Magnus Bendtsen » Process

New research – new project

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:04:07 +0000

In the beginning of August I slowly started returning to my project. Having had a concussion and not being able to work for a couple of months has meant some changes to my plans.

First of all I have had an extension which means that I will be having my final exam on the 29. of October in The Danish Design School. The exam will be open and I will post more on the topic as I get closer to deadline.

Having the “luxury” of spending two months thinking about a project and not being able to act on it has also resulted in some changes in the sense of how I am planning the next two months – more on that will follow.

What has however been a true luxury is having the review board of the Pilot Year exam giving me feedback on my initial research. The review board consisted of Bill Moggridge (IDEO), Gillian Crampton Smith (IUAV), Mikal Hallstrup (Designit), Joachim Halse (DKDS) and Eva Brandt (DKDS). I did a 15 minute presentation of my initial findings and got 15 minutes of feedback. It was as expected relevant, sharp and challenging.

I will be spending today and tomorrow summing up on the work I have been the past three weeks publishing my thoughts and insights. I will do another post this afternoon and hopefully one or two tomorrow.

The next two weeks

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:45:24 +0000

The next two weeks will be dedicated to our last project on CIID apart from the thesis. We have been given an assignment by Novo Nordisk and will be going through a quick research face, a longer concept generation face and some rapid prototyping. It looks to be a very intensive project so I will probably not get to do much work on my thesis. I hope to continue building my portfolio in the days to come but time will tell how much it will amount to.

I have however made an appointment to check back with one of the research venues in the middle of next week and hope to make the final adjustments to the schedule and finalize my user research plan.

What new?

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:56:13 +0000

A lot of things have been going on the last two weeks. I have been meeting with people constantly either to pitch my idea to residing/visiting faculty or two get possible stakeholders on board. Fortunately the people I have met have been interested and sympathetic towards my project. Time will tell but it seems like I have been given the possibility to follow one or more groups of elderly engaging in basic social interaction but also focused reminiscence therapy.

Building on these conversations and the furthering of the project has led me to some pre-ethnography speculation:

I am curious about…

Moving into a nursing home

What is a person that is just moving in thinking about?

Is it possible to make any overall speculations about was prompted the move into the home?

How is the level of capability both mentally and physically diagnosed?

What makes a person allegeable to therapy?

Motivation

Is it possible to make any overall speculations concerning the mood of someone moving into an elderly home?

How is the motivation in the beginning/moving in?

Does it change over time?

Does participating in therapy change motivation overall?

Awareness of a diagnosed/undiagnosed condition

How aware is a person of their own disease in the different stages mild/medium/severe of dementia?

What are the symptoms of the different stages?

Initiative

How passive/active are they in combating their disease?

Do people have the relevant knowledge to fight the disease?

Medication

What kind a medication is used?

How does the elderly feel about getting medicated for their memory?

Therapy

What kind of therapy is used?

How does a reminiscence session work?

When are people to well/ill to participate in the sessions?

The surroundings

What role does:

- family

- age

- gender

- role/place in family

play in the course and the progression of the disease?

What parameters if any has baring on how rapid the disease progresses?

Doing the research

Can I meet someone who has just moved in and follow this person over a period of time?

Can I somehow get a look into the “before state”?

Can I somehow life the life of the elderly?

Can I become immersed somehow?

Working in the domain of Healtcare – an ongoing discussion

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:00:58 +0000

What are the consequences of doing a deep dive in the area of Dementia in a the context of the elderly home?
To me doing Interaction design is a very personal thing. I naturally use myself as a platform for the research and the designs that I do. This means getting involved and connecting to the person(s) whose world I am trying to understand without the distance of the anthropologist or psychologist. Through observation and/or conversation I encourage the person to tell me about their world but hopefully also allowing me to participate in it. An interview can be a great way to learn bout a field but supplementing it with observation rules out the say/do problem; saying that you do something does not necessarily mean that you actually do it.

