Revisiting and reconsidering
As part of my MA in User Experience Design, I completed a module called UX Design.
This blog post was originally published as part of the reflective piece I wrote throughout that module.
Towards the end of the second week into the UX Design module, I was feeling frustrated and anxious because I couldn’t decide what to focus on for my project.
To help move forwards, I got in touch with one of my lecturers and arranged a one-to-one meeting. In the past, articulating my thoughts aloud has helped me to understand the advantages and disadvantages of different options better and then make a decision. This is what I hoped to achieve by speaking to my lecturer, Lj.
A chat and a change
Lj encouraged me to reconsider the theme of the original briefs, the ‘generosity of every day givers’. Perhaps we could adapt an existing brief?
She reminded me that the discovery stage of the project is all about divergent thinking and exploring different ideas; it’s okay that I’ve not settled on a direction yet.
We talked about our own experiences of donating, volunteering or working with charities. I used to volunteer and work at an RSPB reserve, something I have very fond memories of. I talked about wanting to help charities that support young homeless people, as it’s something I’ve experienced myself.
Talking to Lj and realising how much I could adapt the example briefs really helped. I finished the call feeling enthused and excited, having decided on youth homelessness charities as my broad focus area.
Converging and diverging
One of the criticisms of the double diamond approach is that it makes the design process appear linear when in fact, it is much more fluid (Drew 2019). That perspective did reflect my own experiences as I found myself switching between divergent and convergent thinking a few times while I was exploring different options.
In their book Gamestorming, Grey et al talk about thinking divergently and convergently within the context of workshop facilitation. Although their context is different, I could see many parallels between what they were describing and my experiences of the discovery stage. They warn about trying to think divergently and convergently at the same time. This is because “you can’t be creative and critical simultaneously” (2010:27). Perhaps, because I was anxious to get going with my project, I did this a little. However, I think what I did mostly was switch between the two.
As I explored each thread of an idea, I thought divergently. When I realised that particular thread wasn’t one I wanted to pursue further, I closed it down (converged) before moving onto the next idea. This is similar to what Grey et al describe when they talk about opening and closing: “If you open and don’t close, people may feel as if you have opened Pandora’s box: there are too many opportunities and no plan to tackle them.” (2010:28).
My experience of the discovery stage so far has been more like lots of small, diverge and converge diamonds within that bigger, overarching divergent part of the first diamond.
Exploring the broad focus
Having decided on youth homelessness charities as my broad focus, my next steps involved exploring within that area. This included:
Researching the current state of charities and fundraising in the UK more generally to bring my knowledge of this sector up-to-date
Researching homelessness and attitudes towards homelessness in the UK
Getting in touch with, preferably local, youth homelessness charities to learn about them and any challenges they face
I’ll write about the outcomes of these steps in my next few blog posts.
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DREW, Cat. 2019. ‘The Double Diamond: 15 Years On’. [online]. Available at: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/news-opinion/double-diamond-15-years/ [accessed 15 Feb 2023].
GRAY, David, Sunni BROWN and James MACANUFO. 2010. Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers. 1st ed. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.
Thank you for reading.
