Post 10: Constructive Idea Discussion

By Basilia Dulawan

Reflection + Summary

Sharing my draft proposal with a few peers as well as Jacquie was a really beneficial exercise as it challenged me to think about how I would actually approach the design proposition, what parameters I needed to include, and shown what needed to be stronger in my proposition.

Initially the generative system I proposed was going to rely on data generated from Twitter, catching tweets that used the phrases “He is a…” or “She is a…”, but the problem that Jacquie highlighted was that it was too generic and the responses can be taken out of context. Jacquie suggested that I instead create a survey with a series of semi-specific questions that participants can answer. Additionally, to avoid skewing the results toward people who share similar mindsets to me, it was raised that I shouldn’t just post this on my Facebook page, but use Reddit and other survey forums to allow a greater variety of people to respond. This was a critical realisation for me as I wanted to be able to produce a variety of honest answers, but didn’t think beyond the way in which I know how to scrape the web for data, which is Twitter. The next challenge was writing semi-specific questions that didn’t probe at a certain response.

Another key moment that came out of this discussion was Jacquie suggesting that I speak to Chris Gaul and Thomas Ricciardiello about ways in which I could make the generative system update in real-time, and use processing to make sense of the data generated. Overall, through this discussion I was able to distill what it is I wanted to investigate further, and how my proposition would respond to this.

Presentation

Project Title: RE-THINK.

Practice Type: Generative System (with a side of Data Visualisation)

The Issue: Gender Inequality in Language

The Possible Change: Awareness about the gender inequalities that exist in society’s everyday language and the realisation that it is through language that we support the continuation of Gender Inequality. With this awareness, people can make a conscious change in the words they choose to use toward Women and Men.

Design Action to support change:

A key moment in my research was listening to filmmaker and documentarian Lauren Greenfield emphasise the power of words, and how they shape the development of young girls. I was particularly inspired by her work for Always with the initial #LikeAGirl Campaign which she aimed to change the perception of the ‘Like A Girl’ phrase, from an insult to an empowering compliment that girl’s can own. Coupled with another key finding of the way in which we raise boys and girls that made me question – Why is it that society raises boys to be brave, but girls to be cautious, and lady-like?

The common element throughout my research was, language. How women refer to other women, how women refer to men, how men refer to women, how men refer to other men and how we describe ourselves. For my design proposition I want to explore gendered language, and how it is used, if used, by 18-25yr olds on social media. I aim to create a generative system that aggregates data/user responses, then visually plots these words on screen. As the data grows over time, the visual produced will update in real time – increasing the size of words that are more commonly used, plotting new words and changing the colour of the text depending on what gender it was used to describe. What I am hoping to achieve is a visual that illustrates the gendered language we as 18-25yr olds use, and with this, bring an awareness to the change that needs to occur in our everyday interactions simply by the language we choose to use. I hope that this generative system that can be visited online, makes everyone – specifically 18-25yr olds, more aware of the words that support the continuation of Gender Inequality and thus more conscious about the words they choose to use toward men and women.

Post 10: Hope and determination

By Erland Howden

Design proposition

Title: Hope & determination

Practice: Data visualisation and generative design

Issue: Asylum seekers and refugees

Possible change: Targeted at changing Australian attitudes toward asylum seekers and demonstrating to decision-makers, such as the Immigration Minister, that significant support exists in the Australian community for a change to more welcoming and compassionate policies around asylum seeker claims and resettlement of refugees.

Design action: A poster series to be distributed to local pro-refugee organisations that highlights one person or family each who has resettled or is claiming asylum in Australia. The posters would display an image representing the asylum seeker and an aspect of the person’s story chosen to engender compassion and empathy in the audience, with a clear message advocating a change in asylum seeker policy.

The scholarly research I conducted has strongly influenced this design proposal. One paper in particular investigated determinants of attitudes to asylum seekers and suggested that, “encouraging people to adopt a macro justice perspective may be a useful addition to community interventions.” (Anderson et al 2015) With this in mind, the policy change messages for the poster series would be designed to prompt a macro justice perspective. For example, they might include phrases along the lines of, ‘everyone deserves a chance to live in safety.’

The posters fit into the emergent practice of data visualisation in that they apply designerly thinking to visualise the data of asylum seeker stories, which have been collected by organisations such as the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and GetUp, or published by news organisations such as The Guardian. Further to this, there is another element to my proposal that brings in an aspect of generative design – the poster series would also incorporate a template design that local pro-refugee organisations could use to highlight the stories of refugees and asylum seekers they are directly working with. In this way, the design proposition becomes something that applies research to create communications more likely to change attitudes, while being localised and as relevant as possible to the audience.

Feedback

In discussing this proposal, the key feedback I received was around fleshing out the generative aspect of the proposal. Originally, I just wanted to create a strict template and guidelines for the poster, but since discussing the proposal with my group, I’ve been exploring ways to make the generative aspect more open and able to accommodate more diverse outcomes. For example, rather than creating a strict guide for photographic portraits, I was thinking that space could be created for a variety of images that might represent the person whose story is being told, like an artwork they created or an alternative photographic treatment. Additionally, rather than a strict print poster series, which might have limited uptake from under-resourced community organisations, I’ve been considering a digital template which could be used on websites and social media that delivers the same outcome in different media.

Featured image: US Department of Defense 1975, ‘South China Sea’, US National Archives / Flickr, viewed 27 September 2016, <https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/23123589306 >.

Anderson, J.R., Stuart, A. & Rossen, I. 2015, ‘Not all negative: Macro justice principles predict positive attitudes towards asylum seekers in Australia’, Australian Journal of Psychology, vol. 67, no. 4, pp. 207-213.

Post 10 -Reflection and proposition

Before the discussion on my proposal that I had with my peer Liz, I was already a little unsure of what I was creating, or what my actual outcome was to be. Through further research before the session, I had discovered or rather specified exactly what was my specific issue dealing with 18-25 year olds, and what I wasn’t the outcome to do.

