GDE720 W12 | Workshop Challenge

Design & Develop

This week’s challenge includes:

1. Research and discover issues that relate to your locality* and post them on the Ideas Wall.

   REVISED: Direct engagement is encouraged, to identify potential issues, although we understand this is unlikely in the current situation. Show evidence of reaching out, by conducting an email or letter, although we appreciate you may not get a reply. 

2. Distill your research to identify one issue you would like to resolve and reveal through a visual outcome.

3. Write a short 200-word project brief that reports on the issue to be solved.

4. Design and produce a visual summary to contextualize your issue and project brief. Your summary can be a digital, print or moving image, but it must be succinct, to enable third party viewers to quickly understand the requirements, needs and challenges.

   *Your locality can be broad and refer to your street, district, town, area, county or region.   

ISSUES APPARENT IN SAN FRANCISCO

For this project, we were to evaluate several issues that related to our locality. For me, I am choosing the city of San Francisco as my locale. It’s a big city, but a close knit one and one not without issues. The three issues that I found to be most apparent to me are: homelessness, economic inequality, and loneliness. I believe all are intertwined and not mutually exclusive.

Given the timeliness of the current social impact of COVID19 on the city of San Francisco, I chose to focus my project on loneliness. It also provides an opportunity for me to reflect on my own experiences stemming from the pandemic and feel like I am making a contribution to society as a result.

LONELINESS IN THE TIME OF COVID19 PROJECT BRIEF

WHAT SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE IS THIS PROJECT TRYING TO ACHIEVE?

Provide resources to anyone feeling loneliness as a result of COVID19

WHAT SINGLE THOUGHT SHOULD THE AUDIENCE COME AWAY WITH?

I am not alone.

TARGET AUDIENCE(S)

Primary: San Francisco community members

Secondary: all other people on the planet

PROJECT CRITICAL CONTEXT

In early March of 2020, the city of San Francisco initiated a shelter in place order in response to the COVID19 coronavirus pandemic in order to flatten the curve and spread of the virus and to keep people safe. This meant staying indoors, refraining from any physical connection with anyone outside of your home, and remaining at least six feet a part when outside for only essential activities. So far these efforts seem to be working as San Francisco’s early and aggressive response to the virus has kept the numbers of infected and fatalities lower than any other city in the United States.

Those low numbers have not come without a cost. One cost in particular is the increase in feelings of loneliness by those sheltering in place, including those that have contracted the virus and have been further isolated from their families.

What could I do as a designer to help?

The COVID19 pandemic has forced us all indoors with many of us in isolation from any forms of regular human contact. Understanding the research already successfully conducted on mitigating loneliness for the elderly, how could these methods be simply applied to a wider demographic and audience to help alleviate the feelings of loneliness? Further, how can those affected by loneliness get help if they are not comfortable asking for help or letting it be known they are feeling lonely? 

ANTICIPATED OUTCOME

A system of communication vehicles for people to share how they are feeling, expressing any levels of loneliness, and willingness to help those that have expressed loneliness or suspected of feeling lonely. Possible deliverables to include:

• Pre-designed, printable signs (2 versions: self-indicating, and outreach)

• Social media templates

• Zoom backgrounds

• Instructions on how to make it your own

WHAT IS THE TONE?

Hopeful, inviting, welcoming, friendly

WHAT IS THE CALL TO ACTION?

Share your feelings. Help those that are lonely.

CREATIVE MANDATORIES

Create an easy system for people to share how they are feeling to easily invite help from other people as well as a way for people to share their willingness to help.

TIMLELINE

Two weeks that include six phases:

• Week One: initial outreach, research, and data evaluation

• Week Two: ideation, design, and proposed implementation

ASSETS

All to be created

POTENTIAL BARRIERS AND/OR CONCERNS

Timeline to launch the final system is tight (less than three weeks). A phased approach of deliverables is likely most practical.

SUCCESS METRICS

Web and social analytics, data from initial and follow-up surveys, anecdotal feedback 

RESEARCH

Examine previous studies on addressing loneliness for elderly, survey subjects, use design tools to evaluate responses and identify insights.

REFERENCE:

Clarke, A., (ed) (2017) ‘Chapter 6: Prototyping the Social: Temporary and Speculative Futures at the Intersection of Design and Culture’ in Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 87 – 98. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9781474259057

Clarke, A., (ed) (2017) ‘Chapter 4, Valuable to Values: How ‘User Research’ ought to change’, in Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 53 – 67. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9781474259057 

Falmouth University (2018). Visual Writing: Research & Reveal | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

McQuiston, L., (2015) Visual Impact: Creative Dissent in the 21st Century. London: Phaidon. Available from: https://content.talisaspire.com/falmouth/bundles/5c62b80d69df506330522374

GDE720 W12 | Lecture Review

The Age of No Retirement

This week’s lecture included a conversation with Hefin Jones, a service designer and collaborative researcher.

