what could be a better case study on failing than me, right now?
so im midway into my thesis on failure, which by the way, was not selected for me, this was something that I chose myself. Rather than picking a topic that interested me, such as architecture or urban planning, which i thought would pigeon hole me within a particular industry, I wished to find somethng that was more universal. Marcus from Brazil suggested I think about the talk I could give at the end of this deep dive, and so I tried to think of what might make an interesting TED talk or Pecha Kucha. I did not want to bcome the worlds expert on the demise of Wework, or the chalenges brought to airbnb business mdel due to covid, so I thought i should focus on an aspect of design, to become a design expert. In particular, I love how Joe found his niche in endings, a typically overlooked aspect of design. And inasmuch as every product has an ending, his knowlege is widely applicable.
Our focus in this masters has been user centric design, so I revisited the design practice and landed on the double diamond model that proposes the stages in design thinking. Ever since listening to Natasha Jens video entitled "design thinking is bullshit", I kind of agreed with her that post-it notes and sharpies are not the tools mastered by designers. While I wholly support the research aspect which is how research aligns designers with end users to create empathy, I did not see much (any) of that in my years as a graphic designer? Users input, are you kidding? The designer always likes to think that they know better, and resist most feedback from clients from hell, the last thing they would wish to do is elicit feedback from users, which would only strip their power as arbeters of style, and relegate them to a production artist capacity. Nope, that did not sound anything like the design industry I knew. But the second diamond presented something I could relate to as designerly: itterative practice. In short, experiential learning comes through prototyping early and often, getting ideas out so that they can be improved upon in subsequent cycles. Artists learn as they go, stepping back from their canvas or block of clay, making adjustments as they see fit, and often benefiting from happy accidents. Add material, take asome away, until voila: it just feels right. Itterative process prescribes no set number of itterations, does not even provide a hint. Like artists, at some point when the prototype seems to have adressed all the problems identified well enough, the maker just knows that its ready.
Well this is as much as I knew 8 or more weeks ago, and fast forward till today, and Im in a panic, not knowing which direction to turn. Fortumately, our amazing program leaded Tash was kind enough to hear my distress calls and have a meeting, virtual of course. Shes in Manchester while I'm in Southern Sweden. But I digress, this talk returned my confidence to some degree. Am I still fucked for time? Probably, 60 pages wont just majically appear, but she clarrified something that I somehow glossed over. This is not a traditional thesis, I mean, sure it has to tick a lot of the boxes, needs an abstract, a lterature review, some theoretical depth, propper referencing. But then theres the part that got lost: our program is in experience design, and as such, we are not just conducting any old research to prove our hypothesis, but looking towards creating an experience as a solution to the problem weve identified. With that in mind, I probably cannot select IKEA as my case study, since its highly unlikely that I could host an intervention. While I dont want to jump to solutions just yet (and should let feedback from users inform the particular solution proposed) ultimately, I will need to find some organization to agree to let me come in and test something in person, and then to itterate to improve upon the solution and get feedback to see if the next itteration has improved. Finally, this program is far too short to definitively complete the full scope research on this topic, so there needs to be a plan moving forward, seeing this as the first step in what might be a multi-year project.
I also shared the idea that my academic advisor proposed, of doing this project in a self referential way, capturing my personal failings, and the learning from all the errors Im making while learning by doing. I suggested that if my paper was well short of the correct word count, this could be filler, which naturally did not sit well with the program leader. I did not really mean that its only purpose is to add fluff, but I doint know at this point if my research will be way under or over the limit, so uncertain if there is room for it. My thinking was that I could document my chalenges in a sidebar, denoting not every step, but the chalenges faced, the failures racked up, and the pivots made. While this probaly would not constitute the main focus, it would provide some insight into my own struggle to gain clarity. So ive started this blog.
What also occured to me is that I have not thought to utilize design thinking methodolgy ive learned this year to attack this project. Insane really, because its perfectly suited to wicked problems of which a thesis tops my personal list. Design thinking is after all suitable for addressing situations that are unfamiliar, with variables that I cannot even envision. What exactly does 60 pages, and how long should each section be and what comes next? Where is the fucking blueprint for this?
While Im frustrated to not have a bit more handholding, I can also see that there are limits to the information I can gleen from others. The reality is that I need to move forward without complete knowledge, and so trial and error which is pretty much the topic of my research is what I should be doing more of. Failing sucks, but without the learning you need to advance, you remain stuck in the same place. The only way to get unstuck is to try different approaches and see what sticks. Is the looming deadline stressing me out? YES. But panic is rarely a helpful response.
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