Phase 1: Week 4
Development of key theme and areas of interest
This phase of work allows you to develop and refine your project brief and research question, following a review of your work to date. At this stage you also outline the contextual positioning and reasoning for your chosen approach.
Weekly learning objectives 1-4
The phase objectives set are a guide, to help you build confidence and the strength to drive your own project. We want to see a clear project structure and a demonstration of the skills you have developed through modules 1-4.
- What is your research question?
- How might I…?
- Who is this for?
Ideas Wall – Weeks 3-4
Week 4:
Not even coming up with possibles – watch the other lecture again and take notes this time. Something might help…
What am I trying to say with the project?
Be more specific
What’s the value in the project?
A record?
A snapshot of now?
Getting jobs
Losing jobs
Missing out on experiences?
What are people missing out on? And so what?!
Focus on a snapshot and look for existing research and examples.
Is now a significant point in our time, a ‘temporary society’? We can’t avoid the current social situation, so is it a zeitgeist that’s needed?
Narrow down the field, be more specific about the location and who is being asked, what’s even being asked?
Could the research I’m thinking of be used by others, does it have a value?
Looking at challenges faced by society – an anthropological study – an awareness.
Find a problem and design a solution or find a situation and design a way to highlight it?
What’s the question – opinions on current situations of people, to look at mood as an anthropological study.
Who’s mood?
Look at stats from different regions and compare?
Look at stats from different age groups and compare?
Different professions?
What are these stats of and where do I get them?
Find out what it’s like living in different regions and compare them to each other. Compare what: mood, feeling? Something positive and something negative, can I do that again?
Ethnographic research
- Is there a new lifestyle?
- Are communities closer?
- Are some better off than others?
- Compare before and after the main lockdown?
It’s just another survey on the effects of Covid… it that time current enough?
I can’t travel to different regions, I can’t spend time living in these different regions. If I take this information from existing studies then what am I bringing to it other than how it’s presented?
If I’m looking into finding out if there’s ‘A New Lifestyle’ I can’t look around here yet again…
What sectors and why?
Design Industry – Before and after.
Design budgets are often the first things to be cut when a company sees the need to reduce expenses, is design seen as dispensable?
Look at large and small studios to get different perspectives on the question.
But… why am I finding out? What am I proposing to do with that data so that it has that value that we speak about?
If it ends up that it’s the designers who care about the design then who wants to know?
Different research methods
Primary: Questionnaires, interviews, etc.
Secondary: Existing research, publicly available
Ethnographic: Observation/interaction with study participants in their real life environment.
Robson, C., (2002) Real world research: A resource for social scientists and practitioner researchers. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
People and Places
James Mollison
Where Children Sleep – stories of diverse children around the world, told through portraits and pictures of their bedrooms.
An extreme example of a social study as I can’t be off around the world.
What’s the value and to whom?
The Peoples Archive
The archive gives a platform and an important voice to a diverse spectrum of society and communities across the UK. It’s an essential social document that highlights the changes of everyday life, society and culture before the rise of smart phones and social media – by the people who lived through it.
What’s the value and to whom?
Grayson Perry: “We are living through a moment of shock”
The small talk is no longer small. “How are you?” I ask Grayson Perry. There’s a silence at the other end of the phone. “That’s such a loaded question these days, isn’t it?” I can hear the worry in his voice. “I don’t think anyone has ever experienced anything like this before. It’s like being in a sci-fi movie,” he says.
The big questions. What is important? What, really, do they need? What, really, do they want to do?
“What I worry about…is that everything, certainly in my world, feels a little bit irrelevant at the moment.”
Erica Wagner, E., (2020) Grayson Perry: “We are living through a moment of shock” [links to external site]. The New Statesman.
Reality check
The above is a no-go (admitted it at last), no point thrashing out something when you’re not quite sure what it is from the start. If you can’t suss something out in three weeks then…
Reset – move on (and hurry up).
https://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/
https://www.sustrans.org.uk/
https://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/health-calculator
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/
https://www.bikeregister.com/
https://www.cyclinguk.org/
https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/7-reasons-fund-bicycle-infrastructure/268971/
Week 4 Hand-in
Formative Phase Outputs
Week 4 is the formative deadline for your project draft summary, which should include the following:
Draft treatment – One A4 page for studio practice, and history and theory underpinning the MA project. On this page, include a clear research question, with aims, objectives, purpose and audience, that forms the catalyst for your enquiry. You should also outline the type of written submission you will be creating whether it is academic/ research based or entrepreneurial/ business based.
One A4 page critical path outlining the logistics and resourcing plan for the project – bearing in mind that the final output for the project may not be fully resolved.
Almost produced the wrong document for the single A4…
It’s not a 4-page A4 landscape
Research question, aims and objectives, purpose and audience.
How can design be used to encourage the uptake of cycling for commuting, fitness and leisure?
Aims and Objectives
Initial aims are to encourage the public to look at using cycling as a mainstream method of transport by highlighting the benefits to both physical and mental health as well as the environment,
The long-term aim of the project will be to increase the number of people cycling regularly in the UK.
