Project Slow Embracing slower ways of living in the urban setting
Ayşe Gökçe Bor MFA Interaction Design Thesis Brief 2014 Umeå Institute of Design/Umeå University aysegokcebor@gmail.com
Table of Contents 1. Introduction Overview 3 Background 4 Personal Motivation 5 2. Methods Documentation Exploration Design
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3. Conclusions Goals and outcomes 8 Collaborators and mentors 9 Budget 9 4. References
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5. Appendices Time plan
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1. Introduction Overview Most of us are surrounded by deadlines, productivity requirements and to-do lists. The culture challenges us to be as fast as we can and usually without realizing we find ourselves in a tempo that is set by someone else. As we move into cities, the link between production and product is lost, the urban population has little remembrance of how things take their time in nature. This disconnection in addition to the fast life pace in the cities make us forget that rushing is not always the most effective way to work. What if we were given the tools to discover our own rhythms and tune in with the world around us, in other words “slow down”? What if reflections were part of our daily lives? What if, as designers, we could utilize slower ways of working? What if we lived in a world where our pace in life was, as one would say in Swedish, lagom, meaning “just the right amount”? (Atkisson, 2002) My ambition with this project is to create tools for people living in the cities in order to enable them to embrace slower processes of life. I intend to explore the possibilities of including communities and spaces since in an urban setting one’s pace is hardly separated from the city around him/her. Throughout the project I aim to look into slow design and slow technology methodologies to see what “slow interaction design” may be and what the process would gain from using these methodologies.
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Background Slow Slow, as a word, has many negative associations tied to it such as stupid, lazy, inefficient and outdated. Where fast is predicted to be more efficient, our addiction for speed may actually be killing our productivity. As Harkaway states in his book, when you really need to engage with something you should let your brain take “a time out to have tea and biscuit” before starting work. A 30 percent improvement in memory has been observed when the brain has the chance to enter a preparatory state before taking in information. (Harkaway, 2012) Slow Movement The philosophy of slowing down has its roots in the start of the industrialization era (Bidney, 2002) but the term Slow was first used for the Slow Food movement that was founded in Italy in 1989 as a counter culture for Fast Food and its impacts on local traditions, environment and social life. The founder, Carlo Petrini explains this as: “[Fast food] diminish opportunities for conversation, communion, quiet reflection, and sensuous pleasure, thus short-changing the hungers of the soul.” (Jackson, 2007), The Slow Movement describes a wide range of actions, from cittaslow, or slow cities, (Cittaslow,1999) to education, sex to travel and even leisure, taking place around purposefully slowing down the in order to enjoy life more and create “time and space”. In this context slow is now not just a word, but a change of perspective. As Carl Honore puts in his book in Praise of Slow “The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed.” Or as Petrini puts it: “Being Slow means that you control the rhythms of your own life. You decide how fast you have to go in any given context. If today I want to go fast, I go fast; if tomorrow I want to go slow, I go slow. What we are fighting for is the right to determine our tempos.” (Honoré, 2004, p. 14) Slow Design and Slow Technology Slow design is a holistic approach that supports creating solutions for the well-being of the people and the planet and building meaningful relationships. Even though the roots of it are in the historical Arts and Crafts movement in 1960s (Alesina, 2013), slow design is a term identified and developed by Alistair Fuad-Luke (Fuad-Luke, 2002) Slow technology is “a design agenda for technology aimed at reflection and moments of mental rest rather than efficiency in performance. It is not about making technology invisible, but about exposing technology in a way that encourages people to reflect and think about it.” (Hallnäs, 2001).
