Learning in Progress by Ph Chen

LEARNING LOG

learning in progress

Chen, Pei-Hsin

contents RESEARCH - Desk Research - Site Research - Social Research - Action Research - Overall Reflection

ANALYSIS - Usage of Mapping - Storyborad - Looking for pattern - Overall Reflection

COLLABORATION - Sharing Ideas - Communicate or Negotiate? - Time Management, Progress Management - Productive Working

EXPERIMENTATION - What to Experiment with?

SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE

The overall aim of design research is to develop an accessible, robust body of knowledge that enhances or understanding of design process, applications, methods and contexs. Often, this knowledge helps to define best practice and workable methods in dealing with design and design-related problems. It therefore has considerable potential for improving our use and management of design. - Cooper and Press, 2007

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R E S E A R C H

What do I think of Research? It's about exploring knowledge of a specific scope and collect the information. The knowledge includes history, society, culture, philosophy and nature. Either to have a general knowledge or an in-depth information. It's another way to have an initial idea of project and inspiration as well. Automatically, some criteria will be built to filter the resources in this progress. Such as, what kind of information I would like to share with people? What do clients need? Why they need?

DESK RESEARCH Desk research is to have an essential knowledge of project. Sometimes we start desk research before site research but sometimes it's opposite. It depends on how I familiar with the site and the type of the project. For instance, In Human Animal Machine, I started desk research after site observation. After site observation, I had an essential cognition of the project and the site and had some questions as well. Thus, the purpose of desk research at this stage was to answer my queries, and to look for more relative information. In Nice project, we had no choice to do desk research in advance before we went to Nice. It's interesting that we bore the information and imagination from internet, books and so on, going to Nice and started feeling the imagination demolishing gradually while we experienced the place in person. The experience was so real that I realize I need to have enough wisdom to recognize the authenticity of information I found. VISITING MUSEUM It’s a quick way to have a completed historical or specialized knowledge. In Human Animal Machine project, visiting Canal Museum was really helpful at research stage. Canal Museum has a completed content of history of London's canal and waterways. We not only had a general knowledge of the importance of canal and waterways in London but also found some other different schemes which are related to the water system. For example, Canal museum also displayed the usage of the waterways in the past. That was where we found about the lives of lock keeper, and this visiting also inspired us that without the collaboration among the workers, horses, knot tying, the canal couldn't work. Case Study Case study involves decision making and occasionally, it means desperate struggle . In order to find a proper case study, knowing the direction of design is primary. In Arup project, we’ve done some case studies yet but all of them couldn’t support our story development. In contract, we’ve already had a clear aspect of Nice project, the case studies were much more useful for design development.

SITE RESEARCH Site research covers many different aspects, social, physical and emotional context. Site observation is the easiest way to do site research. When being on site, I observe and record physical context of the site, my personal emotion and experience and so on. Site observation is always not only once. In my experience, normally, I go site viewing at least three times. In Human animal machine project, I visited the site before desk research. I obtained an essential realization of Olympic Park and Newton's Cottage at the first time I went site observation. After the first site viewing, we found the location of the cottage is a disadvantage for this project because this case is about to hold an event at the cottage but the cottage is under a bridge and is really not obvious for visitors. Therefore, there were few points I especially bore in mind when I went site viewing afterwards, which were user's experience, physical context, visitor's behavior. That helped me considering more about visitor's experience when developed our design.

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The first time site viewing is very important because it represents the first sight of visitors. Thus, during the design development progress, we can recall our memory and pretend ourselves as a visitor who come to the place for the first time. Both Human Animal Machine and Nice project were about to have a space to display or to have an activity. Therefore, it recording every feeling and experience I had for the first time site viewing was essential. Site research after desk research is a way to prove the accuracy of your information. As I mentioned in desk research session, in Nice project I kept modifying my understanding of Nice when I visited Nice. After integrating all the information via different resources, my understanding toward Nice could be more comprehensive.