It was clear through research that the monitoring and data collection wasn’t going to end or let up any time soon, especially not with the inclusion of the Internet of Things. And so rather than designing a possibility to end the monitoring on wither end, it was decided that my proposal was aiming at creating awareness of the increased privacy issues, and get round adults to spread the word or understand the Internet of Things. Thus, my proposal was to create awareness, to educate, or to inform.

I didn’t exactly have an actual proposal idea to run through with my peer in the class session. I had a few ideas floating around that I had picked out from the brainstorming session around the 5 possibilities to create change, however I wasn’t sold on a particular one. And so, in the session with Liz, I decided to quickly run through my 5 ideas–quite briefly–and figure out if a particular one caught her eye.

None really did, or they weren’t at a point to yet.

However she was quite startled and intrigued by a story I told her that I founding a news article. Basically, the gist of the story was that a young woman had extremely private and intimate personal data collected from a product of hers, when she had no idea she was being monitored. This snippet sparked both our interests, as it really portrayed the idea that public entities such as business and companies can collected very private data from us without our knowledge, in very private settings and environments. Who knew that you could be monitored through products in your house or bedroom.

Even thought I didn’t have an exact proposal, she did give me some advice and feedback on the ones that I did have, and brainstormed other ideas with me.

The first piece of information the she gave me was that she like the idea of creating awareness or informing the generation of the lack of privacy. We both felt that the monitoring wasn’t going to stop, and luckily she agreed with me. And so this now became the focus of what I wanted my system or design to do ultimately.

Due to the short story that I had told her, and the fact that she was quite shocked by the invasive nature, she felt that it could be a good idea to focus on a specific set of data to help ground the proposal or make it more emotional. While being specific like personal details could have worked, she suggested that I look into creating a proposal around the really private data that we have, such as in the story told. This notion also helped to develop my proposal as there are lots of ways that we give out private data, however most of the time we know we are giving it out. So I thought it could b interesting to focus on the times that we are unaware that we are providing private and personal data, such as in the Internet of Things.

Another piece of information or critique that Liz provided to me was to place whatever my issue or proposal was, into a real world content. Place it in an area, a time, a place, a social setting. And that way, whatever my proposal ends up to be, it will be relatable to the generation or audience the tis it being designed for. Immediately, this made me think of social media and anything online, and also of the bedroom. People always say, or at least imply, that our bedrooms are a visual expression of who we are; our interests, loves, personalities etc. So why not place my proposal in the context of the bedroom and online. There isn’t one person that I don’t know that doesn’t use their phone at least once a day in their bedroom, or doesn’t use a single piece of technology or a product daily. If I had to look around my room, I would at least see a computer, a laptop, an iPad, iPod, phone, Nintendo 3DS, Wacom tablet etc. So it’s fair to say that this setting could work effectively for my target audience.

The final piece of information that we discussed was another port of WHY? Why was I wanting to create something like this? Why were they to interact with it? Why was I thinking of a service design over any of the other emergent practices? The gist of our conversation was that I want people to care. Care about their privacy, care about what information they are putting out there, and care about who is viewing it. So along with the basis of informing the audience or making them aware of the Internet of Things, I really wanted to find a way to make them care.

This session was very helpful as I was able to get another brain on my issue. I could work out if things were working and whether I was in a correct direction, or if I had completely lost the plot. It also taught me (again!) that everybody thinks differently. What I figure could be an excellent idea, could be terrible for someone else or vice versa. I understand exactly now why there is usually user testing and prototyping along the way for all projects.

So now for my revised proposal—

Growing up in the age of Technology, 18-25 year olds have witnessed the rise of the Internet and its wide spread use. And in todays society we are being introduced to the Internet of Things, a system where all devices and products will have the ability to connect to the Internet and feed information to their suppliers and companies. However, users this age aren’t aware of the Internet of Things or its increased invasion of privacy. While they don’t necessarily care about their online privacy, they know what personal information should or shouldn’t be posted. The problem becomes the increased invasion of data monitoring with which we are unaware of in public and private spaces.

Since the internet is so ingrained in our daily lives, ending the data collection and monitoring isn’t a possibility. Instead, the change would be to create awareness and inform this generation of the increased potential for data monitoring with the inclusion of the Internet of Things. The change should get them to think differently about the Internet of Things and what products could be linked and connected, as well as how they interact with their private and personal environments. The change should start a conversation between this generation, for them to continue to spread the word.

Which brings me to my possible design action. The Unseen, or Unseen Connections (the name is pending), is a service design that aims to create change. The proposal is an augmented reality app that shows or reveals the unseen connections that products and devices have to the Internet of Things. The user could be introduced to the app through a social media hashtag that sets up the campaign and encourages them to see their ‘home’s Internet of Things’. After answering a few questions, and inputing parameters for daily use, the app then accesses the phones camera and superimposes graphics and lines over the real life image. The app reveals what devices are or could be connected, revealing to the user the possibility for data monitoring and collection. After this, the app also provides tips of ensuring your privacy in the Internet of Things, especially your bedroom, based on the results seen in the camera. From here, the user is then encouraged to continue the conversation, and spread a link or the hashtag to their friends and peers on social media. Reveal the connections, be informed or shocked, and spread the word.

BLOG X

Reflection on draft proposal feedback

In my feedback session with my colleague I proposed my draft with a number of options for the final outcome, with different options all based on the general concept of providing information and awareness of the cause and acting as a support organisation. We evaluated the different outcomes and decided that it needed to focus on the positive value of the matter, that paternity leave is a great experience for fathers, and promote this fact in an easy going and light hearted way. Therefore, the ‘Daddy Showers’ showed to be the best option, as it seemed to give an opportunity to reach out to the audience in a way that was high impact, low cost and could communicate the values we wanted to push in the target audience.

