From Brainstorming to Bodystorming – DesignWanted : DesignWanted

This fall semester, I’m fortunate to take the Ethnography Analysis Methodology 12-unit course, a Massachusetts Institute of Know-how (MIT) graduate course (course quantity: 21A.819), taught by Professor Graham M. Jones from the MIT Division of Anthropology.

It’s an attention-grabbing alternative for me to look at, prototype, refine, and focus on the right way to combine the design pondering course of with utilized video-ethnography methodology to create a brand new approach of conducting design analysis.

My experiment’s analysis subject is to discover and envision future monetary planning toolkits and companies for an growing old inhabitants as a place to begin to look at and doc workshop members’ verbal (content material) info and non-verbal (conduct) information.

With the help and sponsorship from MIT AgeLab, we co-designed and facilitated 4 60-minute participatory design workshops with eight senior designers throughout completely different disciplines.

We additionally need to make the analysis subject extra concrete, straightforward to grasp, and adaptable for our members to discover the query: how would possibly we envision future monetary planning toolkits and companies for an growing old inhabitants as a place to begin to look at and doc members’ verbal and non-verbal information?

This text is to share a part of the three-month course studying and course of and the venture is to discover the interactions.

We concentrate on members’ non-verbal behaviors, between two senior designers from completely different design experience by discussing the next three questions:

1. How do two designers collaborate and change concepts inside a restricted period of time (roughly 45 minutes of constructing) and with restricted materials assets (e.g., paper, Publish-its)?
2. How do two designers talk via making paper prototypes?
3. How do two designers assign, change, and refine completely different duties and roles through the co-creation part?

1. Co-creation workshop and bodystorming

We outlined a co-creation workshop as a subject for the ethnographic research. Subsequently, we redesigned the co-creation workshop to regulate the workshop theme, construction and movement, time (60 minutes), variety of members (two folks per part), and documentation (Zoom cloud recording and interview transcribing, GoPro 360 digicam, Sony Digicam, and iPhone time-lapse).

Consistency of co-creation workshop facilitation can higher assist us analyze its outcome scientifically with construction.

The essence of a co-creation workshop is about participation, making, prototyping concepts, and teamwork. Subsequently, the statement and evaluation will likely be centered on members’ communication and interplay to translate the concepts from 2-dimensional ideas to three-dimensional prototypes.

We introduce the time period bodystorming to assist us describe members’ physique language to conclude the issues we need to observe throughout co-creation workshops.

There are numerous methods to conduct bodystorming with members, however the intention of bodystorming stays the identical.

He, J., & Hsu, S. talked about that generally, attaining the hypotheses targets, ideally suited design outcomes, or futurist eventualities by making members expertise product designs and companies via members’ bodily our bodies and different multi-sensorial experiences, together with contact, odor, listening to, seeing, and speak.

We analyzed members’ physique language by breaking it down into 5 main recognized gadgets: 1) hand, 2) palm, 3) finger, 4) arm, and 5) higher physique. We outlined 4 statement standards—A) distance, B) route, C) motion, and D) angle—and utilized them to investigate the 5 recognized gadgets.

2. Analogous examples of bodystorming

There are two related case research about bodystorming. In 1960, the founding father of McDonald’s wished to optimize the movement of back-of-house operations to reinforce the income of the enterprise to make the fast-food business quicker, and extra environment friendly and efficient.

The founder with a number of workers repurposed a tennis courtroom through the use of chalk to attract out the floorplan of the kitchen space to faux that they have been making burgers and delivering them to prospects.

In 2015, IDEO collaborated with Lufthansa to revamp their long-haul business-class service. One of many prototyping approaches was utilizing chairs to create the in-flight seating expertise. Designers, researchers, and purchasers organized completely different layouts of the house simply and shortly just by shifting chairs round to debate the person expertise at a comparatively low price each in time and supplies.

As well as, Murphy mentioned the idea of collaborative imaging to discover the connection between 1) speak, 2) gestures, and three) materials objects within the subject of architectural observe, which raised my curiosity in different functions and purposes of utilizing bodystorming to different subject of research. Murphy printed the analysis on Semiotica in 2005.

3. Experiment overview and movement evaluation

We recruited eight interviewees from numerous design backgrounds—industrial design, communication design, interplay design, branding, and enterprise—and we paired them into 4 groups to take part in an roughly 60-minute co-creation workshop at MIT AgeLab offering accessible prototyping supplies: letter-size paper, Publish-its, scissors, reducing mat, and foam core board.