SOCIAL RESEARCH INFORMAL CHATTING - Observation and investigation sometimes are involved in this progress. In the first project( Narrative and identity), we spent about 4-5 hours chatting with my object to initiate my research and observation. I observed her behavior, how she talks, and tried to capture the way she thinks. - It’s a way to realize what our client really want and sometimes we could get some hidden messages by chatting with people. In Human Animal Machine, we chatted with our client and some people who worked in the park. When we talked to our client, I found it was a short cut to have a rough background of the waterway, cottage and the project itself. And when we went on site observation, we chatted with a woman who was working in the park. We got many useful information about the site, such as the use of the park, which period of time has the most people, the type and the age of users, the relationship between the park and communities nearby. And these kind of information are not easy to gain through desk research. Due to the construction of Olympic park, we also found out people's attitude toward the park and how the area has been going through the time of industrial to emerging, well planned living and commercial district through chatting with people in the park. It was similar as in Arup project. This project is more about people and their relationship between each other in the conflict community, and the social condition.We talked with local people to realize the current condition of Battle Bridge Basin. Another example is the Nice project. Language was the biggest problem when we started our research. Luckily enough we met a local girl who was interested in our action and was willing to be our interpreter. After few talks, we soon restructured our viewpoint toward Niçoise and adjusted our statement of the project.

ASKING EXPERT A way to get first hand information. When project involves unfamiliar industry or specific profession, find an expert is more efficient way to get the information. And if there is any, participate relevant events or activities is also helpful. We participated a series of events which was held by our client in Human Animal Machine project. At Lock keeper's talk, through the informative talk, we had the first hand information from the lock keeper to realize their duties and how they work at the lock. Additionally, he answered all the queries we had after the talk. It's the most important resources we had. As well as in Kew Gardens project. Except the property of spices, we knew nothing about how spices be imported in to the UK. We found a spice shop in Notting Hill, and the owner elaborated the journey of spices from India to the UK. The first hand information sometimes is the most amazing one. The useful information of the journey became an important part of our project later on. QUESTIONNAIRE Questionnaire can record people's opinion, feeling, insight of a specific subject in a systematic way. In Arup project, we interviewed people who involved in our action research and asked them to fill in questionnaire. That help us to realize their personal feeling of cold. It's a direct way to collect the information of people's experience and opinion. In this case, it's quite nice having it to prove what we've known from desk research. But if we haven't done the desk research to know what people would might react to the ice bucket we would have needed more people taking part of our interview.

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ACTION RESEARCH Action research can be used to observe people's response and behavior. It's immediate and without veil. We conducted a cold test for people putting their hands in an ice bucket to see how long people can suffer in a freezing condition. Then, we asked them how they felt about it. In this test, it's about to test people's extreme of physical tolerance to cold. It's impossible to pretend. And the result also supported waht we had known from desk research.

Action research is not always work. In Nice project, we had an action research to look for local people in Nice. Since we started, there were very few people came to us. Most people just walked by without any interaction with us. Even when few people stopped to respond our question but all ended in language obstacle. They don't speak English. In the other hand, they are so close that it seems like no one can reach them. In conclusion, I can't really assert that the action research was failed. Conversely, we proved our thought about the Niรงoise once again.

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OVERALL REFLECTION RESEARCH STAGE When doing research, my first step is to have an essential and fundamental knowledge of the project and generally the knowledge comes from desk research. This stage is like building the foundation of a building. After discussion in group, the second step is to have a main topic and gradually narrow down the focus of the findings. Which means, through the procedure of design, the direction of research will be kept modifying and narrowing down to more specific aspect. I would say, research will never finish till the end of project. WHAT KIND OF RESEARCH METHOD SHOULD I USE? Whatever kind of research method we take, it should be based on the property of project, then to figure out the most suitable way to do the research. Undoubtedly, desk research sometimes takes a big part during research progress, especially in historical projects and some other ones which are related to specialized subjects. If project takes a majority of percentage in social aspect, social research can gain more useful information and it is much more efficient. But when doing social research, we need to be aware that the result of social research might be impacted by people's personal experience and it also shows the side what people want to be seen. It affects our mind on objective position, which means it's surely subjective. Due to the passive result, step back to find the balance between people's subjective opinion and your objective insight. Action research goes well in active project. People who involved in your action may help you to clarify how people would respond in your project. Finally, whatever kind of project there's a site most of time. The difference in site research is related to the purpose of each project. For instance, project which is in public and open air site might need to be carefully recorded the user's behavior and the physical context, etc. THE ORDER OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF RESEARCH. Is it always in order? Or they go simultaneously? How to make a decision about the order of research? The order of site and desk research changes all the time. Before site research, occasionally I would have already begun desk research but sometimes I haven't. It depends on the type of the project. If I'm really unfamiliar to the site I prefer to have a rough concept toward site, such as geographical location. After having a fundamental knowledge of project and the background, we can develop further research method to have more aspects of viewpoint with pur project. Site observation, action research sometimes go with interview. It's irresistible to have conversation with people when you go out doing your research. Even it's just a small talk, it probably will inspire you to have further conception toward the project. It's the easiest way to collect useful information when projects are related to social and cultural aspect.

