• Introduction
• Thesis   
  • Personal Design Research definition
  • Human Centered Design Research
  • Thesis goals
  • Work completed
• Project and Methods   
  • Introduction
  • Pre-research   
    • Bounding terms
    • Exploration of terms
  • Recruiting  
    • Overview
    • Process
    • Screening for ambivalence
  • Probes  
    • Overview
    • Evocative probes
    • Blank probes
    • Cameras
    • Distribution
  • Interviews  
    • Overview
    • Teams
    • Spaces
    • Photography
  • Analysis  
    • Approaches
    • Content based
    • Reflections
  • Findings  
    • Overview
    • Reflections
  • Outcomes
• Conclusion

Project and
Methods:
Pre-research:
Exploration of terms:

Moving through media

Good starting terms should be selected because they hint at greater depth of meaning. If they can be understood without further investigation then they are most likely too shallow to lead to new understandings. Within the Super Studio class these terms are explored by several means. First, 'swipe walls'--quickly gathered imagery from magazines and other sources that are pinned to the wall--are created for each term. The intent is to use readymade, culturally constructed imagery to express internal understandings of ideas. Then individuals explore one image personally through a visual process. Meanwhile, secondary research is conducted into how the terms crossover into the lives of the demographic selected. For example in the Blux Super Studio, secondary research was counducted into how "constructions of manliness," "social intelligence," and "media messaging" played into the lives of six year old boys. There were many medical, social science, educational, journalistic, and parenting sources for this secondary research.

In Women Who Play a similar, but expanded approach was taken. Swipe walls were created as in the Super Studio method. However, discussion within a design team of one proved difficult. A new tactic was tried that would be used later in the research as well. Instead of verbally discussing the images or exploring them through the selection of other images, each swipe wall was translated through several media. The original images were tagged with short notes. The notes, separate from the images, were arranged and examined. The understanding from the notes were transformed into informational flow. These charts of the concepts were then turned into formal written descriptions. As the concepts crossed the boundaries between media, again and again, their meaning had to be synthesized anew and rethought of in a way that could be expressed in each new medium. This led both to a refinement of what each concept meant to me, as well allowing the meaning(s) of the concepts to move away from the initial images. Similar to how teaching an idea challenges a person to understand it deeper than just knowing it, translating an idea through media requires you to be specific and clear about what it means, while at the same time as creating opportunities for new understandings.

(This approach is a synthesis of two Media Design Program assignments. The first is to represent an idea in seven different media. The second is to take a single image and create a chain of associated images based on it. What is different about this approach is that it is a series of associations that moves through media.)

Traditional secondary research was conducted into the subject group. It was frustrated by a lack good previous work into the topic. (At a Women In Gaming conference held at Electronic Arts in March of 2007, every speaker said there was a dire need for more research.) The sources that are available on the topic tend to be either industry sources, which while having varying points of view on the subject, all come from within the industry, or academic writers coming to the subject with an innate feminist critique. Current, balanced sources proved much harder to find then on previous research projects.

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