The question my colleague raised was how to actually attract your audience to attend these events. This made me realise that the detail of how this event is executed is very important, the employees won’t necessarily turn up just because their employers are sponsoring it. We discussed a few different scenarios where attractions like food and beverage or entertainment could gain attendance. We imagined themes like barbecue and beers or sporting events most effective as attractions, despite these all being representative of traditional gender stereotypes.

Proposal – Daddy Showers

In Australia today, fathers with new born babies gets no entitlement specific leave from the government after the birth of their baby. Long lasting and sustainable change to law is a difficult and slow process, for this reason the most efficient and effective stakeholder to target to effect change in this case is the employers. They have both the most to gain from a change in behaviour and the most effect on the attitudes of their employees. It’s apparent that the number one reason for men not taking this type of leave is fear of reprisal from their employer. If this culture can be changed, the rate of male parental leave will increase drastically, and a more gender equal society will follow.

The idea of Daddy Showering is to bring attention to upcoming or existing fathers, and the importance of their role as a care taker in their child’s early life. The ‘Daddy Shower’ will identify as a service design and will be working in collaboration together with progressive employers who would like to achieve gender equity in their work place. Sponsored by volunteering companies and employers, the service organises hosted events where information about the issue and the benefits of taking paternity leave is communicated to the public.

The key challenge with this event is to remove the typically feminine image of paternity leave and indeed of the role of caring for children in the early stages of their lives. To do this it is crucial that the event maintains a typically masculine tone while also communicating important issues and breaking down stereotypes. An interesting case study of how this could be delivered is the extremely successful Movember Campaign, which has used the typically masculine concept of growing a moustache to normalise discussion of men’s health issues. Ideally the tone, as well as the look and feel of this event would mirror this and allow men to discuss and approach these issues in a comfortable and welcoming environment.

By Camilla Ahlström

post 10: design proposition

reflection

After explaining my design proposal a number of questions were raised on whether my idea was ethically suitable for what I was trying to achieve. My concept revolved around diminishing the idea of judgements, assumptions and stereotypes through the use of choosing an option that would inform the user whether or not the story was relating to a homeless person. Thus creating a realisation for the user that their initial thoughts are not what they seem. In doing this, the design of the proposal puts the user on the spot and judges them as well, not keeping in mind the homeless person being judged also. As this was not my aim, I took a different turn with my interaction.

One thing that was not made clear through my proposal was the interaction process to reach to a result. I was advised to take a further look into the interaction process of how the design would work and how it can be further designed to be a generative design.
After listening to my groups proposals I felt that my idea was lacking what I was originally trying to achieve. Even though are ideas may be different in regards to context the outcome of what we are all trying to achieve are similar.

To further push my concepts, my group suggested to continue to research into homelessness on digital platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, online articles/stories) that can inspire me to push through my idea.

draft design proposal

I initially started researching how to prevent homelessness amongst. Gradually, my research led me to notice a strong trail of misconceptions and the harsh realities of homelessness. At this point it was a scary realisation that the world views homeless in such negative and hopeless way. My research took a turn in paths after we did the data scrapping. Through this research it further conveyed the misconceptions and little knowledge that the public had on homeless people. Finally I took an interest into how society relies of face value to determine if someone is homeless or not rather than having an open mind and look deeper into their situation.

project title.
Its not what it seems

practice type.
Generative Design

the issue.
In today’s society the youth of the public have become desensitised to social issues while keeping themselves at first thought. This has resulted in members of society to have misconceptions about homelessness and take it for face value. Factors such as appearances, assumptions, media, film, and first impressions play a major part into how society perceives the homeless community. The first thing that enters a persons mind upon passing a homeless person is the stereotypical thoughts that this person may have a drug and alcohol addiction or they haven’t showered or groomed themselves in a long time. But what people don’t know is that these people are humans just like everyone in the world. Some of which are educated, have a job but are not in the best situation at the moment. Complex issue

possible change.
To break the stereotypes and multilayered assumptions the youth have on the homeless community by keeping an open mind and view complexities of a situation that it is not what it seems.

the design action to support the change.
An interactive board will be erected in well populated areas where the youth are likely to thrive (university campuses, shopping centres). From this the board will consist of an image library of real homeless people who may look successful and financially stable but are struggling with their lives. The user will be unaware of their situation until they take a closer look into their lives. It will continue showing a slideshow of images until the user has picked a photo to view. Here the user will take a closer look into the life of the current persona chosen in the image. For example, two friends are shown in a coffee shop, one of which is homeless. In order to get around her daily life she is couch surfing at her friend’s house with a history of domestic violence. In addition, she’s a migrant and is not eligible for any housing. From this users are able to see that homelessness is not what they think is it. Appearance plays an important role with how people view and judge homeless people.

further feedback

Upon refining my draft proposal and receiving feedback from my group, there were some points to take a closer look at. These are as follows:

My tutor Simone, pointed out that the user is very passive by only clicking things and suggested that things need to be interactive in order for this design to work
I needed to create an active presence and discover other ways to reveal the stories in a positive and engaging way
They also suggested trying to imagine engaging with the design and how it can be shifted in a space
They also pointed out that maybe an interactive board was not the best option to achieve my design proposition

From this I was able to veer into a different path to create a physical interaction rather than using an interactive board.

design proposal

title.
Behind the Curtain

project type.
Generative Design

issue.
In today’s society, the youth of the public have become desensitised to social issues while keeping themselves at first thought. As a result, misconceptions about homelessness have been taken out of context and is viewed by first impressions lead by the current stereotypes. Factors such as appearances, assumptions, media, film, and first impressions play a major part into how society perceives the homeless community. The first thing that enters a persons mind upon passing a homeless person is the stereotypical thoughts that this person may have a drug and alcohol addiction or have put themselves in that position and aren’t doing anything to remove themselves from their current situation. But what people don’t know is that these people are humans just like everyone in the world. Some of which are educated, have a job but are not in the best situation at the moment.

