using the banking style Freire references?

Definitions to inform a thesis

For my studio class this semester, I have to come up with at least 10 definitions of words that are appropriate to my research (to help those who are viewing it gain a better understanding). Here's my list so far:

A general note of introduction:
An overarching reality of my work is that I am looking at it through the lens of limited (or no technology) and have had to work as a communication designer who lacks a shared language (as experienced in Rwanda). These are a few words that cover concepts I am considering in the work that step beyond the more obvious areas of technology and language.

1. Human-centered design (IDEO)
https://client.ideo.com/hcdtoolkit/
“Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a process and a set of techniques used to create new solutions for the world. When we say solutions, we mean products, services, environments, organizations, and modes of interaction.
The reason this process is called “human-centered” is because it starts with the people we are designing for. The starting point of the HCD process is to examine the needs, dreams, and behaviors of the people we want to affect with our solutions. We seek to listen to and understand what they want. We call this the Desirability lens. It is the lens through which we view the world through the entire design process.”
User-centred graphic design

2. Design for social impact
“Design as a tool to address such global social issues as poverty, health, water, economic empowerment, environmental activism, and the need for basic services. Design for social impact seeks to incite transformational change in underserved, underrepresented, and disadvantaged communities.”
http://www.ideo.com/thinking/focus/social-impact/
https://client.ideo.com/socialimpact/

3. Co-creation/Co-design
“Co-creation is the practice of product or service development that is collaboratively executed by developers and stakeholders together. Co-creation could be seen as creating great work by standing together with those for whom the project is intended.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-Creation

Liz Sanders is someone who employs and writes about this methodology.
http://maketools.com/
CK Prahalad (Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid) popularized this term in the business arena.

“In co-design there is an understanding that all human artifacts are designed and with a purpose. In co-design one tries to include those perspectives that are related to the design in the process. It is generally recognized that the quality of design increases if the stakeholder’s interests are considered in the design process. Co-design is a development of systems thinking, which according to C. West Churchman ‘begins when first you view the world through the eyes of another’.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-Design

4. Cultural Probes
ACM Article
“The probes were part of a strategy of pursuing experimental design in a responsive way. They address a common dilemma in developing projects for unfamiliar groups. Understanding the local cultures was necessary so that our designs wouldn’t seem irrelevant or arrogant, but we didn’t want the groups to constrain our designs unduly by focusing on needs or desires they already understood. We wanted to lead a discussion with the groups toward unexpected ideas, but we didn’t want to dominate it.” (Gaver 22)
Probe Pack

5. Public sphere
“The public sphere is an area in social life where people can get together and freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. It is a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment. The public sphere can be seen as a theater in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk and "a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed… The study of the public sphere centers on the idea of participatory democracy, and how public opinion becomes political action.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sphere
Example of an application of this:
http://www.publicsphereproject.org/

6. Collective creativity
“Collective creativity occurs when bisociation is shared by two or more people.
We are beginning to see that collective creativity can be very powerful and can lead to more culturally relevant results than individual creativity does. This is what happens with really good collaboration based on teamwork.”
http://www.maketools.com/pdfs/CollectiveCreativity_Sanders_01.pdf

7. Bricolage
“A French term for improvisation or a piece of makeshift handiwork. It is sometimes applied to artistic works in a sense similar to collage; an assemblage improvised from materials ready to hand, or the practice of transforming ‘found’ materials by incorporating them in a new work.”
http://www.answers.com/bricolage

(This plays out in my work that is investigating materials that are sourced in Rwanda as well as the need to shift away from high technologies to low to no technology access)

8. Critical design
“Critical design, popularized by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, uses designed artifacts as an embodied critique or commentary on consumer culture. Both the designed artifact (and subsequent use) and the process of designing such an artifact causes reflection on existing values, mores, and practices in a culture.
A critical design will often challenge its audience's preconceptions and expectations thereby provoking new ways of thinking about the object, its use, and the surrounding environment.”
Examples:
http://www.fabrica.it/
http://www.fabrica.it/projects/colors-magazine
Dunne and Raby are notable figures in the field of critical design
http://www.dunneandraby.co.uk/content/home

9. Design for the periphery, the other 90%, or the majority, base of the pyramid*
There are various words that could be used to describe those who live in abject poverty. These are a few I have found most often used in identifying the group I am seeking to work with and understand better:

Periphery: “The term refers to countries which have a marginal role in the world economy, and are thus dependent on societies in a ‘core area’ producing materials for trading relationships.”

“…the four billion people who live on less than $2 per day, typically in developing countries. The phrase “bottom of the pyramid” is used in particular by people developing new models of doing business that deliberately target that demographic, often using new technology.”

http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/
http://www.d-rev.org/
5 Ds of BoP Marketing
http://www.barefootcollege.org/index.htm

*While these words are in no way ideal or finite, they are common terms used in various spheres who are seeking to assist those who have limited access to health care, clean water, education and other basic needs. Rwanda specifically has some objectives that even exceed these in the pillars of its Vision 2020 objectives.