HOW TO DEAL WITH A HUGE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION In order to be efficient in research progress, it's a challenge to digest a big amount information. Make a list to make sure what kind of material I really need to know in my project or establish some criteria to filter information.

ACCURACY OF INFORMATION It's important to have enough wisdom to tell the accuracy of information. Due to information explosionIn, we not only need to know how to filter materials but also need to realize that not all of the information are accurate. We have to make sure the sources are reliable and ascertain accuracy of these information. Therefore, try not to use materials from the same sources. Compare the differences between the materials from various source. Finally, make a conclusion with personal insight. Through the procedure, we can assert that the information is valid.

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A N A L Y S I S

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USAGE OF MAPPING What is Analysis? Analysis is a process of interpretation, asking question, and answering it. Based on the purpose of research, to describe the research material and to structure a systematic explanation. It’s about how we use a systematic way to organize research sources then to have a better understanding of a specific topic. After research, we got a lot of different information needed to be organized. At this stage, it’s radical to make criteria to sort the massive information and to categorize them. In order to establish the criteria, it involves finding the pattern of data.

EMOTIONAL MAP In Human Animal Machine, I first learned how to take advantage of mapping. We mapped the solution of research into the site then we started creating our emotional map and storyworld. And the most important thing was to define the keydrama since we started mapping. Story slightly evolved during mapping progress and it help us to clarify what we cared about in the project and the strength and weekness of our thought. This kind of emotional mapping is useful in a smaller scale project and is easy to apply. In contract, I used another method of mapping to diagram a bigger scale storyworld. In Arup project, it was a new test to apply mapping as line chart. I laid out different sorts of subjects in the chart. Alongside the timeline, each subject was integrated to depict a specific situation of the story such as society’s reaction, mood, weather condition, and public situation.

Materials are broke down into subjects, and furthermore they will be reorganized. Like research method, it’s a repeated process.

STORY BOARD Storyboard is to visualize a story in order. It also displays how we expect audience’s vision and shows the way how audiences immerse in the storyworld we create. It follows emotional map and tranforms an abstract graphic into an accessible format. Even there were only few images, storyboard also shows our decission making at this stage. The series of pictures reveals our point of view, interpretation of the specific subject and the content we expect audience to explore within the context. And the context, in other word, is storyworld. In Human Animal Machine project, the series of images of story board explained our design of audiences experience. With few close-up images it highlighted the emphasis of the event.

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LOOKING FOR PAATERN

OVERALL REFLECTION

After having a main issue in Human Animal Machine project, we realized that in order to clarify our thought and make sense of our design, some of our research materials were needed to be reorganized and fitted in subjects we designed. It helped us to clarify and refine design's direction.

Analysis is a progress between clear and un clear perspective. USE VARIOUS WAYS TO ANALYSE Usually, people would have their usual analysis method. When I went through those mapping experiences in these projects, that awakened me to open mind and be creative to try more different ways to analyze. That could help me to have different insight toward the same issue and environment. And it helps to discover and to define the keydrama as well.

In Kew Gardens project, we reformed in middle stage. We tried to integrade our though with mind mapping. The layout simplified the storyline of both group and help us to estimate the possibility of combination.

SCIENTIFIC DEDUCTION OR INTUITION In order to make sense of research resources or design direction, irresistibility, it sometimes relies on intuition. Scientific deduction draws a pathway to logical thinking. But it also includes intuition. For instance, when confronting a bunch of materials, undoubtedly, it needs sense of observation to find the way. Personally, the sense can also be called intuition. Like solving methmatic question, formulas as our tools. Different people might use different formula to solve the same question to get the answer. It sometimes relies on people’s intuition to make the decision. But the distinction between analysis and mathematic were you would have the same answer to math question and there are always different results in analysis. FILTER MATERIALS ANS BE BRAVE TO GIVE UP It’s a method to refine and to define our insight. After going through research progress, we might found some intriguing information. But if this exciting aspect can not be further developed, giving up at this stage is not a bad thing. Be aware that these materials can be your tools. Even you don’t have the opportunity to use them at the moment, probably, it will be used in the future. Group discussion is a good way to find pattern. Write down each others’ insight and made a form was how we analyse in Nice project. Through this progress we had further insight toward Niçoise. When we were in Nice we tried hard to define Niçoise characteristic. It was not easy to figure out or to recognize who is Niçoise or not. Even though, no feature can be a key feature. Thus, we wrote down our perception of Niçoise and draw a conclusion in table. This method can also push our thought further and to develop design. After went through individual insights, we soon found out that there were some similar points were mentioned through our discussion on Niçoise. The table listed those common points. And shortly, our main concept emerged at this meeting.

