Over the last few years I've been working on a phd looking at
interaction design. On friday I reviewed where I'm at, and things took
little turn. The topic remains the same, but in the process of
arranging all my material - artifacts produced in projects I've run,
thoughts I've had on these artifacts and projects, notes & sketches on
literature - I started to realize how the form of these arrangements
has been a major trope throughout the phd. "the wall" has taken on a
life of its own, and beyond just showing the artifacts related to my
research, this forensic wall has become THE primary artifact. This
post tries to dig into that a little.
I've set the elements described above out on the walls of my office
(being an academic has some awesome benefits, being expected to think
for a living being one of my favorites) - you can see some of the
images attached to this post. This way of working seems second nature
to me, and it took me a while to remember where I'd been taught how to
work this way. First year architecture was the culprit: particularly
the early stages of a design where your ideas were discussed. While i was presenting the narrative of these artifacts I started to
think on the role of the format, and how it helps me to think. To be
honest, without a large wall space like this I was having a very hard
time working out WTF was going on in this phd. Getting the 30,000 ft
view while being able to dig down into detail is one way to describe a
designers role. It also fits well as a description of what those tv
cops do on shows like the wire or csi. This is where the notion of
forensics emerged. Thinking about my earliest situations where I'd
seen people DO wicked problem solving, I continually end up with
fictions... Spy novels, cop shows, mission control. This also made me think of an experience i had early on in my phd
fieldwork: interviewing a senior designer at a big international firm.
We'd just entered their enormous office space, very open plan desk
etc, and i commented on a row of small rooms along one side of the
hangar sized space. These were the project rooms, projects took one
over and lots of the performative, collaborative, forensic thinking
was undertaken in these rooms. "I can't take you any further though,
sorry" my guide said... These rooms were where the magic happened, and
confidentiality meant that I couldn't even approach within 20 meters
of them... That's powerful stuff!
overlobe's posterous
Hi there - you can find out all about me at http://jeremy.yuille.info
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