Illustrating Emotion
in The Design Process
Concept
While participating in Dr. Cindy Atman's directed research group about the design process at the University of Washington, I was given the task of creating a new visualization for a piece of data that illustrates the different stages of the design process occurring when a participant tackled an engineering challenge.
As seen in Figure 1, the participant's process was sectioned into 7 different stages:
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Problem Definition
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Gathering Information
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Generating Ideas
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Modeling Ideas
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Feasibility Analysis
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Evaluation
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Decision Making
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Communicating Ideas
The figure is a great representation for the amount of time spent during each stage, which is especially useful for comparing data between participants with different levels of expertise in tackling engineering challenges. However, there is one important component of the participant's design process that I feel is missing in this figure. That missing component is the emotion that drives the design process from each stage to the next.
Figure 1: Design Process by A Senior Engineering Student
GOAL: Create a representation for the emotions involved in each stage of the design process.
Design
Video Representation
My first task was to use the same data that created Figure 1, but that alone doesn't describe what's going on in the data. There is a lot going on within the individual that influences them to move from stage to stage, so it can be difficult to say that one or two emotions are occurring. Here are some emotions that I figured one would have during the design process:
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confusion, boldness, joy, wonder, surprise, disgust, determination, frustration, caution, humor, anger, delight
Forcing these emotions to fit into each stage of the design process would not only be difficult but would inaccurately depict what the individual felt.
This is what led me to create the video representation in Figure 2, containing video segments for each stage of the design process. To create Figure 2, I searched YouTube for scenes that I believed could embody the range of emotions within each stage of the design process. From Figure 1, I did my best to translate the visual appearance of the data into a video format with a scaled-down length of time for each stage. Figure 2 also only represents the data until the 20 minute mark in Figure 1. Audio and color was removed from each video segment to allow the viewer to determine their own emotions for each stage of the design process. This puts the viewer in the shoes of the designer. Here is a brief explanation of each video segment connected with the appropriate stage of the design process:
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Problem Definition: A doctor is performing a diagnosis on a child.
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Gathering Information: Two children explore a library.
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Generating Ideas: A fashion designer makes sketches on a notepad.
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Modeling Ideas: A sculptor carves out chunks from clay.
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Feasibility Analysis: The original Tacoma Narrows Bridge sways back and forth during high winds.
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Evaluation: A drill sargeant inspects a recruits gun.
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Decision Making: Shoppers at a store make purchases.
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Communicating Ideas: Someone uses a rotary dial phone to make a call.
Figure 2. Video representation of the data from Senior A in Figure 1.
Paper Scroll Representation
The second task was to find an engineering challenge and spend no more than an hour designing a solution to the challenge. After recording myself going through the design process to reach a solution, I coded my process into similar stages like the ones used in Figure 1 and Figure 2. However, I removed the Communicating Ideas stage because I was always thinking out loud during my design process - making it difficult to know when I wasn't communicating ideas. I also combined Feasibility Analysis into Evaluation because the ways I communicated these moments were very similar.
Rather than using the method of representing the design process like I did in Figure 2, I wanted to create a new form of representation that still managed to illustrate the emotions during each stage of my design process. Similar to the video representation, I believed that emotions are best illustrated when the viewer is invited to experience the design process from beginning to end. For this task, I attempted to accomplish this by physically coding each stage of my design process onto a series of attached papers that would roll up into a scroll-like fashion. The images in Figure 3 show how I made a physical representation of my design process.
If someone were to pick up this model and begin unraveling the paper, they would be in control of observing how I moved from stage to stage in my design process. As the paper continues to be unraveled, they would get a feeling for the connection between stages and how much time was spent during each stage - ultimately allowing them to develop their own emotions about each stage of the design process.
Figure 3. Paper scroll representation of my design process.
Conclusion: To design with consideration for a user's emotions means to first understand what kind of journey you, as a designer, want the user to feel a part of.