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The Sasa Clock offers you the option to “stop time”, and switch to your own personal clock. Take the necklace off the clock and wear it proudly as a statement that it is you that is in control. This is your time. (Arnadottir, 2010)
Fast The perceived increase in the pace of speed is not unique for our generation. As the technology advances, faster ways of doing things are uncovered. Though these advances were thought to be freeing up space, they actually shift your expectancies and as Levine puts it “the very designs made to save time becomes labour saving devices that don’t save work.” (Levine, 1997) As the founder of slow design Fuad-Luke puts it, “Speed is a concept resulting in a continuum of individual and sociocultural perceptions. Without the fast we can’t appreciate the slow, and vice versa. Recognition of this continuum is important for any paradigm offering itself as an antidote to the current design paradigm.” (Fuad-Luke, 2002)
(Lyina, 2010)
Personal Motivation As a child, I remember my mom telling all the things she had done in the day with a proud voice. She was a working mother of two yet she managed to run the house by herself reaching to everything. Up until recently, I don’t remember her speaking that proudly about “taking time for herself”, or even her doing that. The merit of doing a lot of things in the time she (and also I) grew up was far too superior to slowing down and listening to yourself, so the proud moment was when you did “as many things as fast as you can”. Recently, during a conversation with a friend, I had another eye opening moment when he said “I just want to be able to read a book without feeling guilty!” This quote made me realize that we are living in a world where you can feel guilty for taking time for yourself to read a book and it did not make sense to me. During my past year, working with non- designers, I experienced how design can be incorporated in different ways, evoking my curiosity to explore new ways in design. When I discovered “Slow design”, I thought this curiosity of mine would could be integrated to my project. In both personal and professional levels involving non designers into design process, widening the scope of sustainability in design and exploring new methodologies are highly interesting to me to better understand my role as an interaction designer.
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2. Methods Documentation Logging Writing down reflections and findings at the end of each work day. Scheduling Weekly and daily plans in addition to the time schedule. Iteration and exploration Finding the results through doing and producing
Exploration Desktop research and reading Slowing down: Behavioural psychology, time perception, reflection, cognitive science. Design methodology: Slow design, slow technology, interaction design, space and experience design. Walking the walk During the course of the project, I aim to take a “slower” stance and discover my own rhythm both for the design process and as a way of understanding what it means to “slow down”. Field and user studies Understanding both fast and slow lanes by visiting a cittaslow (slow city) and interviewing some people that have speed naturally embedded in their lives (such as CEOs) through observation, interviews, questionnaires, cultural probes.
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Design Participatory design Conducting activities and workshops to involve users with the design of the final outcome Mixed methods Incorporating different methodologies such as slow design, slow technology, communal decision making tools with existing interaction design methods. Prototyping and scenarios Building low fi prototypes of spaces/tools and test them early with users in contextual scenarios. Ideation and user involvement: Starting early on with the user involvement and ideation. Storytelling and communication Creating a medium for storytelling like video or photo exhibition in addition to an interactive prototype that would allow richer experience.
The Happy Spaces Project (Cooper, 2012)
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3. Conclusion The increase in the pace of life is beneficial in many areas. My aim with this project is not to declare war on fast, quite the contrary, I agree with Jeremy Finch that “Our fast-moving, information-rich, ultra-connected world is an amazing and exciting place in which to live.” (Finch, 2013), but I am interested in questioning if embracing slower processes in life can be beneficial and if we can change the behaviour of the people through designing interactions.
Goals and outcomes With this project I want to explore and question the fast way of living to see if we can or need to change our behaviour. From the point I stand today I imagine the final outcome to be a tool or a space, tied with a service that would create opportunities for the users to explore, understand and possibly embrace slower ways of processes in life. Though the end result may also become a tool for people to question their own lives and reflect upon, rather than change it completely. I believe through the research phase I will gain a better understanding of the needs and direct the project accordingly. I intend to discuss the principles of interaction design from a philosophical point of view in order to understand it better in the context of slow. Since I will be exploring combining the methodologies, I aim to understand better these different ways and am curious what will the process will gain from a slower approaches. I am hoping the result will bring a new perspective to how we see interaction design and how “slow” can be incorporated in our lives.
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Initial Inspirations Collective Action Kit A set of resources created by Frog to inspire design thinking outside of the design world and help people accomplish tangible outcomes, generate solutions and a knowledge pool. (Frog, 2012) The power of time off Every seven years, designer Stefan Sagmeister closes his New York studio for a yearlong sabbatical to rejuvenate and refresh their creative outlook. (Sagmeister, 2009) Slow Design Knowledge Platform is being developed by SlowLab to enable broader acceptance of slow design and to catalyse new slow design ideas, artefacts, learning programs, local actions and dialogues. (slowLab, 2013)
Collaborators and Mentors Possible collaboration partners are slowLab (creators of the framework for slow design methodologies) and Interactive Institute (based on Johan Redström’s paper on Slow from PLAY Research Studio, Interactive Institute, Gothenburg), Johan Redström (UID), Umeå University Department of Psychology and Umeå Municipality to work together to investigate how to co-create tools that improve the quality and enjoyment for the communities and individuals.