Research objectives include finding out future plans from government set to improve cycling infrastructure in the UK. Comparing them to the successful infrastructures in other European cities and look for ways to improve things further.
To see what other changes might get more people on their bikes. Make cycling simple and safe.
Look at what still puts people off cycling:
- Feeling unsafe on the roads and in cycle lanes?
- Abuse and intimidation from other road users?
- A lack of secure locking points in towns and cities?
Raise awareness of:
- The Cycle to Work Scheme, introduced as a way to buy bikes tax-free, to encourage the use of cycling and as a way of reducing pollution and congestion in towns and cities.
- Cycle lane legislation to both cyclists and non-cyclists, eg. parking in cycle lanes or the shared use of pavements
- The need for regular maintenance of cycle paths, keeping them free of debris and repairing damages areas
Purpose
Addressing the aims and objectives will help reduce bias towards cyclists and address misconceptions around issues such as road positioning and rights of way. They will also make cyclists aware of their responsibility to ride safely.
Increasing public awareness of the benefits of cycling will help reduce the strain on the country’s resources by improving general health, reducing damage to road surfaces and energy conservation.
To keep the momentum of the increasing interest towards cycling.
Audience
Commuters – encourage to cycle rather than drive
Members of the public who may be considering cycling as a way of commuting or keeping fit.
People currently cycling – raise awareness of laws and regulations specific to cycling on UK roads.
Submission Type
The written submission of the project will be an entrepreneurial/ business based submission.
It will be design-led, documenting the outcome and purpose of the developed idea.
Download Draft Treatment PDF
Draft 2
How can design be used to celebrate or spread the word to keep the growing interest in cycling?
Aims and Objectives
Initial aims are to encourage crowds to keep on coming over to experience cycling.
Cycling is a method of transport, a way to improve health, a way to help the environment, a way to meet new people and an exciting sport to watch and to take part in. How can we get even more people on board?
There are two principal directions for the project: create a celebration of the history and culture of cycling from the Brompton Beard to the Yellow Jersey, or work out a way to reach out to people who have yet to be converted: look into future plans from which could make cycling in the UK simpler and safer, find out what puts people off cycling and find ways to win them around. Raise awareness of The Cycle to Work Scheme – just buying a bike could be the problem.
If the direction is to celebrate its culture then look into cycling’s huge demographic, explore its language, the do’s and dont’s of the peloton (and the club riders), the myths and legends, the Grand Tours, the Classics…
Purpose
To promote cycling, either as a culture or a new experience.
- Increase public awareness of the benefits of cycling.
- Reduce bias towards cyclists.
- Make cyclists aware of their responsibility to ride safely.
To keep the momentum of the increasing interest in cycling.
Connections
Connections will vary depending on the direction of the project but during my initial research I plan to reach out to:
Different cycling charities and organisations such as Sustrans, British Cycling and Cycling UK for information on activities, incentives and schemes in place to raise interest and/or safety.
Amateur cycling clubs with possible surveys or questionnaires for opinions on UK cycling issues.
Spokepersons such as Chris Boardman – British Cycling Policy Adviser, Dame Sarah Storey – British Cycling Policy Advocate and Will Norman – London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner for information and feedback.
Audience
- People who cycle
- People who follow the sport of cycling
- People who don’t cycle but would like to
- People who don’t cycle and don’t know what they’re missing
Submission Type
The outcome of the project could be a product, a publication or an event, therefore my written submission will be an entrepreneurial/ business based document as a proposal or plan of action to take the project through to completion.
After Stuart’s tutorial I’ve re-written the draft to sound less formal – to sound more exciting than the stuffy grey survey it was starting to sound like. I’ve mentioned the two options for the direction of the project, both of them can lead to a better design-led project.
Quick list of connection reminders:
Dave Mellor (Dave Mellor Cycles) – son was on the Rapha Condor Sharp pro team, recently a mechanic for EF Education First pro team team.
Chris Boardman came to Paramount (cycling club) and gave a talk – approachable.
Details/items from our London to Paris 24hrs.
Joanna Rowsell Shand MBE (Olympic track and road) – family live locally?
Other shropshire cycling clubs – find out names from friends: Shrewsbury, Wrekin, Newport x2, NSW, Bridgnorth, others?
Draft Submissions
Click image to download PDF.
Reflection
Much more relaxed after the change of direction. A couple of approaches to take keeps things more open and exciting to see what turns up during the next stage.
The research formalities have seemed pretty time consuming, more than expected. A gradual introduction during other modules where primary research was needed for a project would have made it more familiar, less daunting. It’s likely to be reasonably straightforward, but this first attempt feels more like an obstacle we need to get to understand, a distraction from the project rather than part of it.
I found the critical path the hardest to do, it will definitely need re-addressing. It has, however, helped me in making the choice of direction to take the project.
Feedback – not unexpected I suppose
Yes, it’s vague. I’m still in an either/or position. There are issues like safety, investment (or lack of), demographic balance, etc. Are these issues too obvious to tackle? They’re not new issues but there’s maybe a new solution to find – that might make them interesting to go for.