HEFIN JONES

Hefin Jones began his service design career in university. He enjoyed the collaborative nature and immersion possibilities when working with people in their communities. He used his project Cosmic Colliery to engage a community in Wales around the fictional notion of reimagining a closed-down coal mine into an astronaut training facility. His work immersed him into this community, spending long periods of time in conversations with young people, former coal miners, families, youth center directors and operators, local governments.

By using fiction, Jones hope was to allow for deeper, more meaningful conversations around how the community could think differently about its culture, history, networks, relationships, and practices. What made this project most successful was Jones’ willingness to allow for space for long and meandering conversations to take place. To provide room for people to imagine and engage in dialogue. He expressed the necessity to listen, and not bring your own biases about the project into the foreground.

A take away for Jones was the projects opportunity to engage the marginal voices, in this case, the youth of the community — unable to vote — and finding ways to create agency and advocacy on their behalf.

His advice for service designers starting out is to prioritize listening, leaving bias out as much as possible, having a responsibility to the subjects and subject community and to be willing to allow for variances and evolution to take place within and beyond the project.

REFERENCE:

Clarke, A., (ed) (2017) ‘Chapter 6: Prototyping the Social: Temporary and Speculative Futures at the Intersection of Design and Culture’ in Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 87 – 98. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9781474259057

Clarke, A., (ed) (2017) ‘Chapter 4, Valuable to Values: How ‘User Research’ ought to change’, in Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 53 – 67. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9781474259057 

Falmouth University (2018). Visual Writing: Research & Reveal | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

McQuiston, L., (2015) Visual Impact: Creative Dissent in the 21st Century. London: Phaidon. Available from: https://content.talisaspire.com/falmouth/bundles/5c62b80d69df506330522374

GDE720 W11 | Workshop Challenge

together apart

This week’s challenge included two options for execution. I chose Option One:

• You have successfully identified one social issue that your would like to solve and contextualized your issue and project brief. 
  Utilize your initial research to generate a solution that will provoke change. Your key task for this week is to generate exciting and thoughtful ideas.

• Think broadly about the relevant media you may wish to deploy when answering the design challenge, e.g. social media, public installation, viral, product or other digital or technology innovation.  

LONELINESS IN THE TIME OF COVID19

For this project, we were to evaluate several issues that related to our locality. For me, I am choosing the city of San Francisco as my locale. It’s a big city, but a close knit one and one not without issues. The three issues that I found to be most apparent to me are: homelessness, economic inequality, and loneliness. I believe all are intertwined and not mutually exclusive. 

Given the timeliness of the current social impact of COVID19 on the city of San Francisco, I chose to focus my project on loneliness. It also provides an opportunity for me to reflect on my own experiences stemming from the pandemic and feel like I am making a contribution to society as a result.

RESEARCH

Using a The Campaign to End Loneliness survey, plus one additional question to adapt to our current shelter in place order, I sent out a survey to get feedback on how folks looked upon their relationships and their connection to others. The rationale for using The Campaign to End Loneliness Survey was that this is a tool that has been compiled through a co-designed approach that is not only practical, but uses positive language, which I felt was highly appropriate given the already anxiety inducing aspects of sheltering in place amongst a global pandemic.

The survey included four statements for which respondents would rate on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree except for the final question which was to be filled in by free form response:

1. I am content with my friendships and relationships.

2. I have enough people I feel comfortable asking for help at any time.

3. My relationships are as satisfying as I would want them to be.

4. Sheltering in place has changed the way I connect with people by…

The responses were then evaluated against the Campaign to End Loneliness Measurement tool:

So someone with a score of 0 or 3 can be said to be unlikely to be experiencing any sense of loneliness, whereas anyone with a score of 10 or 12 is likely to be experiencing the most intense degree of loneliness. Scores in-between these two extremes are on a spectrum of feelings of loneliness; however it is not possible to say that each point on the scale represents an equal increase or decrease in the degree of loneliness someone might be feeling.

Upon scoring the survey results the majority of respondents showing little to no up to some signs of loneliness with only one subject at a higher end of the spectrum:

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I believe the results would be different given the pool of respondents was rather shallow. If more people had responded, I think more people would be showing signs of loneliness. Regardless, the research for this assignment include evaluating the entirety of the data including the free form responses. I took the responses from the final survey question and used an empathy map to identify insights that might inform my project further:

I was also inspired by a conversation that I had with my boss at the start of this project. She mentioned that through her church she signed up for volunteering with a group that connected volunteers to members of the San Francisco community affected by COVID19. She signed up to speak to a person who is sheltering in place in Oakland, California and is without any real support system given that he is from New York, a senior, and has an autoimmune disease which previously to the pandemic kept him from connecting with folks outside of his home.