possible change.
To break the stereotypes and the multilayered assumptions the youth have on the homeless community by keeping an open mind and view the complexities of a situation that it is not what it seems. As well as having a better understanding about the issue, users will develop empathetic feelings towards homeless people in the hopes to take action and make a change in the homeless community and how they generally perceive homeless people. This will also generate a sense of hope that will be reflective from their experience.

the design action to support the change:
A seating arrangement situated in a university setting where an individual or a group of people converse with someone (homeless participant) who is behind a curtain. A set of instructions will be laid out on the table and a set of rules on how to participate with this design. It will prompt them to have an open mind and must solve a riddle to continue forward. Playing on the idea that there is more than what meets the eye, the user will have a normal conversation with them that leads to the revelation that they are conversing with a homeless person. Once the curtain is pulled away they are given a chance to see each other and reflect on their thoughts of their first impressions. Can the conversation between the user and homeless participant change their perceptions before looking at them? This will be followed with a written entry of what they’ve learnt from their experience, that will be displayed for other people to view.

image of how the user will interact with the design

image of how the user will interact with the design – the big reveal.

Post 10: Reflection and proposition

Written by Meiying Lin

Reflection on draft proposal

In discussing my draft proposal, the key feedback I got was to suggest me focus more on my point collect system instead of the food event, as the point collect system sound more feasible. Originally, I thought a food event at school could create more fun for students and provide students more options of food choice at school. However, to eat healthy at school is not enough to correct their eating habits, they should seek out healthy options for themselves in whatever environment they are in, even in school holidays. Moreover, the event did not clear the boundary between unhealthy food, healthy food, and whole food. For instances, the fats used in salad dressing are necessarily healthy fats. There is still much need to refine and improve.

On the other hand, my point collect system has a lot of merits. As this system can work in a various environment, rather than just in school. Apps can provide more information to users such as the location of the restaurant, the menu of the restaurant and the fat used on food. It is more flexible and doable. In conclusion, I think I should build my entire proposal, and used the food event might be a good idea as a one-off activities that travels around to different schools as part of the initial promotion of the idea.

Base on my reflection, I came up with this revised proposition below.

Revised proposal

111

Project title
Grwin
Eat green to win!

Project type
Services Design

The issue
Due to lack of regulation of unhealthy fast food advertising and various advantages of fast food, fast food industry are extremely successful. Nowadays, fast food advertisements are everywhere on social media, especially on Facebook and Instagram. With it low price and convenience, more and more adolescents and young adults prefer to eat fast food even they aware it is unhealthy. On the other hand, the boundary between healthy and unhealthy food are unclear. The label on food packaging and advertising such as ‘sugar-free’, ‘organic’ and ’98% less fat’ are very common. However, are they really that healthy?

In order to encourage people to continuously eat healthy food and correct their eating habits, and provide people a guide to finding and have healthy food, the Grwin project is here to help!

Target audience
Adolescents and young adults, especially high school students and university students who need to eat out and have the ability to pay a small amount of money for their food.
Students who want to save money on food.
Students who love healthy food and/or don’t know where to find healthy food.

The insight
To promote whole/healthy food.
To give people direction of finding healthy food.
To incentivise people to eat whole food as well rather than just ‘healthier’ fast food. (i.e. the fats used in salad dressings are not necessarily healthy fats)
To encourage adolescent and young adults to eat healthily.
To help people build a healthy eating habit

Possible change
More people know where to find healthy food and whole food.
People loved to eat healthy food and whole food when they eat out.
People willing to continue eating healthy food and whole food and form a good eating habit.

What is Grwin?
Grwin is a point collect system that will be visualise as a mobile application. Anyone can download this application for free and with your name, email address and location for registration. Restaurant and school canteen that support Grwin project will be shown on the application, however, only healthy food and whole food can gain points. For example, a school canteen that joined Grwin project sell hash brown and fruit salad, the user won’t gain any point for purchasing a hash brown, but a fruit salad will. In order to incentivise people to eat whole food rather than just ‘healthier’ food, more point can be gained by purchasing whole food. The healthier you eat, the more you gain! For example, a garden salad could gain more points than a chicken salad. Points can be exchanged to discount coupon for your next healthy meal. The aim of this reward is to help people build a healthy eating habit.

Design action
1. The restaurant that supports Grwin can stick a Grwin door sticker on their door or windows. (like Zomato)

2. The restaurant can use their existed menu and stick a small Grwin sticker with reward point next to food that’s healthy. Grwin is happy to provide free sticker for the restaurant that supports Grwin.
3. For the restaurant don’t have healthy food yet but willing to join Grwin and restaurant don’t want to change their current menu can create a new Grwin special menu that only has healthy food and whole food.
4. The application user can see the restaurant that supports Grwin and their menu on the application. Only healthy food will display on the app’s menu. The exactly calorie and amount of sugar, salt and fat will be displayed as well.
* Grwin will need the test all Grwin food included the calorie and the amount of sugar, salt and fat of food in order to provide Grwin user an absolutely healthy menu.

What’s more?
Grwin project is more than just an app, we also provide an event – Grwin Festival. Grwin Festival is a one-off event that only sells healthy food and whole food, and will be a travels around to different schools (area) as part of the initial promotion. The restaurant that supports Grwin are welcome to have a stall for themselves to promote their business and Grwin!

POST 10: Reflection and proposition

The draft proposal workshop was great, and highlighted a number of issues and opportunities with my proposition. Speaking briefly to my tutor I quickly realised that I would be unable to get administrative access to the Visual Communication and Emergent Practice Blog. After this, the workshop quickly turned into a brainstorming and rapid prototyping session. In reading out my ideas from the previous week to my partner we both felt that the application that converted complicated terms of service agreements into plain text would have the most value as a design proposition. We brainstormed some ideas around this, and developed the idea into a browser extension with a set of coloured icons that would reflect a site’s privacy policies in relation to specific areas of online privacy. We were able to come up with this idea much faster than in previous weeks because tasks 3A and 3B were finally explained to us. This was useful, but also extremely frustrating as would have been valuable to have this information earlier so I could have better shaped the research I conducted for the blog. This lack of communication has really detracted from my experience with the subject.

