#2 First ideas for my final master’s project
During the first weeks of the proposal development course. In order to start working on our final project proposal, we did an activity in groups that helped us to recapitulate what we had learned throughout the Masters in Service Design and how we could use this knowledge in our final project.
For me, the value that has stayed with me the most is learning to work with different people, with different personalities and different ways of communicating. I think that as service designers we work in different sectors and with people from different backgrounds. So learning from others is something I always keep in mind for my professional and personal growth. The value of collaboration is also important, learning to work across silos and having an approach that builds on each other’s ideas is crucial to achieving the goals of any project I work on.
We also reflected on the theoretical frameworks we learned. For me, co-design is the one I want to use during my project because it also fits in with the above reflection where collaboration and the way we work is crucial for any project. With co-design you can better understand the user’s needs, you can have interesting conversations and it is easy to validate your ideas.
As I was clear about the topic of my final project, it was easy for me to focus on the initial ideas in class. We started with the questions What, What, Who, When, When and How? This helped us to go deeper into our topic and to understand if our scope was too big (Figure 1).
The next week we did the same dynamic, but now we considered another topic, just in case the first one was too difficult or we felt more motivated by the other one (Figure 2). We did peer reviews and shared our ideas with the rest of the class.
At this stage I felt that the peer review was confusing because everyone had problems with different aspects of their project, like their topic was too broad, they didn’t feel confident with their topic or they hadn’t decided on the topic. So, for me, what was more important than getting proper feedback on my project or my ideas about it was that we were supporting each other in a way. Everybody had some difficulties with their project and the atmosphere was that we all share it and you’re not the only one.
How might we? The key question for us
To start fleshing out our ideas, we worked on our How might we do?(HMW) question. For me, this question is the key aspect of our whole project because it is what we have to focus on throughout the process. It is sometimes difficult to formulate because you have to ask yourself in one question what you want to create or solve, have an idea of your goal and learn how to narrow it down so that the scope of your project is neither too big nor too small. This doesn’t mean you can’t change it along the way — it can be flexible. But it is better to keep most of your initial HMW question as it helps to have a smooth process.
So we started with some initial HMW questions and then we went out and asked for some feedback (Figures 3 and 4). So my first question was how can we help sedentary people to be more motivated to take part in dance classes in public or community spaces? At first this was difficult to explain to others, especially to people not involved in service design. So I changed my approach and rephrased the question. I found some barriers like cost or time management and motivations like ‘it’s not like exercise, it’s more like a hobby’ and that dance develops a sense of community. All of these will help me to define my idea better and have more context.
I know it will be a long road, but for me it is important to enjoy every step and how I can develop my ideas better. So having an attitude of flexibility and learning along the way is a fundamental aspect.