For the experiment, we chosen one staff (Group 1) to look at the interplay between the 2 members to look at how they collaborate to co-create ideas and switch concepts.

We thought-about Group 1 as the appropriate staff being noticed and analyzed, since Group 1 has a extra full co-creation course of demonstrating the levels of inspiration, ideation, and implementation.

In evaluation, we focus not solely on the content material of the dialog (audio and transcripts) from each members, but additionally their collaboration (video and screenshot) to switch concepts to one another.

We marked the important thing timestamps in ATALAS.ti by capturing 57 screenshots as visible evaluation proof to decompose the members’ conduct.

4. Key learnings and concerns for co-creation workshop

After analyzing and synthesizing the Group 1 video, we proposed 5 key learnings noticed by the first-hand subject analysis (co-creation workshop) to assist us higher perceive the right way to productively, exactly, and creatively facilitate two-person interactions inside a 60-minute co-creation workshop to deliver their concepts to life.

Studying 1—The picture of self and the intention of collaboration will be projected via physique language together with the gesture of palms, palms, fingers, arms, and higher our bodies.

One apparent discovering is that members naturally use their physique language to amplify the factors they need to make. We decomposed the time period physique language by learning members’ gestures and actions, together with these utilizing palms, palms, fingers, arms, and higher physique (Determine 8).

It’s attention-grabbing to see how members venture themselves via 5 intensified gadgets. Basically, the motion and conduct change from the members’ palms, palms, fingers, and higher our bodies are very delicate, particularly after we solely observe and seize the interplay of the 2 from the video.

Nonetheless, we will’t doc the data solely via video and audio since we can not seize perfume, room temperature, or staff vibe via video recording.

Since all of the statement notes and information are based mostly on Group 1’s 60-minute co-creation session, for future research, we will examine the outcome with these of the remainder of the three groups (Group 2, 3, and 4) to generalize analysis insights for future participatory periods.

Studying 2—Paper (different prototyping materials) is an accessible, tangible, and sharable medium of collaboration to form concepts collectively at a comparatively low price.

We discovered that members naturally used tangible materials—paper, Publish-its, and pens—as accessible media to form a number of the early ideas that they had in thoughts.

Particularly within the Group 1 video, we discovered that the 2 members stored exchanging paper with written messages or ideas to switch their information bodily.

As well as, the type of paper is minimize, modified, or formed to facilitate and transfer nearer to their envisioned concepts or design options (Determine 10). 

Clearly, one of many nice outcomes is the paper prototype with the characteristic of visibility and tangibility that naturally permits members to view it as an apparent immediate to impress extra discussions to problem their options and open up the dialog to construct on the highest of one another’s concepts.

Studying 3—Individuals use eye contact to transmit their self-confidence and change concepts; they learn their collaborator’s eye contact and facial features to obtain their suggestions, issues, and ideas.

We’re desirous about observing members’ eye contact through the co-creation workshop (Determine 11). That is additionally comparatively arduous to seize, because the digicam was arrange on the facet of members’ working areas, which solely recorded two-thirds of their faces.

We will nonetheless research a few of it based mostly on the video footage paired with their dialog and actions.

From the Group 1 video and audio, we noticed that members’ eye contact transmits a way of self-confidence relating to their early-stage design options together with their physique gestures (e.g., palms, palm, fingers, arms, and higher our bodies) and paper prototype.

Once they share their concepts enthusiastically and instantly, they aren’t simply trying on the bodily artifact held of their palms; they work together with their collaborator first by taking a look at their eyes.

We seen it as an indication of self-confidence, delight, and pleasure of developing with new concepts. It’s one other efficient strategy to obtain a collaborator’s facial expressions, issues, or questions by studying their eye contact.

Studying 4—Individuals’ tone of voice will not be solely about content material dialogue but additionally emotional expression.

Individuals’ tone of voice can also be comparatively arduous to seize and browse, though we efficiently recorded their dialogue to get the content material appropriately. The evaluation of members’ tone of voice will likely be higher understood within the context of their dialog and interplay, which might simply construct empathy across the eventualities.

General, the voice when it comes to the quantity, emotional expression, and contextual tone, is rather like an emotional catalysis to foster the optimistic vibe of collaboration. Within the Group 1 video, we discovered the collaboration vibe, however it’s potential that it will probably additionally make the dialog much less productive, and even worse if members don’t align the objective and the mission with belief.