10. Sustainable development
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:
-the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
-the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs."
(from the Brundtland Report, 1987)

“The word “sustainable,” however, conceals as much as it reveals. Hidden beneath the rhetoric are assumptions about growth, technology, democracy, public participation, and human values.”
(David Orr in Ecological Literacy)

11. Persuasive Design
While typically used to discuss people’s relationships with technology (capatology), my interpretation of this word gets slighted adjusted when technology isn’t actually available. How can a lo-tech product or activity persuade a new behaviour?
http://peace.stanford.edu/
http://captology.stanford.edu/

12. Narrative Inquiry
“Narrative inquiry is the process of gathering information for the purpose of research through storytelling.”
http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/research/observe/com3a2.cfm

13. Appropriate Technology
“Appropriate technology (AT) is technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social and economical aspects of the community it is intended for. With these goals in mind, AT typically requires fewer resources, is easier to maintain, has a lower overall cost and less of an impact on the environment compared to industrialized practices.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology

14. Democratization of knowledge
“…can be used to describe the rather recent advancement in the way knowledge is constructed, most notably influenced by the internet… Democracy is "Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole...," applied to the concept of knowledge, implies a body of public knowledge that can be manipulated by the people, not necessarily experts.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratization_of_knowledge

In Design Research Now, Beat Schneider references this idea as a important field of activity in the future of design: “ Visual design plays a vital role in the democratization of knowledge. Designers are therefore urgently called upon to help make orientation in information networks transparent…What significance should be attached to visual knowledge (alongside traditional knowledge imparted via spoken language)? What role can it play in the acquisition of knowledge and in fostering communication between holders of knowledge?” (page 209)

This applies in my research when I consider issues of good governance as a designer who has worked in the developing world where communication at the best of times is problematic (never mind issues of demographic or language).

15. Transformation design
Applies broader design thinking to new contexts. Builds on design skills to address social and economic issues. Uses the design process as a means to enable a wide range of disciplines and stakeholders, an approach that places the individual at the heart of new solutions and builds the capacity to innovate into organizations and institutions. Often doesn’t look or feel like design in the traditional sense. Doesn’t fit with the paradigm of master designer.
http://www.designcouncil.info/mt/RED/transformationdesign/

On making a milestone

The visual guidebook: This essentially shows how to use the kit with images only (minor text was added for the title and the final two pictures that suggest what the user can keep and what I'm asking them to return).


I can hardly believe it. The kits are done, packed up and will be picked up by FedEx tomorrow (to be taken to a team of people who are heading to Rwanda on Monday).
I am both elated and a tad freaked out (letting your labours go without being able to follow their process is a strange feeling, to say the least).

Now I wait (and focus on my writing!). What will become of all this? Hmmm.

Translated

The translations are done! The kits are ready!
All I need to do is take my ideas for the instruction manual and photograph that process to create a non-textual guide. Countdown to courier: T minus 4 days. Zoinks.

The Boy with the Incredible Brain

Tomfoolery. But what if it happened?

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
This is The Onion at its best. And while it's all gimmick, I wonder if on some level, this could ever be predictive of a future where symbols spoke more than words? For all of you who hated (or still hate) typing...

The iteration known as Nearly Complete

It started here.
It moved through various stages to get to this.
And now you have the "nearly complete" kit ready to go.

Things I still need to get on:
1. Not happy with the way it hangs when sitting around the waist. Think some sort of attachment detail to hold the bag properly when filled might be in order. It may simply be that the back loops are not stitched in the right place. Harumph.
2. Translations are being worked on. This will affect the layout of the designed camera casing among other items inside. Finalizing these will be next week's focus.

Things that are getting sorted (thankfully):
There is a team heading to Rwanda sometime in January, which means I may have a very affordable way to get them there (and possibly back!). Hooray!

Communicating through sketching

This clip comes from a longer piece. I appreciated the way this illustrator used his sketching as a means of communicating with people when language was not shared. And a book to help you travel isn't a bad idea!

Field Kits

I spent my Christmas holiday learning how to sew again. Thanks to my mom and her new machine, we were able to produce my ideas into a workable prototype. The bag is made of a wool blanket and is secured on the inside by a button and loop. The top flap has a cardboard insert to act as a drawing board while in the field. The other side of the bag holds what you need it to: pencil crayons, pencils, cameras and notepaper.

I still need to create the belt for the back loops (as the women might have to carry children, I opted to create a kit that would go around the waist). But I have that concept sorted - just need to do the work of stitching them up. Ironically, at the end of all this thinking, some may end up carrying it on their heads (since I witnessed people doing this with backpacks).