Proposal

Users are generally unaware of how much information they contribute, either willingly or unwilling to online services. To help users understand how much data is being collected about them, I plan to create a service that simplifies deliberately complex terms of service contracts into easily understandable icons similar to those used in creative commons licensing. This icon set will breakdown the key terms that companies often obscure in complex legal documents, to help users better understand how their privacy is being affected. Some possible icons include: collection of personal and activity data, 1^st and 3^rd party data storage, selling of data and data ownership. These icons will be made open source to not only increase awareness of deceptive data practices but also create a framework for protecting privacy in the digital age. In addition to this, the service will also include the development of a website and browser extension designed to popularise the use of the icons. This website will work across desktop and mobile devices to provide an index of popular sites with their privacy policies broken down into icons and short descriptors. What’s more, the website will also act as a portal for users to suggest sites to be indexed and while also providing ways for them to aid in the development of the program. In addition, to this the website, the service will also include the development of a browser extension, which will provide users with real time information about the privacy policies of the site they’re currently visiting. Unfortunately owing to the more restrictive mobile ecosystem, this extension will be desktop only, which is disappointing given the popularity of mobile browsing. Despite this, the service’s icon set and accompanying web presence will help raise awareness within the target market of poor privacy practices while simultaneously providing a framework to promote greater transparency.

Blog Post 8: Humanising Design Solutions

My research has informed a broader understanding of issues related to refugees and asylum seekers.

I’ve explored the complexity of this area through a variety of institutional and individual perspectives, particularly those of the government, media, and the broader community. A large part of my research has involved researching the experiences of detainees through their self-published media, as I believe that it’s these personal connections and relationships which have the ability to shift public consciousness and lead to change.

Problem Statement:
Since the early 2000s, the Australian government and the media have politicized refugee and asylum seeker issues. Our government and current legal system have endorsed a societal complacency in relation to these issues, through the introduction of policies like mandatory offshore processing and media blackouts within detention centres. Our media, often referring to and depicting asylum seekers as ‘swarms’ and ‘masses’ have successfully alienated them from Australian society, to the point where the majority of Australians believe that they are unworthy of our protection. If racist attitudes towards those seeking asylum aren’t challenged, these attitudes permeate within our society and will further normalize amongst a larger proportion of the community.

Solution
In my project I hope to shift public perceptions and attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers by focusing on refugees’ subjectivity, recognizing and acknowledging the sense of identity they have had taken from them.
I would like to explore a design solution that brings a sense of tangibility to the experiences of refugees who are too often overlooked and sidelined.

One way to convey this would be to compare lives of refugees in detention to those of people in Australia. When I was looking at Twitter accounts of refugees in offshore detention centres, it occurred to me how limited their daily experience is. One way to visualise the lack of activity and stimulation experiences by detainees and asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus might be to look at how people attempt to deal with the boredom and mundanity of detention. This could be explored through posts made by asylum seekers on Twitter, which provide an insight into objects and ideas in their daily routine. These posts highlight how people in indefinite detention struggle to find ways to navigate the sense of limbo that characterises their situation. These insights are rarely communicated in traditional media, thereby, thereby, affirming detainees’ humanity.
Another more tangible option would be a comparison of of physical space and the torment that people go through when they are fleeing persecution, for instance making a model of the size of the boat in the Tampa incident (2001), or the houses which are in Manus and Nauru. This might be visualized through pieces of paper or a physical measurement of the space.

It is our responsibility to engage with these issues as they concern fundamental human rights: to live free from persecution, to self-expression and fulfillment, and to seek asylum when these rights are curtailed.

Summarising what I’ve learnt, not only by doing this blog post but through the entirety of my research (to five simple points):

The extent to which media content is informed by its political context.
The effect the media and government have had on the narratives related to refugee and asylum seeker issues.
A dehumanizing portrayal of refugees can lead to fear and disengagement within the public.
Refugees and asylum seekers in detention have used twitter as a platform to express counter narratives to mainstream media.
Tangible experiences allow audiences to greater relate to an issue and the human experiences behind that issue.

Image Reference:
Wallman, S, Unselfconscious Space (2014)

Post Eight: The Proposal

Online privacy and data surveillance is such broad topic but almost all aspects of it intertwine with the lives of 18-25 year olds on a daily basis be it positively or negatively. The issue that stands out the most for me is online privacy in terms of scam emails and online fraud. To investigate this issue further, I made use of one of IDEO’s brainstorming methods and broke the issue down into the following categories: who, what, when, where and why. This process enabled me to compose a relevant proposition/statement that succinctly summarised the issue.

Who: the elderly, users with less computing knowledge and users that aren’t aware of the consequences

What: the boundaries are lack of awareness, wishful thinking, well-designed emails that look legitimate. If fixed there would be significantly less online fraud, less identity theft. If the issue is left unsolved more and more internet users will continue to be scammed, many unaware that they are the victim.

When: online scamming and email scamming occurs all the time with these emails becoming more and more believable with new technologies. Therefore the issue needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

Where: occurs all over the world to people with email accounts and adequate internet access (and in this technological age, there are a lot of email users). In terms of where physically, it occurs on laptops, computers, iPads/tablets and smartphones.

Why: the issue is important to fix to ensure people stop getting scammed. For regular home users, it would save them money and diminish fear. For corporate companies that have been mimicked in these scams it would help them regain the trust of their client base especially for those that were successfully scammed in the past. For hackers or the people that create the scams, it would put an end to their ‘business’ for the good of the community.

Proposition
Un-educated online users are getting scammed daily through emails and fake advertisements leading to avoidable fraud and identity theft.