When the members are prototyping, the way in which they categorical their message is to create a comparatively protected situation that’s conversational and accessible.

Surprisingly, we observe members’ voices have clear ups and downs after they expressed the design intention and advised tales to assist construct a seamless collaboration vibe within the house.

It’s much less about having a mild voice and extra concerning the expression that helps one other collaborator be extra empathetic and envision the eventualities that they co-created.

Studying 5. The necessity for extra a shared co-creation desktop house naturally emerged between the 2 members.

From the Group 1 video, we observe that an open and collaborative house naturally shaped between two members whereas making prototypes, utilizing prototyping supplies, sketching, and exchanging concepts (Determine 12).

Probably the most continuously used supplies and instruments, akin to letter-size paper, Publish-it notes, tape, and scissors, have been positioned in the course of the shared space, whereas the reference books, wood blocks, and toys have been moved apart to make extra shared house within the center.

A part of the reason being that the unique seating and tables weren’t movable furnishings and the room for the workshop was not spacious sufficient to maneuver furnishings round. For the members, the shared house of the desktop space was below their management.

Unsurprisingly, via the co-creation course of, we noticed the necessity to create a sharable space between two folks emerge as a crucial situation to allow more practical collaboration.

5. Subsequent Steps

This can be a very early-stage research to grasp the interplay and communication about co-creation between two members from completely different design experience. We instructed the next two space for additional research.

• Analyze the co-creation workshop outcome from the opposite three groups and examine them with Group 1 to debate the benefit, disadvantages, and learnings to guage if we will generalize insights built-in into the 5 key learnings and scale and populate to extra common design ideas of describing, facilitating, and enhancing folks’s interplay, communication, and collaboration within the context of co-creation workshops.

• We will take into consideration what different potential statement standards (e.g., perfume, room temperature, staff vibe) and different measurable recognized gadgets (e.g., the motion of participant’s head) we will prolong to make the matrix extra complete, relevant, and beneficial to doc members’ interplay and conduct. Do we have to add further recognized gadgets to raised describe nonverbal conduct, akin to facial features, emotion, or temper? How can we describe and measure these new statement standards past documenting them within the textual content, visuals, movies, and audios?

6. Dialogue and Abstract

Having analyzed members’ interplay and bodystorming from the Group 1 co-creation workshop video, we got here up with the 5 following key takeaways, which map again to our authentic analysis query: how we design higher collaborative situations, immersive interplay, and communication inside groups to facilitate members to work collectively seamlessly and productively and change concepts inside a restricted period of time and restricted materials assets?

• Studying 1: The picture of self and the intention of collaboration will be projected via physique language together with the gesture of palms, palms, fingers, arms, and higher our bodies.
• Studying 2: Paper (and different prototyping materials) is an accessible, tangible, and sharable medium of collaboration to form concepts collectively at a comparatively low price.
• Studying 3: Individuals use eye contact to transmit their self-confidence, change concepts, and browse their collaborator’s eye contact and facial expressions to obtain their suggestions, issues, and ideas.
• Studying 4: Individuals’ tone of voice will not be solely about discussing content material but additionally about expressing emotional.
• Studying 5: The necessity to create a greater shared co-creation desktop house naturally emerged between the 2 members.

Typically talking, the expectation of internet hosting and taking part in a profitable co-creation workshop ought to require and generate:

1. Productive and efficient staff dialogue
2. Converging and diverging design course of
3. Tangible outcomes with invisible service or expertise design concerns

Subsequently, we predict that deeply understanding members’ interplay and communication below co-creation to discover their intention and motivation can empower us to contemplate the right way to transfer the co-creation workshop or comparable participatory actions past solely brainstorming (the stage of pondering and technique) to bodystorming (the section of constructing, creating, and prototyping), seamlessly integrating members’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors.

Acknowledgment

Particularly thanks to Professor Graham M. Jones’s steering, Dr. Joseph F. Coughlin, Dr. Lisa D’Ambrosio, and Dr. Chaiwoo Lee’s mentorship, Professor Maria Yang’s suggestion, Lauren Cerino and Sophia Ashebir’s recommendation, and MIT AgeLab colleagues’ nice help and belief. I additionally respect for all co-creation workshop members: Saloni Bedi, Katie Chen, Qingyu Cai, Andrea Quiros-Balma, Manasi Vaidya, Eun ah Kim, Jen Shafer, and Akshita Goyal for his or her nice encouragement and for giving me suggestions to help me to maintain engaged on the analysis subject.