Fourth session¶
When? 20th November 2023
Who? Roger Guilemany and Jana Tothill
What? A collective design action with humans and/or non-humans
Contents¶
The contents we were given in the fourth design studio session revolved around “reflection as a design tool”. They way I understood it the most was with the following tool:
After we complete an intervention or a design or a project, it is crucial to go through the process of reflection. To reflect means to learn, to look back and to ask questions to yourself in order to go forward.
In our course we have many ways of reflecting and they are structred in 3 levels:
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deliverables → reflective diary
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feedback/reviews → reflective critique
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design studio → reflective dialogue
With that in mind, we had to go back to the collective design space and add/move/take out the papers and threads according to our reflection after the first intervention.
Once this was done we had to form new groups to create the second collective intervention.
Deliverable/Intervention¶
My group was made by Carmen, Sophie and myself. We started talking about our interests and ended up writting a Collective Design Space to have a clearer vision of our common interests.
Our intervention involved all the members of our class and some of our friends outside the master.
The aim of the exercise was to make people think about their digital identity, how are we perceived on the internet?
1- We asked our classmates for permission to show their Instagram profiles to our friends.
2- We created a survey with very specific and limited response questions in order to have the same model with everyone.
3- We showed the 18 profiles to our friends, each profile was analyzed only once. They had to answer the survey while analyzing the profile.
4- We collected all the data about the profiles and put them in anonymous card format, in order to set up the game.
5- We asked people in the class to try to identify themselves with one of the profiles we had hung on the wall. When they identified themselves they had to paste their picture on the card.
6- We revealed the final solution of the people to whom the profiles corresponded, and recorded their reactions.
7- We conducted interviews to find out if they identified with the description our friends had made of them.
Reflection¶
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Biases in Answers: It’s important to know that the people giving opinions might have their own personal preferences or views. We should tell them about this before the activity so that everyone understands that the results might be a bit one-sided.
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Missing Political Question: We forgot to ask about people’s political views, and that could have been interesting. Even though it’s a tricky topic, it can tell us a lot about how people see each other online.
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Limited Questions and Similar Answers: The questions we asked had only a few possible answers, making everyone’s profiles seem kind of the same. It would be better to have more varied questions that let people share more about themselves.
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Class Reactions: The coolest part was seeing how everyone reacted when we showed them what others thought about them. This made everyone think about how they present themselves online and what others might think.
In the future, we can make the questions more open-ended and talk about possible biases before starting. We could also try asking about political views, even if it’s a bit tricky. This exercise was great for making us think about how we come across online and how others see us.
What now?¶
➔ what would you like to learn more about, related to this project or issue?
The mental health implications there can be when we talk about digital identity. Many people aren’t aware they are creating a digital identity when using social media, but it’s intrinsic in the use of these platforms. Whether we want it or not, they way we are perceived by others can affect our mental health and I would like to learn more about the implications it can have to our well-being.
➔ what follow-up is needed to address any challenges or difficulties?
Maybe a previous conversation with the people involved on the topic, so we can also analyze the mental process happening when they discover how they are being perceived by others.
➔ if you could do the project again, what would you do differently?
After doing the exercise, I would change some questions of the survey and also the way we approached people’s reactions to their digital profile. I think many people took it as a game and many reflections were lost by approaching it like a fun thing and now like an exercise of self-reflection.
➔ how will your efforts on this project contribute to your career?
I think I’m shaping a path on my career that doesn’t have a clear end, but that is visibly touching some social and contemporary issues like mental health and life in the digital era.
➔ how can society better address the problem from the project?
It’s a complex issue to address because it’s a big one, I think the first step is to reflect on it and make people aware of it. From here, we could redesign the way we use social media or how social media is designed in order to reduce the negative impact in can have in our mental health and self-esteem.
➔ where do you go from here? What is the next step in the process?
I don’t know where I’m going from this. At the moment I want to keep exploring a little bit, not close any doors and continue shaping my path.