After finishing this week, I took some time to reflect on the methods I used and what I felt I learned throughout the week. This reflection is essential to gain a better understanding of my design space and goals in the future.
When involving myself in my research, I was forced to realize that I am in a place of privilege. It forced me to position myself in relation to others. I was able to spend a little bit more and do this by how others would face this challenge. Solutions in this field need to function for everyone you are trying to help. This week also gave me a sense of freedom that I could just go out and experience what I wanted to know more about. It was a new perspective on design and research.
Also, using myself as an instrument allowed me to throw myself into the deep end and discover new areas of friction within my design space. Small things like stickers on fruit were things I hadn’t even considered before and by doing the experiment for 24 hours I was able to get a better understanding of various problems. I also felt that I got to feel my personal feelings and relate myself better to my project. While designing and using myself, I got a better understanding of my interests but also remembered that there are also others you must keep in mind.
Furthermore, I feel that throughout this week I shifted in the way I worked. I started to think less about the goal of the research and more about feeling and imagining life without much waste. By attuning myself to my feelings I was able to focus on what inconveniences I felt and take note of these. These irritations right now only relate to me but could perhaps also impact others. Furthermore, I gained a better understanding of my norms and values. For my design practice it made me question why we always start with a brief and then research. Why can’t we first immerse ourselves and then go from there? This is something I would love to learn more about in the future.
I feel that I will use this method of design in the future to gain a fresh perspective on any field that I end up in. I like that this could be used to align myself with the project and see challenges that people face or will face. Next to this, I liked what Angela said about using this technique to help yourself move through blocks. In my past in design sometimes I felt lost or had a lack of new perspective, using this then would have been helpful. I think it would open my mind to new possibilities so am excited to use it in that new way. Also finding a way to use this method to embed myself into a community. Instead of designing from a place/community for another, forcing myself to go there and experiencing what the people experience and using that input to then better design for people.
I would say it has opened me to some new possibilities for collaboration but also helped me to realize that some connections I worked with already are also still in the same area. For example, Minnie who used food energy and waste energy and comparing that was new for me as I had never seen it like that before and working with her would allow me to gain new insights in my design space. Next to this. Jorge who explored learning in real time through VR. I’m interested in how this could be used to create a better sense of knowledge for people and how this would work in VR/AR. I feel that collaboration would be interesting to also see how this could change people’s perspectives and how people could easily experience new things. Finally, Oliver, who I have worked with on 2 projects and feel that he has an interesting perspective on circularity and new techs that can be used to reach this.
All in all, this week has taught me that you can take a first-person perspective in design to gain a deeper understanding of what you are interested in. This does come with biases and subjectivity; however, this can be used to position yourself in the field. In relation to MDEF, the project I will be working on is also supposed to relate to the future I want to live in so using this method will be helpful in the future.