So you want a website?

I'm amazed at how often I'm asked for help to make a website. This idea that a website will do the trick every time sort of gets under my skin. Don't get me wrong, I see the value of having internet presence. But it's only as good as a) the information you've got to share and b) the number of people who will actually take time to read it. And it requires an internet connection (obviously). In my ongoing work on ideas for the developing world/periphery where the access isn't always reliable or available, I have come to appreciate the value of other notions of technology that might be more helpful. And the value of thinking beyond a website when you are trying to get the word out.

This piece from GOOD Magazine's Transparency section is one more reminder of this.

Someone else's interpretation

Someone took the time to read through all my blog posts and summarize my thesis project and ideas. I am delighted with what surfaced. Thanks, Helen!

"Your thesis/project supports a number of Rwanda’s 2020 development goals and the MDGs by supporting a group of rural women to develop weaving skills that will help them generate income. One major additional benefit of this weaving enterprise is that it uses for raw material the invasive water hyacinth plant. This plant is degrading the environment on which people in the Bugasera region, where the weaving cooperative is located, depend for basic survival.

The situation for the weavers at present is that, although a number of organizations have helped them to learn weaving skills, start a studio, and a business cooperative—COVAGA, the women are still in the early stages of weaving skill and design development; consequently, their production is limited in quantity, variety and quality.

The women need further support to (?)
(I inserted: Build a suitable factory, design and create their own products, an understanding of quality and market needs, business planning)

Kara, when you got acquainted with the women, you were becoming aware of how so many development “solutions” are imposed on the “beneficiaries”. Often, little, if any, effort is made to consult the beneficiaries about what they need and want, what their ideas are about how their lives might be improved.

You also discovered that language was a significant barrier. Even when words alone might not be a barrier, there’s the language of culture that cannot necessarily be transmitted through words, especially the words of a foreign language and a foreign culture.

So, Kara, as a person who’s interested in how images convey values and persuade, you want to create the means, “a cultural probe,” in the form of a kit, which the women weavers can carry with them as they go about their lives, to enable then to convey their aspirations for COVAGA via media consisting not of words but, rather, drawings, photos, found objects, and (more?). These things, you believe, will give fuller expression to what words can only partially express about what the women see, feel and think."

Currently, I'm researching materials to make my bag for the field kit. I have started by looking at the blankets often used by NGO's in humanitarian aid. From what I can gather, this material seems to be accessible in many countries thereby making it possible for the kits to be made in the respective country of research. Next step is to find the appropriate strapping material for the handles.

While the focus of my research isn't on the bag itself, I am pleasantly surprised by the process I've had to go through in thinking through the functionality of these probes in a rural situation. Gaver's examples used a Ziploc bag as a simple inexpensive way to give the probe to his participants. In my case, this isn't really an option (especially since plastic bags are technically banned in Rwanda!) How will they carry it? How will they write or draw if they are not sitting at a table (which isn't a guarantee)? I am most interested in the visual outcomes but without the infrastructure to acquire these, I would likely be wasting my time. It is as though the bag has as much to say about this research as the contents that will go into it. I can imagine something extra emerging just by engaging the process of making and sending them out.

Still to go:
1) Finalize probe activities
2) Translation where necessary
3) Sew bags

Carry this, please?

In developing the probes for my lovely women in rural Rwanda, I've been thinking about the ease and practicality of how they will engage these exercises that are asking them to document their needs, desires and wants via image, texture and color. And I got to thinking that maybe having this "kit" in the form of a carrying case might be:

a) more useful and
b) a bit more practical.

Since they might be attending to the farm or weaving at the shop, my typical assumptions of how they complete these activities seems to require a different approach. So here's a very rough prototype of my thoughts about how I could make a simple case for this. Once the activities are complete, they can keep the pencils and "purse" for something in the future?

Think fabric, think the size of a Moleskine, and think reusable. Or so I hope.
Thoughts? Ideas? Feedback?



Inspirations came from:

Prototype

I am working on getting a cultural probe (Gaver) developed to send out into "the field". This probe is meant to use creative activities to see how people process the information. I'm curious to know if this concept could be developed into something that helps the periphery in areas of governance. To me, the idea of governance relates to Ideo's work on Design for Social Impact.

Enzio Manzini references the ideas of 'governance toolkits' in a wonderful book, Design Research Now . Beat Schneider is also quoted:

"With the trend towards a globalised, standardised cultural mishmash, people have an ever-greater need to communicate their own regional cultural identity (for example) to others. What part can visual communication play in this process? How can international communication between different cultures be structured in a way that primarily employs images rather than words? And how does non-paternalistic visual imagery in local development work look at the level of development cooperation?"

