rhiza
detailed research process
CHALLENGE
Design a product, service, or solution that enables/creates empathy across a large and diverse demographic. Demonstrate a creation that is innovative, maps back to a clear need, and leverages current technologies (or those that are feasible in the near-term). Your creation may be near-term practical or blue sky, but it must have a realistic chance of adoption if instantiated. Your design should minimally show awareness of barriers such as security, privacy, cross group coordination and cooperation.
Situate your design exploration within a broader context that incorporates the challenges of the 2018 IPCC report calling for a 40–50% decarbonization by year 2030.
CLIENT
Microsoft: Inclusive Design Team
DURATION
15 Weeks
TEAM
Gautham Krishna, Cathryn Ploehn, Matt Prindible
My role: Interviews and Participatory Research, Concept Generation, Touchpoint Interactions and Testing
RESEARCH METHODS
Expert Interviews, Guided Storytelling, Contextual Inquiry, Affinity Mapping, Paper Prototyping, Immersion
TOOLS
Sketch App, Principle, Adobe After-Effects, Basic Projection Mapping
PROJECT TIMELINE
How might we allow people to experience the transition to more sustainable food practices, such that they have a deeper understanding of their embeddedness within the biosphere.
mobile app
interactive table
Making the invisible visible
LIFE CYCLE, PEOPLE INVOLVED, RESOURCES USED
Sharing stories
IMAGES AND VIDEOS COLLECTED DURING WORK
passive documentation
research process
This 15 week project was divided into 5 distinct phases, each phase helping build on each other to develop and refine the concept based on research and testing. We started off from a bird’s eye view of the problem, and then in our research methods funnelled down to the specific technology touch points.
phase 1: territory definition
primary question
Where is the most impactful context to intervene in terms of regular people in regular life
The inital framing of this project was based on the recommendations outlined in the IPCC’s Special Report on the reality of 1.5C Warming by the year 2030. Radical decarbonization, in upwards of 50% of total emissions, is the frame in which this 15 week project was situated. That’s quite a task. So we used the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Sustainable Consumption and Production to consider changes that each of us can make in our everyday lives.
We were looking for impact, so we used Project Drawdown to identify a place where day-to-day decisions could add up. Two of the top five most impactful areas deal with food — a decision we make many times a day. Project Drawdown estimates adopting a “plant-rich diet” helps reduce ten times the emissions as compared to something like switching to mass transit systems.
But current trends in food systems, from smart grocery stores, to autonomous farming, to meal kits and alternative proteins further abstract our food systems. This is because we tend to look at food systems in a mechanistic way: if we continue to grease the gears and put in more energy, we’ll get more out. But what we’re left with is a system that produces food with incomprehensible environmental costs. What we need are clear ways to re-engage with our food systems.
primary question
How do we begin to think about empathy in the context of the biosphere
Given the prompt 'Design for empathy at scale', we began the research process by first defining what empathy meant to us. Our discussion centered around personal anecdotes, discussion of Valeria Lumbroso’s Empathy: The Heart's Intelligence, Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present, and the various types / triggers of empathy.
We then synthesised our discussion into a working definition of empathy:
A process of
Communication
A recognition of
Vulnerability
Enabled by
Emotional
Cognitive
Perspective
Triggers
Processed by
Imagination
To effect change in
Everyday Life
To promote
Social Cohesion
process
research methods to understand wicked problems
Secondary
Research
Stakeholder
Mapping
Synthesis
Territory
Mapping
phase 2: exploratory research
primary question
How do people exercise a values-based approach to food decisions?
primary question
What does empathy mean in the context of food?
primary question
Is there an opportunity in the convergence of the two?
process
research methods to understand understand current mindsets and drivers
Expert
Interviews
Contextual
Inquiry
Diary
Study
Dinner
Party
Causal Layered Analysis
Affinity Mapping
phase 3: generative research
primary question
What future visions of food system are in the imaginations of people who care about the environment?
primary question
How do people currently engage with the food system?
process
research methods to co-design with end users
Generative
Workshop
Expert
Interviews
phase 4: evaluative research
primary question
Does this space answer this question: How might we allow people to experience the transition to more sustainable food practice?
primary question
Does the programming in each individual space make sense to experts.
primary question
What touch points enable this space?
process
research methods to validate concepts
User Personas
Paper Prototypes
Story Boards
Testing with Experts
phase 5: design and refine
primary question
What features of the platform best help facilitate the transformation of a novice to an expert?
process
research methods to refine final concept
Information Architecture
Visual System
UI
Design
Interactive Prototypes