“He is lonely. We speak every few days. I just listen and chat with him about anything he wants to talk about. ”

She spoke of how it was really just a big Google spreadsheet and that there was no formal organization, but more of a free for all. It got me thinking about how to incentivize and reach more people, more effectively, and more efficiently.

FROM RESEARCH AND INSIGHTS INTO DESIGN

I wanted to design a campaign that connect those that are lonely or feeling alone to those willing to provide their time to chat with them in any way that was easiest for the person in need: text, phone, email, FaceTime, etc. And in a way that would be able to encourage those in the community to participate in the easiest way possible. Some criteria:

• Bold messaging

• Simple, straightforward design

• Clear call to action

• Anyone can print, create, and share the materials including adapting it to make it their own.

A NAME AND A PLAN

I landed on the name “Together Apart” for the campaign brand identity. Further, I looked to create a simple design that could be easily transferred, adopted and implemented by anyone interested. This meant keeping the design clean and straightforward and using basic color palette such as black and white. This way participants could print their own materials for display to encourage outreach and connection with the target audience.

The introduction of the Japanese symbol “enso” means oneness. The brush stroke approach provide an human touch and a nod to imperfection.

I chose to interlock a cross-symbol with the intersection creating an opening. This could symbolize the lonely and how they are surrounded by friends as shown through the balance of the cross symbol. The cross also symbolizes care. I’ve incorporated the Japanese symbol for oneness, the "enso” in a brushstroke that evokes a human touch and lack of imperfection. This symbol represents the “circle of togetherness,” the oneness of life, the beginning and end of all things, and the connectedness of existence, thus setting the tone for the campaign: togetherness, oneness.

CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT AND EXECUTION

I brainstormed all of the various deliverables and platforms where this campaign could be most effective.

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THE RESULT

A campaign that is created for the people, by the people: together apart.

REFERENCE:

E, Manzini., (2015) ‘Part 3: Making Things Happen’, in Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. . Available from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/falmouth-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3339947. 84, pp. 119 – 202

Falmouth University (2018). Visual Writing: Design & Develop | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

McQuiston, L., (1993) Graphic Agitation. London: Phaidon. Available from: https://content.talisaspire.com/falmouth/bundles/5c62b7e669df5062d0522374

Payne, K. (2019, February 7). The Missing Million: A Practical Guide to Identifying and Talking About Loneliness. Retrieved from https://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org/blog/the-missing-million-a-practical-guide-to-identifying-and-talking-about-loneliness/

The Campaign To End Loneliness. (n.d.). Measuring your Impact on Loneliness in Later Life. Retrieved from https://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org/measuring-loneliness/

GDE720 W11 | Lecture Review

The Age of No Retirement

This week’s lecture included a conversation with George Lee & Jonathan Collie of the social-enterprise The Age of No Retirement and more recently the intergenerational community project The Common Room.

FINDING COMMON GROUND

What was really interesting to me in this week’s lecture was how both Lee and Collie found their way to one another. Both having the experience of disenchantment with their careers and finding their true calling, and as a result, each other. I have also found the societal considerations or lack thereof for our more senior community members to be very out of touch and out of place for our current time in history. Both of my parents have been subjected to ageism later in their careers and into retirement. It something that I think about has a hit middle age. So, this resonates with me personally as a social cause.

THE DOUBLE DIAMOND

We learn how Lee and Collie use the double diamond tool for service design and how it aids in distilling out actionable steps and tactical objectives.

 Design has many different definitions, but at its heart it is about the process of translating ideas into reality, making abstract thoughts tangible and concrete. 

IT IS ALL ABOUT PEOPLE

We know that to be classified as service design that six criteria must be met:

1. Human-centered: Consider the experience of all the people affected by the service.

2. Collaborative: Stakeholders of various backgrounds and functions should be actively engaged in the service design process.

3. Iterative: Service design is an exploratory, adaptive, and experimental approach, iterating toward implementation.

4. Sequential: The service should be visualized and orchestrated as a sequence of interrelated actions.

5. Real: Needs should be researched in reality, ideas prototyped in reality, and intangible values evidenced as physical or digital reality.

6. Holistic: Services should sustainably address the needs of all stakeholders through the entire service and across the business.

It seems critical that the first of the criteria is honored for the rest to follow suit. Without people, it’s just an idea, problem, or need. With people, we find answer, solutions, evolution, and community.

REFERENCE:

E, Manzini., (2015) ‘Part 3: Making Things Happen’, in Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. . Available from: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/falmouth-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3339947. 84, pp. 119 – 202

Falmouth University (2018). Visual Writing: Design & Develop | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

McQuiston, L., (1993) Graphic Agitation. London: Phaidon. Available from:  https://content.talisaspire.com/falmouth/bundles/5c62b7e669df5062d0522374

GDE720 W10 | Workshop Challenge

Research & Reveal

This week’s challenge includes:

1. Research and discover issues that relate to your locality* and post them on the Ideas Wall.

   REVISED: Direct engagement is encouraged, to identify potential issues, although we understand this is unlikely in the current situation. Show evidence of reaching out, by conducting an email or letter, although we appreciate you may not get a reply. 

