Duration: 8 months (ongoing)
Done at: Indiana University, Bloomington
Processes and Activities: Ethnography Study, Contextual Inquiries, Literature review, Surveys, Focus Group Discussions
About the Project:
In the context of design for social impact, analyzing social documentary photography as an ethnographic research tool and its inputs in informing the designs for the creation of social awareness solutions.
- A case study focusing on the social issue of child education in rural Bihar.
Overview:
Dealing with wicked problems in design, most of which are present in the society today requires different approaches while designing for them. There are multiple ways in which one could use their knowledge from different fields to solve the problems. This project explores the application of traditional user research methods like interviews, contextual inquiry, surveys and a not so known method using photography called the Visual ethnography in the setting of rural India. The findings are used to analyze the current situations and the likely form of involvement from the different stakeholders.
This phase of the project is focused at getting a better understanding of the problem space and identifying the likely areas of effort application.
This is a Work In Progress as a part of my Masters Graduation Project.
Over the summer of 2008, a visual ethnography study was done in 3 different schools in rural Bihar. This was done in-order to get a first hand understanding of the existing conditions. The profile of the
schools selected were all different in-order to get a broader perspective on the educational system prevailing in the areas. The research focused on getting an understanding of the situations
prevailing within the different sections of the society. Contextual Inquiries was conducted with the teachers in the schools in order to understand what they meant in terms of imparting education to the
children. It was also aimed at understanding the co-operation that the school authorities received from the parents of the kids. Some of the parents of the students we also interviewed. It was hence necessary to do this, as it helped in finding out the norms. The methodology was focused on getting inputs from perspective users.
Fig: Me at one of the schools.
Survey amongst Potential Users:
The survey titled “Understanding the ‘social’ in Social Documentary Photography”; was carried out amongst 50 different people from the age group 22-30, who were either students or working professionals. The group of people surveyed comprised equally of males and females. The common factors amongst these people selected for the survey was that they all had done or were interested in doing social documentary photography at some point of time. A majority of them were also interested in the social issue of child
education. Primarily the survey was based of quantitative questions, but some of qualitative ones also.
Fig: Survey Findings
Focus Group Discussions:
A focus group was conducted amongst five people who were selected based on their interest and knowledge about the topic of child education on India and also helping in using design for the impact in
social change. This was primarily done in order to get an in-person understanding of the more qualitative and phenomenological understandings of the prospective users of the solution. This helped in knowing how they actually felt. One of the major goals of the focus group discussion was also to see how a person felt emotionally when discussing this issue, as one fails to capture them when reading feedback in the form of text.
Exemplar Research:
During the course of the research project, I have come across numerous examples of solutions and of varied kinds. The projects have ranged from individual focused to team focused, from in location to over the Internet. They have ranged from the usage of educational means to entertainment, from awareness spreading to seeking for action. From that revolved around design for social change, solutions and organizations that use some form of creativity; like photography, using creativity as a tool for bringing about a social change. Each of this exemplar is analyzed in terms of its purpose, what the group is about, the groups and individuals that the solution is targeting. They are also analyzed critically for the positives and negatives about the solution and the methods used. Finally it is also looked into what and how it can be used for the TEACh project. This is aimed at providing a better framework with the successful models,
which can be leveraged when thinking about concepts for this project.
Understanding User Groups:
In any project that involves an attempt to solving a wicked problem, the defining of the user groups is always messy. There are multiple ways in which the solution can affect the different groups. When dealing with such problems, often there is a case of a separate group that is being designed for, called the target group, and a separate group that is finally affected by the solution, called the affected group.
Identifying the Core:
In such problems, it is often the case that one deviates away from the Core problem and a proper understanding of the users, the problem and the stakeholders is required.
Fig: Identifying the core
Fig: Stakeholder Relationship
Fig: Components of Education
Future Work: Collaborative Design Framework
The next semester is going to be spent in brainstorming more on the “Collaborative Design Effort” which I call the CDE Framework, and towards an implementation of a solution.
Fig: Components of a Collaborative Design Effort
Imagination is more important than knowledge, and it is hoped that with this project it would provide a channel for the different stakeholders with the power to dream and imagine.
