Interaction design is changing as a response to new social, technological, and environmental contexts, which bring new scopes of complexity into the frame interaction designers are concerned with. As a result, it has become harder to define what interaction design is, as we cannot simply hold on to the established ideals that once shaped interaction design practices without revisiting and revising these ideals to suit the needs of modern-day problems.
Design education is where novice interaction designers learn what interaction designing is and where they form the design practices that will shape the interaction design field of the future. This is why I believe that especially within design education there needs to be a level of awareness of what interaction design was, is, and is becoming. In other words, in interaction design education one cannot take for granted how interaction design is changing to honour the established while making space for the emergent. Because failing to acknowledge these changes will prevent interaction design from evolving from what it is, to what it can be, as taking what interaction designing is for granted will lead design practices to merely solidify what interaction design used to be.
In my thesis, I used an explorative deeply user-centered approach to take a critical stance toward what is taken for granted in interaction design and specifically the interaction design educational program at Umeå Institute of Design.
January 2022 4 months execution time Final Master Degree Project Design Research Project Umeå Institute of Design
Individual project
What were the goals of this thesis?
1. Explore
explore interaction design itself
2. Challenge
challenge how interaction design is taught
3. Provoke
provoke active critical dissemination of interaction design education
PROCESS
This thesis was first and foremost a journey to explore the profession of interaction design and the way it is taught in design education at Umeå Institute of Design. Fuelled by questions and frustrations that arose among my peers and me while studying interaction design, I embarked on a journey to question interaction design itself.
Context
Rather than investigating within the scope of a specific design problem, I chose to investigate how we think of designing itself within design education at Umeå Institute of design. Through a process of research through design, I explored current beliefs and norms that form the foundation for our design practices and sought to bring these foundations to the fore, to be able to unpack and question them.
Researching designing itself is not something we are taught to do in design education, which meant I had to be experimental and explorative in my approach. Through trial and error and constant critical reflection, I had to find a way to investigate the foundations of design.
Since I wanted my approach to be user-centered at the core I challenged myself to find approaches and methods to get students, alumni, and staff of Umeå Institute of design into the critical mindset that is required to question what our interaction design beliefs are rooted in.
The most fruitful method proved to be probing. Through different visual and digital probes, I invited my ‘users’ (students, alumni, and staff) to reflect critically on the beliefs that interaction design is built upon. I, for example, created a fictional interview with Umeå Institute of Design as the interviewee, in which the interviewer questioned the rationale of the school. Additionally, I created fictional postcards through which stories about conflicts that emerge when studying interaction design were captured. Both of these artifacts were presented to the users as probes and led to critical reflections. Similarly, I used countering design ideals (e.g. simplicity vs. complexity) to elicit critical reflection on the importance of these ideals in interaction design practices and education. Through these probes I challenged my users to look at interaction design foundations from a different perspective.
Experimenting with probes
By thoroughly and collaboratively discussing these probes, critical reflections surfaced that questioned the foundations and methods of interaction design education at Umeå Institute of Design. Rather than synthesizing and interpreting these reflections myself, I felt the need to collect and present these reflections in a way that they could be used as another probe or tool to dig even deeper.
I approached this next phase as a second iteration of my probing methods and this time, rather than using artifacts as a tool, I decided to manifest the reflections I had gathered in an experience.
Manifesting reflections
Similar to a museum exhibition, I presented the reflections that were gathered in a space. This space was designed to simulate the act of physically shedding light on what normally remains in the dark. I allowed users to explore this dark space with a flashlight in hand, giving them the space and time to individually internalize what they saw and experienced and asked them to share what further thoughts, emotions, and feelings this brought out within them.
Additionally, I also shared the reflections within this exhibition through another medium. I designed sets of reflection cards that I handed out to my users which could be used as a tool in design processes and personal and professional growth to remind my users to remain critical of what otherwise remains in the dark.
Synthesis
After this second iteration of my investigation, I collected and synthesized my findings.
The most prominent theme in the reflections that were gathered was how difficult it is for users (students, alumni, and staff) to cope with new complex interaction design challenges that have started to arise as a response to how our society and the world we live in are changing. A lot of these interaction design challenges are more ambiguous and difficult to solve with the design processes and tools we have been taught. These challenges require us to look beyond what we know and find new methods and tools to face these challenges. As a result, interaction design practices that are different from established practices have started to emerge. From literary and user-centered research I conducted, I synthesized 3 core shifts within interaction design that emphasize the need for these emergent practices.
