Saturday, April 13, 2019

Design Lab: Design Briefs and Research Plan Timeline

Design briefs revolving these concepts, Slow LivingFun & ImaginationSocio-Cultural Awakening and Humane Design will be devised with these objectives in mind:
  • Validate findings and see which possibilities work better to encourage digital/life balance.
  • To determine which approaches are most relevant and relatable.
Different thinking hats which may be expanded into mini projects:



At the same time, case studies and in-depth interviews will be carried out for more data collection, looking into individual experiences and narratives to gain deeper understanding before analysing for an action plan. From there, the preliminary design phase will kick off, with ideation and development of prototypes. Prototypes will be tested and validated. The evaluation will be refined for iteration and the remaining step will be measuring impacts before scaling and delivery.

The way forward for a healthy digital/life balance is to encourage time well spent with purposeful activities and empowering society’s choices with equal levelness of on and off-screen possibilities.

Parameters of design can be changing the society’s mindset of high digital usage to become more mindful so as to take control of their digital lives or introduce deterrence of digital usage through controlled methods, forceful prevention, subtle but strategic interventions or to develop more off-screen possibilities and activities.

Sustaining a healthy society with good cultivation of good physical and mental well-being requires strategic designing of products and alternatives with humanity’s best interests, vulnerabilities and needs in mind.


Design brief #1:
4 Weeks Digital De-clutter Challenge / Experiment
Target audience: Highly reliant group who believe that they can survive without mobile phones for 24 hours and 3 days with a dumb phone.

Dr Maxwell Maltz wrote a book in 1960 called “Psycho-Cybernetics”, where he shares that his patients took a minimum of 21 days for his patients to get used to a physical change. The duration depends on personality, motivation, circumstances, and the habit in question, but with regular practice and motivation, it is possible to break an old habit and create a new routine.

This digital de-clutter experiment aims to liberate participants with less presence of mobile devices and empower their balance of both on and off-screen activities.

Concepts included in this design brief: Slow Living, Fun & Imagination & Socio-Cultural Awareness

How to play?
1. Download the 'Moment' app and enter goals for tracking progress
2. Participants will be given allowance at certain days to buy a new book / puzzle. 
3. Participants will be sponsored with an amount to do any physical activity with their friends. 

1. Weekdays: 
  • Experiment does not take place during working / study time. However there are restrictions for time before and after. 
  • No charging of phone after 12pm unless work requires. 
  • No browsing of the phone (internet/games/etc) for entertainment for more than 30 minutes per day. 
  • Check Instagram and Facebook only once per day.
  • Turn off notifications, badges and sounds after work. Do not reply to messages or react to notifications instantly. Observe and pay attention to surroundings and people. Write down anything that you find interesting or has never discovered before.
2. Saturday (x4):
  • Do not charge your mobile devices on Friday night. Charge your mobile devices to 20-30% in the morning and remove.
  • Reach Ace’s house at 9am and leave at 12am (15 hours) There will be activities with Slow living and Fun & Imagination concepts (DIY and activity challenges (things they have not done before) and planned intervals for boredom, pain-points (long queues) and down-time to see their actions and suggestions.) They won't receive any itinerary beforehand. 
3. Sunday and Public holidays:
  • Do not charge your mobile devices on Friday night. Charge your mobile devices to 20-30% in the morning and remove.
  • No browsing of the phone (internet/games/etc) for entertainment for more than 1 hour 
  • Go out, hang out with people or rest your mind at home, grab a book, make something, observe and pay attention to surroundings and people. Write down anything that you find interesting or have never discovered before.
Guidelines:
  • Participants are allowed to use their mobile devices within the 20-30% battery range at any point but once battery is out, they are not allowed to charge. This is to encourage mindful usage. 
  • Participants are encouraged to persevere through the 4-week Digital De-clutter challenge but they can choose to give up or break the rules at any point. 
For successful participants, I will follow up with them and find out if they are able to keep up with this new routine after the 4-week introduction.
Aim: To find out which approaches/activities are most suitable to minimise mobile device usage.
Would it be a card game that I designed to ease boredom during waiting time?
Would it be a fun DIY/craft workshop I run? Would they be willing to spend some time to make things on their own again?

Design brief #2:
UI/UX Design Workshop
Initiate a design workshop with designers/non-designers to re-design apps
Either to streamline digital-decluttering (so they can do things efficiently and get off screen quickly)
or design an alternate process so tiring/effortful that users would give up using it or use it mindfully (grey out screen/fonts become difficult/fade out to read after an hour usage/etc).
Concept included in this design brief: Humane Design 

Design brief #3:
Downtime Card Game
Design a fun card game that can help to improve memory / brain and send for testing to see if people will play the games and minimise mobile device usage during waiting times (dinner, lunch, etc)
Concept included in this design brief: Fun & Imagination

Design brief #4: 
Digital Dementia Storyboarding

Work on the script with storyboarding for Digital Dementia short film to test responses and measure impacts
Concept included in this design brief: Socio-Cultural Awakening

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