Working with Dementia also means that peoples needs presumable will change drastically during the course of the disease. I need to understand the disease in order to avoid developing a solution that is not corresponding to the abilities present at the time the need arises. This could very well prove to be to difficult a task to succeed in 4 months but being aware of it will help in the case of user testing or if I choose to do co creation session.

Initial thesis statement 06.02.2009

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:46:50 +0000

I want my thesis to …
I want my thesis to be an exploration into a topic that will increase my knowledge of service and product design. What motivates me is if the user of the service or product is one that is
In someway in need of my work and as a group could be short of resources.
My thesis should give me a reference point from which I can start work life as an employee or intern. I want my thesis to be well documented and showcase my skills into the discipline of Interaction Design along with my personal interests and drive.

I’m interested in/inspired by…
The area of eldercare represents a growing part of the Danish populace that in my opinion is marginalized and under funded. Our investigations showed that a lot of steps could be made to improve the daily lives in the elderly homes.
My thesis will take its starting point in an investigation into the life of the elderly stricken with dementia or Alzheimer’s. What is the current treatment that is offered to these people? What is the official strategy to battle this decease and preserve quality of life for those stricken? My goal is to identify the needs of the person/patient and to look into the ways of which more could be done.
Two possible topics:

1. I will use the project “Familiar things” as a case study and if it makes sense after the initial investigation to take this project into the next faze looking at ways of improving / shaping the product.

2. The current medication being offered to Alzheimer patients are doubling their mortality rate. At the same time organizing funerals for elders without kind is a very costly affair for the elderly homes. This road will take a service design oriented approach to the topic.

During my thesis I would like to challenge myself in…
I would like to challenge myself in areas such as graphic design and visualisation. I intent to work with different ways of presenting my data and communicating my ideas using tools such as video prototyping, posters and I will work with GUI where it makes sense. I will further challenge myself into the topics that I am more comfortable with such as ethnography and concept development trying to go as broad as I can before narrowing my focus. If the thesis takes me into product/GUI design I will also be looking into flash programming.

Getting started

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:05:08 +0000

Getting started has been a process that has been going on since Easter. Having to do my portfolio (which I will post later on this website) and getting ready to show to the outside world what your work is all about is not something I have done previously in my academic life. If you spice that up with making your thoughts globally accessible then you have an interesting cocktail. Much of it is about how you frame it I guess and for me personally a very necessary part of reflecting.

I meet with my thesis councillor Vinay Venkatraman the other day and discussed my thoughts. My idea is to do a deep dive into the life-world of people stricken with Dementia in the context of the elderly home. At CIID we did a project in GUI design with the elderly home as a venue of research and our team decided to focus on the two diseases mentioned above and memory therapy.

This is to still the project that moved me the most. In my opinion there is a lot to be done in the area of elderly care and on top of that slowly losing your cognitive abilities along with your identity and dignity has to be one of the worst ways to go. And thus a motivation for doing my thesis project in the context mentioned above. I am hoping to strike up a cooperation with the Danish Elderly home of Sølund located by the lakes in central Copenhagen between Nørrebro and Østerbro and I will also be contacting the research venue from the GUI project, the elderly home of Betania in Frederiksberg. I am very aware that this project will require a very close contact to both people and the elderly home.

Process?
My focus will be on research and organising the subsequent large amount of data transforming it into insights that can be used to develop solutions serving the needs of this group of people. This approach will undoubtedly put a heavy strain on my ability to keep focus and to be able to see patterns in the research but also to recognize the odd ball out or opportunity when it shows it self. Working alone for the first time since first year of university (2001) I will have to develop some kind of method to organize my insights for later reference and simply be able to put something away in order to keep the overview. That is going to be a work in progress!

I will be trying to vigorously document my process since the idea of reconstructing the path of insight often is more storytelling than fact. If anyone feels up to it we can always have a discussion whether or not it is at all possible to “truthfully” reconstruct insight

It is my plan to update this Blog regularly and to share my thoughts and insights. I regard this as being a part of my process but maybe also a part of my method. Time will tell:)