Five point summary of possiblities

Email preview before clicking on the actual email. This would allow users to preview the email and determine whether or not a scam is present without getting a virus.
Website that shows the recent scams circulating so you know not to click on a certain email. Although this idea does currently exist, the layout and design of it is not clear or cohesive. It is also not updated as regularly as it should be.
Creating a site or you send the email to, it will then confirm its ‘scam status’. This will give users peace of mind, as they do not have to open the email themselves, but simply forward it on and await a response from a secure site as to whether or not they should open it or follow the links included in the email.
Generating an automatic email warning/sound for the account to play when you receive an email from an unknown sender. Although this would definitely alert the user when they receive an unknown email, it could prove to be quite annoying, especially for those who receive high numbers of emails per day.
Creating a site that displays all the warning signs to a scam email. This idea seems like it has the most potential. Should be made easy to navigate with minimalist icons and symbols while also explaining in-depth the warning signs of a scam email.

The purpose of this task is to identify possible ways that I could make a difference or contribute to change through my issue for 18-25 year olds. However, it was only after completing this brainstorming session and the mapping exercise (refer to post nine) that I realised the audience for my proposition does not match the target 18-25 year old group we are designing for. Upon realising this, I have decided to still focus on online users but lean towards the increasing cases of online fraud caused by websites (mainly airline and hotels) storing cookies.

I have altered my design proposition to the following:
Un-educated young adults are increasingly getting scammed online as they are unaware of web cookies and how they work to store information alongside their browsing history which continually pumps up prices especially on airline and hotel websites.

Header image:
Amazon 2016, Stills from The Proposal, viewed 20 September 2016, <https://www.amazon.com/Proposal-Two-Disc-Deluxe-Digital-Copy/dp/B002K0WBY6>.

By Chloe Schumacher

Post 8: Brainstorming possibilities – reflect the situation of women in the current century

By Yu Zhang

Introduction:

After the previous research exercise, we collected lots of information and data about mental health, and everyone start has their own specific actor to develop their views of the issue further. At this stage, we started brainstorming the possibilities of mental health and consider the methods of our own visual design responses. Look at my previous blog posts with those research and maps, I decided to develop visual design responses that base on Sexual Assault, use different comments and emotion as the elements to reflect on this issue by visual metaphor. Also, engage with my 3 positions: awareness, fear and external factors. However, the brainstorming exercise helps me to understand further about the issue while exploring the ideas of visual design responses.

The brainstorming exercise started with 5 questions that guide us to develop our own problem statement with the issue. The tutors encourage us to be as specific as possible when we answer those questions. It’s very difficult to answer these questions after you collected massive data from the previous exercises, but it’s the pathway to guide us to prepare the draft proposal.

The Problem: Sexual Assault

1.Who does the problem affect?

The stakeholders of this problem are women, especially teenagers, young adults and housewife around age 15-35. Criminals are mostly target on the women who looks young, beautiful, sexy and soft to satisfy their desire.

What are the boundaries of the problem?

The women who lack of knowledge about how to protect themselves in public place, how to seek help from family and community, and how to release the negative thoughts and emotion after the case happened. The man who lack of awareness about the equality of men and women, contain the desire and thoughtfully consider the harm to women. The government lack of capacity on security, policies of women rights and education of prevention.

When does the problem occur? When does it need to be fixed?
The problem occurred since human born in the earth, but the society just started to pay attention to this problem since the 1600s by providing some limited protection from laws and security. In the current century, most of people still blind about the consequence of Sexual Assault that can promote serious problems of society, because of the education still not pay enough attention to the prevention self-protection and release negative emotion of Sexual Assault. On the other hand, this problem is impossible to be fully fixed because of the quality of education and security are not able to be consistent anywhere anytime, it will cost lots of human Resources and material resources which is not realistic. But decrease the rate of the issue as soon as possible is definitely necessary.

Where is the problem occur?

In normal life, the problem happened at somewhere that’s lack of people. For example, small corridor around the city, narrow public space like toilet and storage, and some dark space with messy people like nightclub and bar. Usually, the problem occurred at night while the women in a powerless condition like drunk and dizzy. However, the problem occurs anywhere, especially the country where the authority and status of women are very low, this phenomenon might be involved with policies of the country, religion, and the social atmosphere.

Why is it important?

This problem involved with lots of social issues, includes equality of men and women, authority, and status of women and the quality of public security. These issues might affect the levels of happiness to family that has daughter and mother, or even have a risk to lost their female family member if they have to face with Sexual Assault. If the society still not pays enough attention to the protection and prevention on this problem, the rate of suicide, the rate of people with mental illness, and the rate of family with overwhelming pressure won’t able to decrease.

Problem statement

Develop something that can help women to be aware of how to protect themselves while change the awareness of men about how to be more respectful to women and the functions of treating women.

Five point summary:

After the problem statement finished, I tried to summarise the findings from the exercise while discover the possibilities that relate to my chosen issue.

1. Develop a Data Visualization that base on the positions of surveillance camera with a location map to guide residents realize they are in a security field while that might weaken the chance to commit a crime.

2. Develop a Service Design for a monitor system on the surveillance camera that can display the information of the people in the camera, include the name, age, height etc. It’s able to record the behavior of people and provide evidence if they commit a crime.

3. Develop a Service Design for an App about a digital psychologist Siri that can help users to seek comfort if they don’t emotionally feel well, include some appreciate activities, music, funny comics etc. It can help people with mental illness to realize that something around them is able to seek help.

4. Develop a Data Visualization that base on the situation of women in the current century includes how much do man/women earn, what kind of jobs do man/women do for living, levels of education of man/women etc. It reminds people to think about the equality of man and women is appropriate or not in their society.

5. Develop an Experimental Processes that base on the view of education on Junior High School about how to protect and prevent the social issue, include sexual assault. It helps the younger generation have strong awareness to protect themselves while decreasing the rate of criminals.

