Lizzie Wa Design

To do this week:

• Research methods and Process
• How am I going to do my project?
• Update my project outline
• Crazy 8 ‘s activity 
• Create presentation slides 

Research Methods and Process

I want my project to be very focused on people, their experiences and how they will interact with the outcome. Because of this I think an iterative process will be very important. I will need to think, create, talk, reflect then start the process again. 

I read up around Schon’s ideas of ‘Reflection in Action’ (Ferreira 2022) as I think the method could fit well with my project, so once I begin designing, I will try to constantly reflect on what I am creating, as well as using ‘Reflection on Action’ to evaluate on my progress frequently and make changes accordingly.

I want to be playful in my design process as much as possible as I believe that designing in a playful way is more likely to help me create a playful outcome. 

Definitions

While updating my project plan I decided to add in some definitions to ensure I was clear about what I meant about certain terms and so I could help others to understand my question more clearly. 

Definitions: 

Post-pandemic world – Although the pandemic is still going on and many people continue to be affected by it, the UK government have lifted all restrictions related to the pandemic and requested that we try to live with Covid (Chao-Fong et al. 2022). Therefore I am using this term to describe the experience of people living in the UK, as they start returning to ways of life more similar to pre-COVID19 times. 

Connection – When discussing connection, I am referring to feeling linked to another person. This can vary from someone that you would smile at as you pass by to a close friend or family member. Feeling connected to others in this situation refers to feeling recognised and involved with other people. 

Play – I use the term play to cover any fun, purposeless activity undertaken purely for enjoyment,  remnant of what a child would choose to do in any particular situation. 

How am I going to do my project?

I am unsure how to get started with my project and what plan to make so I started by writing down all the things I think I need to do within my project. 

• I need to speak to people to understand how connected to others they feel and how the pandemic may have changed that for them. 
• I also want to find out how they feel about the idea of talking to strangers and playing as an adult. I think I need to identify what barriers they feel are in place currently to stop them from doing these things. 

• There is still also a lot of research that I need to do around the areas of connection and play. Most of this will take place at the start of my project but I foresee a constant stream of additional research taking place as I work my way through. 

• I need to explore play as an activity in a range of forms to work out how best to use it within my project. When is play fun and relaxing and when does it feel like it’s going too far? How much restriction and rules are needed to create the right balance of freedom and comfort? Within this I may also like to organise some group activities to get others to play and also note down how it makes them feel. 

• I also need to start coming up with potential outcomes that my project could create. I want to use playful ideation techniques during this time and create a lot of potential ideas. As I am dealing with play and childlike thinking I need to try and be bold in this section and give all my ideas a chance. 

• Once I have decided on a few potential ideas that could work, I plan to create prototypes to try out my ideas so I can test how they work and then adapt and update them when given feedback. I want to work with others during this phase to ensure I get a variety of opinions. 

• With my final idea I would ideally like to get people to test it out and feedback on their experiences. 

• I will create a written submission detailing my research and findings. 

• I will create a visual identity surrounding my project, which will probably include a logo, branding and a campaign to bring it to life. 

The things I plan to do within this project seem to have naturally organised themselves into the order that I should do them. The smaller steps are harder to plan for at this point in my project, but I think these will work as milestones to hit throughout the project. 

From this work I updated my project outline/ action plan 

Crazy 8’s

I felt as if I am not in a very creative mindset currently and this may be down to the fact that I have not been creating anything so far within my project. I decided to try and spark some creativity by doing a quick crazy 8’s session. I wrote my project question at the top of my paper to keep me focussed and quickly scribbled down some potential ideas of what could answer my question.

I don’t know if any of them will be worth pursuing but it felt good to create something and has made me feel inspired to do more creating within my research and planning phase to keep me feeling creative and motivated. 

Presentation

I made some notes about what to include within my presentation next week and what i will talk about. I then used these notes to start creating some slides. 

Where my idea came from initially

• Upsetting and difficult things happening in the world
• Focus on something positive and happy
• I wanted my project to be fun to make and fun for others to see
• Background and interest in mental health so also an angle of boosting wellbeing 
• Previous project, drawn to idea of play – wanted to explore it further 

My research and idea development 

• From initial research i found out about play and connection
• And plays power to help us heal from traumatic events 
• After pandemic and isolation it seemed relevant. 
• Many people felt disconnected during the pandemic and still do now due to missing out on potential opportunities to make connections, working from home, anxiety about the pandemic etc. 
• We are also living through a very uncertain time, when social rules , such as handshakes masks etc, are disrupted and uncertain. 
• Looking into connection – found about casual or weak connections (interactions with strangers, colleagues, person you buy coffee from etc.) and importance of them
• They boost wellbeing, make you feel like you belong, widen your influences from your close friends who often have similar beliefs and experiences to you.
• They also offer the possibility for new and deeper friendships to grow. 
• These are the connections the pandemic has affected most so the ones i decided to focus on 

My project question, aims objectives 

• From this research i decided to look at how i can use play as a tool to help people boost their casual connections with others
• Talking to strangers is something most people think sounds awful – but research shows that we normally enjoy it more than we think. 
• Play is also something that as adults we often feel like we’ve forgotten how to do. 
• Therefore I plan to design a situation that balances the freedom of letting people play and interact, with enough structure and support that they don’t feel too uncomfortable to engage with it.
• I aim TO:
• To encourage local people to interact with my outcome alongside people outside of their close circle of friends and family.
• To create constraints around the situation to help people feel comfortable and initiate connection
• To allow strangers to find a sense of common ground with each other. 
• To create a fun and stress free environment for interactions to take place. 
• The purpose of this project is to reduce feelings of loneliness, isolation and anxiety around social interaction in adults. To help improve their lives in a small way and bring them some fun and happiness.To help people to rediscover the chance connections that were reduced due to the pandemic to boost their wellbeing in the wake of the pandemic. 

How i plan to action the project 

• To make my project a reality, I plan to interview people about their feelings of connection and how the pandemic has affected this. 
• I also want to find out how they feel about the idea of talking to strangers and playing as an adult.
• I plan to explore play myself and hopefully get others to explore it as well as tell me how it made them feel, so I can work out what play makes people feel comfortable and connected and what doesn’t. 
• I will then come up with as many ideas as I can, ask for feedback and input from others and prototype the ideas people are drawn to. 
• These prototypes will then be tested by people to see how they perform and make people feel. 

When designing my slides I wanted to keep them simple and professional looking, but also ensure they were bright and fun to reflect the ethos of my project. I chose to use the colour yellow throughout as it is said that yellow makes people feel happy and positive. 

Questions for my survey

I started thinking about what i will ask people in a survey to gain some extra insight into my question.

• How connected with others do you feel in general?
• During the pandemic, did this change?
• Since the easing of lockdown restrictions, how connected do you feel with others? 
• Do you prefer to connect with others online, in person or a mixture of both? 
• Would you like to feel more connected with others? 
• Is being connected to other people important to you? 
• How do you feel about the idea of talking to strangers? 
• What worries would you have (if any) about talking to people you don’t know? 
• Do you have any ideas about what would make you feel more comfortable talking to peopl you dont know?