2. Distill your research to identify one issue you would like to resolve and reveal through a visual outcome.

3. Write a short 200-word project brief that reports on the issue to be solved.

4. Design and produce a visual summary to contextualize your issue and project brief. Your summary can be a digital, print or moving image, but it must be succinct, to enable third party viewers to quickly understand the requirements, needs and challenges.

   *Your locality can be broad and refer to your street, district, town, area, county or region.   

ISSUES APPARENT IN SAN FRANCISCO

For this project, we were to evaluate several issues that related to our locality. For me, I am choosing the city of San Francisco as my locale. It’s a big city, but a close knit one and one not without issues. The three issues that I found to be most apparent to me are: homelessness, economic inequality, and loneliness. I believe all are intertwined and not mutually exclusive.

Given the timeliness of the current social impact of COVID19 on the city of San Francisco, I chose to focus my project on loneliness. It also provides an opportunity for me to reflect on my own experiences stemming from the pandemic and feel like I am making a contribution to society as a result.

LONELINESS IN THE TIME OF COVID19 PROJECT BRIEF

WHAT SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE IS THIS PROJECT TRYING TO ACHIEVE?

Provide resources to anyone feeling loneliness as a result of COVID19

WHAT SINGLE THOUGHT SHOULD THE AUDIENCE COME AWAY WITH?

I am not alone.

TARGET AUDIENCE(S)

Primary: San Francisco community members

Secondary: all other people on the planet

PROJECT CRITICAL CONTEXT

In early March of 2020, the city of San Francisco initiated a shelter in place order in response to the COVID19 coronavirus pandemic in order to flatten the curve and spread of the virus and to keep people safe. This meant staying indoors, refraining from any physical connection with anyone outside of your home, and remaining at least six feet a part when outside for only essential activities. So far these efforts seem to be working as San Francisco’s early and aggressive response to the virus has kept the numbers of infected and fatalities lower than any other city in the United States.

Those low numbers have not come without a cost. One cost in particular is the increase in feelings of loneliness by those sheltering in place, including those that have contracted the virus and have been further isolated from their families.

What could I do as a designer to help?

The COVID19 pandemic has forced us all indoors with many of us in isolation from any forms of regular human contact. Understanding the research already successfully conducted on mitigating loneliness for the elderly, how could these methods be simply applied to a wider demographic and audience to help alleviate the feelings of loneliness? Further, how can those affected by loneliness get help if they are not comfortable asking for help or letting it be known they are feeling lonely? 

ANTICIPATED OUTCOME

A system of communication vehicles for people to share how they are feeling, expressing any levels of loneliness, and willingness to help those that have expressed loneliness or suspected of feeling lonely. Possible deliverables to include:

• Pre-designed, printable signs (2 versions: self-indicating, and outreach)

• Social media templates

• Zoom backgrounds

• Instructions on how to make it your own

WHAT IS THE TONE?

Hopeful, inviting, welcoming, friendly

WHAT IS THE CALL TO ACTION?

Share your feelings. Help those that are lonely.

CREATIVE MANDATORIES

Create an easy system for people to share how they are feeling to easily invite help from other people as well as a way for people to share their willingness to help.

TIMLELINE

Two weeks that include six phases:

• Week One: initial outreach, research, and data evaluation

• Week Two: ideation, design, and proposed implementation

ASSETS

All to be created

POTENTIAL BARRIERS AND/OR CONCERNS

Timeline to launch the final system is tight (less than three weeks). A phased approach of deliverables is likely most practical.

SUCCESS METRICS

Web and social analytics, data from initial and follow-up surveys, anecdotal feedback 

RESEARCH

Examine previous studies on addressing loneliness for elderly, survey subjects, use design tools to evaluate responses and identify insights.

REFERENCE:

Clarke, A., (ed) (2017) ‘Chapter 6: Prototyping the Social: Temporary and Speculative Futures at the Intersection of Design and Culture’ in Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 87 – 98. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9781474259057

Clarke, A., (ed) (2017) ‘Chapter 4, Valuable to Values: How ‘User Research’ ought to change’, in Design Anthropology: Object Cultures in Transition, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 53 – 67. Available from: https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9781474259057 

Falmouth University (2018). Visual Writing: Research & Reveal | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

McQuiston, L., (2015) Visual Impact: Creative Dissent in the 21st Century. London: Phaidon. Available from: https://content.talisaspire.com/falmouth/bundles/5c62b80d69df506330522374