My only wish right now is that I could fund myself back to Rwanda to be in the field working on this. I'm giving these probes (Lord willing) to those who work in the development arena to see what comes of their process. My hope is that by asking the people they work with about their needs, desires and beliefs that they might find creative communities that already have some good ideas about their own futures. And I'm seeking to do all this where language is not shared so the notions of image, texture, shape and color become new forms of language investigation for me.



(These all have to be translated. While I'd love to get away from language in all forms, it simply isn't possible. Thankfully, I have support!)

Big Question

Ideo has always been a hit with me. Love what they do, how they do it and then some. And I love their widget. What's your big question? I'm still working mine out but apparently I can look ahead in time to find out if someone else already wrote it. Phew.

( ) space: Legal Size

Last night, the grad program hosted an opening event at the new ( ) space at the 1612 West 3rd Studios. The exhibition put us all on the same page. Literally.

We were invited to use a legal sized piece of paper to make something that represented where we were at in our research. I opted to create a piece of origami, interactive in nature, to show how I am investigating communication when you don't have a shared language (as a designer who has trusted this more in her previous work).

Origami, as a pattern language, is interesting to me in as much as demonstrates how art and math can work together to create objects both functional and beautiful. My last post identifies the ways that health and science are benefiting from the principles of this ancient art form. I learned how to make this piece without a manual or words. I watched videos or looked at the fold patterns as a means to consider how I can learn something without text.


Kara shows Rok her interactive piece, Without Words. Photos courtesy of Defne.

The art and science of Origami

I have been completely taken with all things origami recently. I'm not good at it like Lang, but I am keen on how this is being referenced as a language. I respect and am interested in the connections between art and science that are discussed in this TED talk. I am blown away that these items can be made with one uncut piece of paper.

Even more fodder.

Peripheral Participants

These are the ideas I'm after.

When I think of how the periphery have the potential to contribute to the whole (specifically in the context of those who face challenges in the developing world), I start to consider how this model could be translated back in Rwanda.

Because it speaks of good governance. The fact that citizenship is developed "by the people for the people" is recognizable. I realize we live with incredible freedoms to do so, but if this idea could be shared with a rural town in Rwanda, would the same potentials be realized? I get a bit of hope inside thinking about the "what if's".

The tools I'm trying to figure out in the process of this are being considered and evaluated through a lens that isn't my "home town"(like this Vermont case), which adds some complexity to my process. Language, beliefs, needs and values are relevant in this research (for them and me). In my case, I want to consider how a cultural probe (Gaver) might illuminate ways to bring a community on the other side of the globe into their own change (without assuming I know what that change should look like). Because many initiatives are developed without consulting the people who will be affected by them, I like what this town in Vermont is suggesting by including their peripheral actors. And perhaps by understanding deeper needs, future innovations can be approached without messing with what already works.

By the people, for the people.

Notes on a Conversation

Contradictions

This work fascinates me.
I think it highlights the tensions I am interested in. How can design really address the needs of those on the periphery when my idea of technology isn't available? Not all progress is good progress, in my estimation. I don't claim to know the hierarchy of "good progress". But I do know, from watching and immersing myself in the various communities I've engaged with both here and abroad, that some of the best ideas aren't always the best for everyone.
How to know what is best? My research is attempting to ask questions of the individuals who don't always have people around them to help them find their best answer.

"The idealization connected with these experiences provokes a small-but-important detach of the perception of reality and what i want to do by writing the names of anything connected with the 2.0 life we are living in the slums of the third world is to point out the gap between the reality we still live in and the ephemeral world of technologies." --Filippo Minellis
Wooster Collective Article

Design Research

Firstly, ‘research for design’ refers to ‘R & D’ or background research undertaken that is directed towards a particular design project: such as testing the performance of a glaze by an industrial designer or user testing the clarity of a brochure designed by a graphic designer. ‘Research into (or about) design’ includes the various accounts of design phenomena usually done by other disciplines – such as a sociological, historical or economic account of design – which are straightforward dissertations since they can adhere to the conventions of their respective disciplines. Finally, the most contentious but potentially ground–breaking possibility is ‘research through (or by) design’ where a degree may be awarded for a project and is often labelled ‘practice-based’ or ‘practice-led’ research (Frayling 1993/1994, Findelli 2000[1999], Newbury 1996).

This has provided great inspiration in the directions design research can take. I'm most keen on the last idea.

[There] is still a widely held assumption that though sociologists may study and analyse visual representation, the resultant analysis itself is separate from the visual domain: the verbal analyses the visual...But...the distinction between social analysis and visual representation is becoming less clear-cut...social analysis is beginning to make more use of visual representation, and indeed should make more use of visual depictions, unconventional typography and page layout in its analysis. (Elizabeth Chaplin)

Chaplin asserts that visual representations contribute to the social argument in themselves, capable of ‘[telling] us a good deal we did not already know about a particular society.

(Excerpts taken from Helen Box's PhD thesis on design)