Budget (preliminary) Travels for visiting the slow cities and joining conferences – 7,000 SEK Workshop and prototyping materials – 7,000 SEK Office supplies – 1,000 SEK Exhibition costs – 1,000 SEK Total =16,000 SEK
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4. References Alesina, I. (2013). slow_design_index. Test Kitchen for Change. Retrieved January 13, 2014, from http://thesis2013.micadesign.org/alesina/slow_design.html AtKisson, A. (2002). The Right Amount. Living Gently Quarterly. Retrieved January 9, 2014, from http://www.islandnet.com/~see/living/articles/rightamount.htm Bidney, M. (2002). Slowed-Down Time and the Fear of History: The Medievalist Visions of William Blake and William Morris. Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 2, 100-120. Retrieved June 1, 2014, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339522 Cittaslow (1999). Cittaslow International. Retrieved January 10, 2014, from http://www. cittaslow.org/index.php?lng=2 Finch, J. (2013, September 13). 4 Ways Slow Design Will Make The Super-Fast World We Live In Better. Co.Design. Retrieved December 16, 2013, from http://www.fastcodesign. com/1673336/4-ways-slow-design-will-make-the-super-fast-world-we-live-in-better frog Collective Action Toolkit | frog. (2012). frog design inc. [Image online] Retrieved January 7, 2014, from http://www.frogdesign.com/work/frog-collective-action-toolkit.html Fuad-Luke, A. (2002) “Slow design” – a paradigm shift in design philosophy?. Retrieved December 7, 2013. from: http://www.arts.ulst.ac.uk/artm/courses/ jdmm/emotion/slowdes.pdf Hallnäs, L. & Redström, J., (2001). Slow Technology – Designing for Reflection. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 5(3), 201-212. Retrieved January 15, 2014, from http://www.cse. chalmers.se/research/group/idc/ituniv/courses/07/idproj/papers/slow.pdf Harkaway, N. (2012). The blind giant: being human in a digital world. London: John Murray. Honoré, C. (2004). The Age of Rage. In praise of slowness: how a worldwide movement is challenging the cult of speed (p. 14). San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Jackson, S (2007), The Slow Movement: On the Snail’s Trail, YL Magazine Levine, R. (1997). A geography of time: the temporal misadventures of a social psychologist, or how every culture keeps time just a little bit differently. New York: BasicBooks. Images Arnadottir, T. (2010). Sasa Clock. [Image online] Retrieved January 13, 2014, from http:// thorunnarnadottir.prosite.com/124647/1239051/gallery/sasa-clock frog (2012). Collective Action Toolkit. [Image online] Retrieved January 7, 2014, from http://www.frogdesign.com/work/frog-collective-action-toolkit.html Cooper, C. (2012). Umbrella Ceiling. [Image online] Retrieved January 12, 2014, from http://happyspacesprojectblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/what-is-happiness/ Hillman, A. (2009?). Guerrilla Graphics, Look. [Image online] Retrieved January 20, 2014, from http://annahillman.com/guerrilla-graphics.html Lyina. (2007). Born to Be Wild. [Image online] Retrieved January 20, 2014, from http:// www.freakingnews.com/Born-to-be-Wild-Pictures-38535.asp Sagmeister, S. (Performer) (2009, July). Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off [Video]. Retrieved January 7, 2014, from http://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_ of_time_off.html slowLab. (2013, April 7). Slow Design Knowledge Platform. Vimeo. Retrieved January 8, 2014, from http://vimeo.com/63520333
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5. Appendix
ProjectSlow Timeline
Timeline
January 4
Explore
Document
Tara
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February 6
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March 8
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May
April 12
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June 21
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Tutoring Niklas
Daily reflection, blogging Finalize and print report
Desktop research, reading User research User testing
Ideation, brainstorm Design
Co-creation workshop, council Initial prototyping Refining and prototyping
Deliver
Storyboarding, filming and editing
Preparation Deadlines
Kick off
Research Gateway
Mid-Presentation
Process Gateway
Report delivery (preliminary)
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Examination
Design Talks
Project Slow MFA Interaction Design Thesis Brief Ayล e Gรถkรงe Bor aysegokcebor@gmail.com