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C O L L A B O R AT I O N

What is Collaboration? Working together. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a state of sharing, communication, management, and production.

BRAIN STROM, SHIT STORM = SHARING IDEAS It’s the advantage of team work. We are constrained by our experience. In Kew Gardens project I did my very first shit storm. That was an amazing experience. More then 60 ideas were created in a very short period of time. It compressed the early progress of design developement without wasting time and it was productive. Idea sharing also involves personal interpretation. When doing shit storm, we were asked to extend others ideas. That reminds me that every conversation I had with people were a process of interpretation. Language is an obstacle in sharing ideas. It’s about personal understanding and the usage of language. Shit storm crosses beyond the linguistic constraints. We shared our ideas through drawing without language. Personally, it was an easier way to express and share ideas. Brain storm or shit storm is a high efficient way to share idea. It doesn’t matter if it’s a silly idea or not. It can be applied in any phase. For example, when we struggled in Nice project. We couldn’t make up our mind. We seemed like having a direction but it was not obvious and we were unsure about that. Decision making always the most difficult part in collaboration. So we shit stormed. It helped us to make decision. As result, we made a great one.

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COMMUNICATE OR NEGOTIATE? There’s no trick but be patient when communicate with team. People have different aspects and cognition and that all are based on personal living experience and culture. Understanding is the first thing to deal with the variety. It’s important to understand each other’s background not only the cultural side but also their professional aspect. People look at the same world in various angles. Try to figure out how their brain works. After understanding, it comes with empathy. Understanding helps us to have empathy then we’ll find an appropriate way to make an effective communication. We are at the same side not opposite. There’s nothing need to be negotiated in groups meeting. Everything is needed to be rational. Not only to talk but listen. Listen carefully to people's opinion. The attitude we express would impact the mood in groups.

TIME MANAGEMENT, PROGRESS MANAGEMENT Time is limited. In my experience, I always make a gant chart when I have a new task. It visualizes the invisible time and through making the chart, it helps me to organize my time then I can control it easily. But it’s a shame I didn’t make any chart in the past few months. Our project grew organically. Even though, these projects still went smoothly. The scale of these projects maybe was the main reason that we could handle it without schedule. Time is treasure. Never waste time on waiting. I know as a group, some would say we should start working when whole team is in the same room. Personally, waiting wastes time. It’s professional expression being on time. It’s not worth spending time on waiting. If we are professional enough, we can work independently and those who are late can catch up easily if they are professional as well.

PRODUCTIVE WORKING Let people do what they are good at. Knowing team member’s ability is important. It would help works going well and smoothly and it could also increase efficiency. For instance, don't ask graphic designer to design an archtecture. That will ruin them. Finally, keep calm and steady. Don’t panic! Whatever happened, keeping calm and steady may help team avoiding anxiety and confusion. It would be great to build up trust relationship in team. Always believe in collaboration and trust our team members. In most projects, I feel myself as a supporting role helping team and making things happen. It’s relatively easy for me to solve problem. When I work in group, my weakness is giving up easily. And sometimes, it takes time for me to think. When having different opinion or no common view with my group, I would give up mine rather than to explain more. It takes time to conquer but it.

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E X P E R I M E N TAT I O N

What is Experimentation? Experimentation is to modify and adjust the direction of design. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a test before we achieve our design in practice. It relates to research and analysis.

WHAT TO EXPERIMENTAT WITH? MATERIALS Experimentation took a majority part of Human Animal Machine. In order to explored more possibility of rope. We tried using fabric to braid rope.