Interaction design used to merely be concerned with designing solutions to problems, whereas now, interaction design practices are more explorative and concerned with problem-framing have started to emerge.
The solutions interaction designers initially started creating were always meant to be seamless, following demands of desirability and efficiency, while new practices have arisen which are concerned with creating friction and challenging the status quo.
In the process of creating seamless solutions to problems, interaction design was previously purely implemented to untangle mess with certain frames of logic, whereas some design practices currently are in need of embracing and entangling with uncertainty to find new ways of doing.
Common questions from users that sounded throughout my process were ‘Is our education prepared to guide us through these new challenges?’ ‘Is our education embracing these emergent practices?’ ‘Is our education creating space for how interaction design is changing?’
Now, the fact that these types of questions were being asked and conversations around the shifts in interaction design could be facilitated was an outcome of this thesis in itself. However, rather than answering these questions and proposing solutions to how these changes could be embraced in design education, I wanted the impact of my thesis to be something different.
Impact
I wanted my thesis to impact Umeå Institute of Design in such a way that it would not only help my users reflect on the shifts that surfaced in my work, but also urge students, alumni, and staff of the future to critically reflect on the underlying foundations of their interaction design practices.
Through this thesis, it became clear that there is a need for more active critical reflection on what is underlying our design practices within Umeå Institute of Design. Because if these underlying foundations are not reflected upon, the established foundations will never make room for the emergent, which might obstruct an evolution toward what interaction design needs to become to deal with modern-day problems.
Guidelines
In order to achieve this goal of contributing to the awareness that there is a need for more active critical reflection of the underlying, I reflected deeply on what tools and strategies I had needed to implement to be able to shed light on what underlies interaction design practices and education. I synthesized these tools and strategies into guidelines to help users of the now and the future to embark on critical reflection of interaction design itself.
Final workshop
As a final test and iteration of these guidelines, I set up a workshop according to these guidelines. This workshop was designed to facilitate discussion around how users and design education relate to emergent practices that are concerned with problem-framing rather than problem-solving. Through an embodied experience facilitated by an artifact, I helped users discuss the place of both approaches in interaction design education and share their experiences with implementing these approaches.
This workshop led to deep discussion around the definition, necessity, and implementation of both approaches in a way that does not occur in the current Umeå Institute of Design educational system. Additionally, users mentioned it helped them formulate and construct their opinion and thoughts in a way they had not done before.
Conclusion
The outcome of this thesis was not a solution, but rather a process of investigation to frame a problem. The final problem I sketched out is that there is a need for more awareness and critical dissemination of what is underlying Umeå Institute of Design interaction design education. This need exists due to the ever-changing contexts interaction designers are asked to deal with that may require different interaction design practices to emerge.
I am aware that my findings and conclusions are situated within the context of Umeå Institute of Design. The approach and attitude of this school may vary greatly from other universities that offer interaction design education. Similarly, I am aware that my conclusions do not necessarily apply to design industry, since the goals within design industry vary greatly from those within design education. Further research would be needed to make any conclusions on the carryover of the findings of this project onto other design schools and design industry.
However, I do feel that the critical attitude towards design foundations that I am endorsing in this thesis is important in every layer of interaction design.
My hope for the impact of this thesis is that it will plant a seed within interaction design students, staff, and practitioners to remain critical of why we do things the way we do. Umeå Institute of Design shapes interaction design practitioners of the future and I feel that we should always be questioning what is underlying our ways of designing to serve the true needs of complex modern-day problems and their stakeholders.
REFLECTION
The most challenging part of this thesis has been having to find my own methods and designing my own process. I had to apply design methods onto designing itself which meant I had to go through multiple iterations through trial and error. However, I do believe this process taught me a lot and helped me eventually set up my guidelines.
Additionally, I was very aware of the danger that this project could easily become biased due to my own opinions and experiences. This is why I made it my goal to make this process highly user-centered and iterative and to ask for feedback as much as possible. I worked with students, alumni, teachers, and researchers with various backgrounds and levels of industry experience to subject my opinion to as many varying perspectives as possible.
Throughout this thesis, I have learned a lot about what it takes to be critical of things that are often taken for granted. These learnings regarding deeply reflective approaches and critical thinking will help me in my career in design industry, by providing me with the tools and knowledge to not only be critical of myself but also of design approaches and methods within any context I will find myself in.
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