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This week I read about downshifting in regards to meaning of life, and regaining the essence of leisure. I spoke about the readings with my parents, who talked about the protestant work ethic, a term I hadn't heard before. The protestant work ethic is the view that a person's duty and responsibility is to achieve success through hard work. This is different from how, say, the French and Spanish work. They work fewer hours, and spend more time socialising (e.g. over longer dinner times). Perhaps it would be worthwhile if I looked for texts on leisure by Spanish and French authors to see how their views compare with the views of the authors of the texts I've been reading. Mum also talked about the arts and crafts movement which focused on economic and social reform and was opposed to industrial manufacturing. This would be worth investigating.
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1-on-1 session with Emma. We talked about the secondary research I've been doing and discussed some ideas for my daily diary cultural probe. I told Emma about the case study of applying the Slow Design principles into the design of a mass produced consumer product in Slow Design for Meaningful Interactions (Grosse-Hering et al.). She suggested I try find more case studies. In terms of the principles themselves, Emma said that ritual was probably very important in my project, and I could investigate the rituals of daily life - getting ready, making coffee, tea. I could therefore say my product area is, for example, 'drinking', and link it to the particular activity of making tea. It might be worthwhile to investigate cultural traditions. I am designing an experience for the user, and the product is a catalyst for that experience.

For my daily diary, Emma suggested that I delineate the day in some way (e.g. splitting it into 5 boxes) because the participant is more inclined to fill in boxes rather than an empty page. Delineating the day with times might not be the best, but mid-morning, noon, early-afternoon, late-afternoon, evening etc. could be better. Looking at a particular activity rather than a place would help for looking into people's rituals. I'd be looking for preparation and experience. I could ask the participant to do the diary 2 or 3 times: 1 weekday and 2 weekend days would allow me to contrast weekday rituals to weekend-day rituals.

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One of my ideas for the cultural probe is a day-in-your-life diary that allows participants to convey details about their daily life. Participants may be requested to document each time they engage in a particular behaviour, encounter a product or situation, or have a specific type of interaction. I showed some of my test diaries to Daniel to get some feedback. He preferred the one that was split into 3-hourly blocks to the one that had no designated time allocation. He said that with 3-hourly blocks he could fill in the activities in bulk after three hours, rather than remembering to fill in each activity straight after it happened. He also pointed out that asking uni students, for example, to test the diary might not work because they lead quite different lives to my target users.
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1 on 1 session with Emma before report part one is due on Friday. We talked mainly about primary research methods because I wasn't too worried about the report. I should:
  • document all primary research iteration, tests, and include in my final report
  • for finding participants I could look online at Facebook groups, bloggers, maybe approach admins on sites and ask if I/they can post to their site stating that I'm looking for participants
  • research a few (3?) activities in my primary research. With 5 participants in each activity, that would be 15 participants. Hopefully I'll manage to get more than that though
  • the pages in the cultural probe that need to be unfolded should have arrows or something telling the participant to unfold them
  • maybe include a completed activity diary in the cultural probe as an example (but obviously use a related activity, not the one I'm actually researching)
  • if I wanted to get participants to think aloud while sorting their photos of their products along a semantic differential scale, I could just do it for a selection of participants (i.e. local)
  • the breakup letter could start 'It's over?' or be a 'we've had a fight' letter instead of being a direct breakup letter, because breakup is quite extreme and users might have bad experiences with products but not necessarily want to 'break up' with the product
  • the 'map of my life' could start 'Sketch it' or 'Make it' because 'Draw it' might make people nervous about their drawing skills
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I spoke with Emma about my topic. She suggested that I research people who are designing to change materialistic lifestyles, such as the Slow Fashion movement, Rosanna Orlandi and Guiltless Plastic and Marie Kondo.
We realised that my topic could either look into materials (through alternatives to plastic, waste etc.) or into lifestyles (small living, downshifting, co-housing etc.). I'm more interested in investigating people's lifestyles and how becoming less materialistic can make people happier. Slow Design is worth investigating...
I spoke with Lyn about my topic. He suggested that my project could be designing for people who are already interested in alternative lifestyles, or designing for people who aren't at all interested in alternative lifestyles. The outcome would be quite different for each option. He also suggested I look into Slow Design, the evidence of this thinking (tiny houses etc.), and why people are designing and living this way.
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Presented two elevator pitches to the class:
'I want to design a product or system that encourages consumers to develop methods of living with fewer possessions, and teaches consumers about avoiding waste and dealing with a finite world.'
'I want to explore the use of biodegradable alternatives to plastic, and design a product from a biodegradable material that challenges our dependence on plastic, and offers a more sustainable alternative.'
Lyn suggested to combine aspects of the two pitches together, to focus the project. Matt said I should "design a neon 'Don't Buy Me' table sign".
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  • Plain white glazing for the bowl is good because it won't go out of fashion as fast as patterns, bubble glazing or colours
  • White won't show inconsistencies in porcelain like clear would
  • Could sand the glaze off the bottom when dry instead of using wax, which might be more accurate
  • I should move the rivets in the scraper to the edge to frame the blade
  • I could make a jig to cut slot for blade (bandsaw or vice with thin blade) or CNC in two parts and mill out the slot (which would be the same process as lame)
  • Finish the wood with something natural like beeswax
  • Smell of beeswax will evoke emotions, memories, and honey goes well with bread
  • I should take the white container filled with starter to the fabrics store, try to find a colour linen that goes with all my materials, maybe between oatmeal and light blue to make the white of the bowl really crisp
  • Could use marino if I can't find the right colour linen because it has similar properties to linen
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I tested the 'hashtag' part of my cultural probe on 7 classmates. The probe asked participants "what are the 5 hashtags that define 'conscious living'?" Right off the bat Hannah asked whether she could look at Instagram to find relevant hashtags. I said that was fine, because in the real probe I wouldn't be there to tell people what not to do. But I suppose I could introduce limitations to the probe when I first give it to participants. However, I want the probe to be quite open to allow people to contemplate the questions in any way they feel fit.

Two of the 7 participants only had 4 hashtags. I don't know whether this is a problem, because again I want the participant to be able to respond to the probe in their own time and space. I'll need to talk with Emma about this. I wasn't able to read some of the responses. I think if I know two or three of the responses I should be able to work out what the others say with some forensic linguistic analysis.

Rik edited the instructions to the probe, removing the 'the' that comes before '5 hashtags'. He said that the 'the' made him feel like there could be wrong answers. I also noticed that some of the answers were quite design-related, highlighting the fact that I need a wider sample to include a better variation of people, cultures, lifestyles etc. I should also talk with Emma about going about finding that sample and reaching out to potential participants.