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DRAFT DESIGN

Ideas need to be modified all the time throughout the whole progression of design. In Arup project, we’ve tried many ways to tell the story but it seemingly not worked. We stepped back to see the problem then sorted it out and kept adjusting the storyline to refine the story. Afterwards, we found an effective expression to tell our story. It’s important to look back the starting point of the story, and keep the key drama in mind and think about it repeatedly. Finaly, we can have an coherent story.

Horse making was another challenge as well. As horse’s shape is not an even surface. After few failures, it turned out a standard method to fold chicken wire to fit and cover the horse’s curved body.

RESEARCH Experimentation can be part of action research. In Nice project, we asked students in library to draw their own London’s map. Perhaps our question wasn’t clear enough that even we got many different insights but they couldn’t be sorted systematically. Next, we asked more specific question. Draw Lodoner. As a result, the drawings we got were easily organized.

Another example is Kew Gardens film. I tried many different methods to deal with the soundtrack in the film and the film itself as well. It was an interesting progress to test those unusual sounds of music. The experience encouraged me to be brave to enjoy challenge. After challenge, I learned to embrace the failure. The Kew Gardens project ended with that the client accepted the film but our original proposal. It was a surprising and disappointing result. Nevertheless, it can be seen as a failure of our design, on the other hand it was a success of our presentation. Having a positive attitude toward failure, then the failure would not being the failure.

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SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE

What is Narrative Environment In this section, it's about the progress how my realization of narrative environment be built gradually. We can also say itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s my reflection journey in these past few months. I would like to explain my realization by project to project rather than having an overall insight weaving my findings into the content. Like having a journey of exploring narrative environment. In each project, I refine a key point of view toward narrative environment, which means those re not describe the whole picture but pieces. Those key points were the most I've been thinking about throughout each specific project. And like narrative environment itself, which is composed of various components. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the final chapter of this learning log but not the end.

Project 1: Narrative and Identity

Project 5: Become a Nicoise in 10 minutes

PRECISE METAPHOR

NON-NARRATIVE IS NARRATIVE

Narrative is defined as story telling. Story can be told through various media, language, theater, exhibition, and space as well. In order to tell an understandable story, we are used to use metaphorical words, ‘like’ or ‘as’, to describe a situation. Actually, it is a good way to draw audience’s empathy then they can get into the story easily. Design a narrative environment is about how I interpret a story then transform the story into another form, which is the media. Either description or transformation is metaphor. And my interpretation is metaphor as well. Therefore, how to use metaphor precisely, become a key point at this stage. We shouldn’t rely on metaphor as a whole design but use metaphor as an precise interpretation.

Project 2: Human Animal Machine ACTOR

The position of ourselves and the audience. Initially, we were keen to find something to display for our audience but we all forgot that as foreigners as we were how can we really find something that local people didn’t know. We all looked at the same period of history. All we can do is to remind our audience this history do exist and provide a space for them to share these stories to each other. We are not teacher. We are someone found something important needs to be seen.

Project 3: The Big FreezeTHE ROLE OF CHARACTER We need to figure out the role of each character and the meaning of each scene. And we should really be careful to tell the story completely especially the story could only be told within 3 minutes. We built the whole story world then we cherry picked the most important part to tell. Which means, we didn’t mentioned the whole world but audience would build the world themselves through the clues we gave. At this stage we made a lot of decisions to make sure that all the scenes, dialogue, appearances of every characters have the same tone of voice. Every element can be seen as an character in narrative environment.

Project 4: Kew Garden PITCH Story telling has been told as a subject that we need to learn. Being a good storyteller is also a key element in this scope. Story can be told through different media. The medium is a way to draw people get into your story. But the most important message we are telling is the story after all. In this project, we seemed to tell story successfully but we didn’t. In another word, story like good we are selling and the way we sell the good is the wrapping paper. In Kew Gardens project, our client bought the wrapping paper but the good. Or I can read it in another way, the story, the good, was an additional value for our client. It was a success and a failure. Great goods need pretty wrapping paper to decorate to attract customers’ attention. The wrapping paper is meant to help appearing the character of our goods. At this stage, I need to design carefully how to warp our goods appropriately without covering the goods character.

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There’s no non-narrative environment. Even I hardly found an interesting story in Nice project. The ‘no-finding’ could be a story to be told. The experience inspired me that if I sadly can not find any intriguing story, don't force to find one. Try to make one. In this project, our solution is using people's experience in Nice to narrate a story. Which means, we not only have one story, we would have diverse stories.