Week 2 of the research frames workshop, as last weeks session was a good time to introduce effective methods & techniques on how to collect relevant research, with it being narrowed down to good points. This weeks workshop our tutor showed us about assumption in design. An assumption is anything you think to be true but there is no guarantee, and a constraint is a limitation on you and your project. Assumptions and constraints can be anything, they might be related to human resources, budget, time or any kind of functionally.
I have some notes from that talk which will help me put food for thought into perspective.
- Too much focus can often happen through ‘blindspots’
- Code can sometimes helps us with assumptions
- Research for book ‘Design for Health’
- Issue 7 colours magazine
- Controversial/ challenging assumptions
- Think of the language in your approach language is part of ‘code’
- Reconnecting the audience to do something they thought weren’t possible.
This is an example shown how clever you can be showing assumption within a design. This is a COLOUR Magazine issue 7 section showing an ANTI AIDS campaign , which you have a clear and accurate description of how not to catch aids, Also President Ronald Reagan pictured being an advocate about the health crisis as he was an activist during his reign, always been a figure standing for the people who been accustomed to aids giving his last speech. This is also showing a toilet seat to get the point across can be a form of assumption with it being related with dirty hygiene and common diseases. Although there hasn’t been in any cases where people can catch aids from a toilet seat, this goes to show how effective it can be just by grabbing a persons attention, with good assumptions about a topic as private as this. This shows me how I can be effective grabbing the responsibility and showing a different side to communicate with the audience.
This book was recommended by my tutor to have a read about an insight of roles of a designer to start supporting the promotion of healthy lifestyles. It shows how designer have to know think morally and ethically about the uses of methodology and research methods encrypted into design concepts.
This was put into context with an exercise we did in our chosen groups..
Pictures of out group session
As a group we had to form BAD IDEAS, this exercise is to open the design space, work together as a team and come up with the worst possible ideas to critique them as this will benefit forward thinking, and surprising us in what we find that could potentially be a good idea going forward.
As a group we discussed an idea of a campaign that promoted that patients have more use of taking drugs, we expanded on that by taking the slogan of a Nike campaign ‘Just Do It’, and change it into ‘Just Take It’ giving the idea to take more drugs, which shows a message of encouragement to the audience, that this is the answer for preventing the elderly to cause themselves injury(falling). Next we thoughts its a good idea to present some visuals to show the idea further, I decided to draw a old person in a pill shaped body suit that does resemble a sumo suit. The idea is the moment they have a review of their medication, the local GP or doctor presents one of these suit for patients that are on more than 5 different medications, to wear that prevents them from falling on occasions, we thought this will be a good way to spread some of the youthfulness into the patients keeping them more active. Then started to come up with other slogans spreading the awareness side by side with the campaign stating ‘It’s all about quantity, than quantity’, ‘Why break a finger? When you can break a leg?’ we challenged these slogans showing that brutal sarcasm can sometimes trigger a person into contemplating what’s important, reverse phycology methodology is a way to get to the persons psyche that will determine their way of thinking. These will be shown in outcomes such as billboards and interactive posters showcasing around a public space, preferably around centrally in a town centre, or maybe a local park and public transport that older people commute in. This exercise showed me ways to communicate to an audience effectively and coming up with good ideas definitely for me gave me an insight to think about taking it forward to my own ideas, it was good to come today to know techniques that will improve my thought process and way of thinking, its taught me a lot so far.
My Learning Journal 