Draft Proposal:

After finished the five point summary, I decided to choose to develop a Data Visualization that base on the situation of women. This proposal can reflect the equality of men and women that helps people to be aware how to respect and protect women while decreasing the rate of sexual assault. The proposition will base on the data of how much do man/women earn, what kind of jobs do man/women do for living, levels of education of man/women etc. I still consider the style of visual design responses in my week 6 blog, base the data in the shadow of the person, but will refine the shadow to be more like a female. Also, remove the dialogue texture to provide more space for scale up the shadow to insert more data on it or develop another smaller elements instead. The color coding for representing the data, I consider to use red and blue to interact the relationship between men and women while developing a visual metaphor to guide readers be aware of the equality of men and women is not fully set up yet in the current society. Also, enhance people’s awareness to start respect women and stop harm them by the visual style of figure and ground.

post eight: the journey to the design response

by zena dakkak

Individual brainstorm for 3A

My previous research consisted of the prevention methods of homelessness amongst the youth in the community. As I progressed into my research I gradually started to see the misconceptions, and negative views that society holds against the homeless community. To be completely honest I was one of those people who viewed and ignored the homeless people as I walked through Central tunnel. Through the final stages of collaborative mapping and research, I decided to focus on the desensitisation of societies perceptions of the homeless community.
My objective for this project is to open the eyes of society and break the barriers that allow society to view the homeless community as invisible. As well as my previous point, I hope to diminish the assumptions carried with the word homeless and the issues associated with society and the homeless community.

Individual brainstorm for 3B

five possible design responses:

Portraits of Invisibles. A series of portraits of real life people who have experienced or are experiencing homelessness. These posters will be situated in well populated areas that the target audience can view (university campus, train station, on buses as well as bus stops, shopping centres).
Pick & Choose. Interactive board that consists of stories of homeless people with hidden talents and information that would surprise the people of the public.
The Mirror of Homelessness. Present a mirror that hangs from the ceiling. The person approaches it, portraying anyone can be homeless no matter who or what they’ve done in their life.
‘Have a Conversation with Me’. A table will be set up allowing people of the public to have conversations with people of the homeless community. This will enable people to communicate with them with the realisation that they are members of society just like they are. It will also create a positive outlook onto the homeless community that will bring hope.
A Day in their Shoes. Attach a GoPro to a member of the homeless community to illustrate the harsh realities of society’s view on the issue of homelessness.

draft proposal

project title.
Pick & Choose.

practice type.
Generative design

the issue.
People of society, especially youth, don’t realise the complexity of homelessness. Based on face value, they judge the appearance of a homeless person not knowing anything about their background. In most cases, the homeless community have an educated background, a job and have hidden talents that everyone is not aware of because they are not given a chance.

the possible change.
In the hopes to encourage users to approach, help and raise awareness about this issues of homelessness amongst youths. This project will surprise and startle users to reflect on how they perceive people based on their looks rather than dissecting the multilayered assumptions society already holds.

the design action to support change.
To create an interactive board that allows users to pick and choose whether they think this person is homeless or not. This will be based on the real life stories that is evident on the screen. The users, not knowing the story is of a homeless person, then proceed to make a decision with their take of the situation. In some instances they will choose the wrong option which can lead them with the realisation that this story is based on a homeless person that is not described as their typical stereotypes.

Post 8: Brainstorming possibilities for a design response / online privacy

by Jiahui Li (nancy)

After the past six weeks research and brainstorming, my issue study has been brought into the important stage. We finally introduced our proposal into three types of design practice: data visualisation, service design and generative system. We start with the IDEO brainstorming section to generate our ideas for a proposal. Below are the five cues that help me articulate my problem statement:

1. Who does the problem affect?

The key stakeholders in this issue are 18 – 25 years old teenagers who do need Internet and don’t know how to control the seriousness of online privacy issue. Most young teenagers have a large demand of Internet and low level of privacy understanding; although they afraid of online privacy leaking sometimes, they are not strong enough to control the problem.

2. What are the boundaries of the issue?

The boundary of the issue is representational; it shows the most common online privacy problem that exists in online commercial development. Based on the previous research, I explored the online privacy issue that specific to “online commercial use of personal information”. When business use information in ways that user does not like, users quickly know about it, and the firms are forced to stop. Because of business keeps ask and use user’s personal information without their consent, the balance between online commercial development and user privacy has lost.

3. When does the problem occur?

Problems usually happened when you are registering a new website and browsing the illegal websites. More and more website ask to sign up before you browsing, when you sign up a new website, users are required to provide a large amount of personal information include interest, email, gender, address, phone number, even more, privacy questions.

4. Where does the problem occur?

The major place that the problem happened is in your email system, mobile phone message and a phone call. For example, thousand of promotion email keep annoying you every day, phone fraud and message fraud made you afraid and don’t know what’s the truth is.

5. Why is it important that the problem is fixed?

The problem is too common to exist in the online society, the invasion of personal privacy had a great influence on people’s life and the development of the network industry. So the seriousness of the problem can’t be ignored. People need to have a healthy network environment, as well as can protect their personal privacy not be violated. Especially for young teenagers, they can’t live without Internet, so we need to fix the relationship between website and user privacy.

Once we have our problem statement done, we start brainstorming in our group. We develop ideas around online privacy, what’s possible to change, and what our ideas to direct a proposal. Below are the 5 point summary of our possibility findings:

In order to educate people and provide people a deep understanding of how creepy when you exposed your personal information public, I generated the idea around data visualisation, which will be present through an interactive design; emphasise the feeling that lost data.
Improve the possibility of finding where you lost your data, and be aware of how to protect your data successfully from specific website/online network.
A data trust system can help people build the trust between user and website
App / program for user to input locations of risk-build a database
Improve the understanding of online privacy with info graphic poster, promote and educating people online privacy knowledge

Proposal

Based on what I got from the five-point summary of the possibilities, I’m going to work on the third idea. As a designer, I decided to build a service design system reflect on a Third Party Platform (TPF) involved in a data trust system, which aims to help people protect their personal information not be used from commercial website.

According to the old blog post, I have interested in how design project visualise social issue and how can it help people realise the importance of the social issue that happened today. The service design system are designed specific for when you register a new website, it’s replace the function of sign up with personal information. You can scan QR code and sing up without submitting any personal information.

After scanning, the tips will pop out to ask you “whether you want use TPF to manage the website”, you can chose yes or not. If yes, all the information from the website will directly go into the TPF inbox, and you can check all the message here. On the other hand, a data trust system is embed in the TPF, it will help you analysis your data and check where your data has lost.

On the one side, online business still can get the information of users (email, and name), on other side, users can have a safety internet environment. So the project has balanced the relationship between users and companies, as well as help young teenager’s protect their personal privacy.

POST 8: Brainstorming possibilities for a design response // Mental health

LAUREN FITZPATRICK // 12048880

So, it has all been leading up to this. After the past six weeks of mind-mapping, researching, brainstorming and not knowing what the hell I am doing, we were finally told to begin creating possible design responses to our specific issue. In order to start this, as expected, we drew up more mind-maps and collaboratively brainstormed ideas within our issue groups. It’s been long and ambiguous journey to get to this point so I was excited to finally think about how I could visualise my specific issue.

The Five W’S

The first task we were given in class was write about our specific topic individually based on the five w’s in order to create a problem statement to clearly articulate the problem. Again, I felt like I was just writing the same things I’ve been writing this whole semester but into different categories. However, this writing process and the feedback I received from my group helped flesh out my topic. Below is how I broke down my topic; the stigma and discrimination from health professionals experience by people suffering with mental health issues:

WHO does the problem affect?
The main stakeholders and actors this problem affects are mentally ill patients and health professionals. However, it is not just limited to these people. It has the potential to affect people who are yet to experience mental health issues.
WHAT are the boundaries of the issue?
The boundaries of this issue are structural due to the connection to the health care system. Through my research, I discovered their is a lack of empathy, understanding and training in some health care professionals when dealing with mentally ill patients. Misdiagnosis, generalisations of patients and a lack of respect from doctors are large factors that contribute to stigma. In this situation, the doctor calls the shots and the patient should be able to trust them, but in may instances they don’t.
WHEN does it occur?
The root of this problem is when people suffering form mental health issues are frightened or uncomfortable seeking help. The problem then occurs when they speak to a health professional who may perhaps discriminate their illness without realising they are doing it.
WHERE does the problem occur?
The problem occurs within the health care system and also set behaviours in society. In this instance, stigma happens face-to-face during doctors appointments and the affects of this experience can be carried out afterwards.
WHY is this issue important?
This issue is important as it continually affects people with mental health issues and also affects the publics trust in our health care system. There appears to be a lack of trust towards doctors and a lack of respect received from doctors. It’s a set mentality in society that people with mental health issues are just overreacting or hypercondriacs. Health care professionals especially shouldn’t be influenced by this mentality. People need to feel comfortable to seek help from a doctor and common language/ dialogue needs to be create to help break this stigma.

Problem Statement

So, from this rant about my specific topic and after a discussion about it with my group, I came up with the following problem statement:

The disconnect experienced by patients affected by mental health issues in communication and interactions with health professionals.

In simpler terms, making the experience of healthcare more human.

Brainstorming

Once we all had our problem statements, it was time to brainstorm. My group and I discussed simplifying communication between patient and doctor in order to create a more comfortable and common dialogue. This would ultimately help break the stigma of people not wanting to seek help and the stigma experienced by patients from health professionals. Another area that we identified within my problem statement was the influential forces of our environments. In this case, going to the doctor should be a comfortable space for patients, yet at the moment it seems to be the opposite for many people. One of my group members also directed me to a current medical design response called Babybe which helps regulate the heartbeat of babies. This created another direction of providing care and guidance outside of healthcare for people suffering with mental health issues. This brainstorming session was quite rushed but I gained some good direction from my group members for possible design responses.

My brainstorm mind-map based on my problem statement.

The following are five potential design responses that I am considering for my proposal:

Improve communication between patients and doctors by creating a common language therefore building more trust in this relationship.
Assist patients in feeling comfortable in a health care setting through a meditative, environmental app aimed to relax and prepare the mind for stressful situations.
Evaluate the emotions felt in a doctor waiting room by getting patients to draw how they feel in order to accumulate a range of data to visualise.
Improve the training of health care professionals with an interactive design which highlights examples of stigma against people suffering from mental health issues.
Using an interactive map, demonstrate the relationship between patient and doctor and how important it is to have a respectful and trusting connection between the two stakeholders.

Draft Proposal

After brainstorming these five points, I have realised that the main problem within this topic is lack of communication. From this, I have written a draft proposal below to improve and develop my direction:

Through my design response, I want people to be able to feel comfortable to talk about their feelings, especially when interacting with a health care professional. We also need to stop the stigma that doctors inflict upon patients. So, there are problems from both sides of the issue which makes it even more complex. Ultimately, there needs to be more awareness that this is happening. I am especially passionate about this particular problem as it happened to both my dad and brother; they were too scared to talk about their mental health. It would be amazing if I could go back in time with a possible design response to help them through that tough time, knowing what I know now and understanding why they were scared.

Therefore, I propose to design a generative system within the space of a doctors waiting room for patients to interact with. The aim of the design is make the patient feel comfortable in that environment and to visualise their emotions by drawing and/or writing how they feel at the time. This enables the patients to connect with their thoughts and better understand them in order to communicate them to a doctor. This interactive design can be seen as a form meditation to prepare patients for their appointment. This data can then be collected to create a data base for future mental health patients and also health professionals to view and analyse. This way, the doctor can see how the patient is feeling before and during an appointment. This design repossess should open up a new and trusting dialogue between patient and doctor and should improve the stigma experiences by patients.