Translational Research–Week One Reflections on Assignment One
Photo of my poster that I shared with the class
“I’m going front-load the semester with a ton of work.”
That’s what Mike Roller said, the professor of the Translational Research class that I am taking. That makes sense when it comes to a research project. The beginning is a time of exploration and building understanding. A researcher begins with a hunch but needs to develop it into an intent. That takes work.
A hunch that I have is that facing (or avoiding) the realities of mortality impacts the creative process, influencing the outputs of a designer and how they serve the end-user. I have no hard proof of this other than some research I conducted (with a team) about how people with dementia interact with digital services. My team found that most designers are not thinking about (or are equipped to think about) people with dementia. There are several reasons why, but I’m interested in a theory mentioned in an interview with a professor at The University of Cincinnati Business School. They said that the cause is that people are ill-equipped to have challenging conversations about difficult topics (like mortality). Working with aging populations forces one to think or talk about the end of life, and that’s hard. It’s much easier to think about what’s trending in Millennial or Gen Y purchasing habits.
What happens if we learn to face our own mortality? Will designers be more willing to serve aging populations? How will facing our death affect the creative process and our outputs? Who’s done work in this subject area? What were the results? These questions (and many others) are the foundation of what could become my thesis work and the topic I choose to study for assignment one in Mike’s class. We are to select a sensitive issue, one that people may have a hard time talking about (like death) and work toward a digital product (solution). The main idea is that we will translate our research into design, hence the name of the class).
During the first week of the project, Mike asked us to do a lot (as he promised). First, we had to select a topic. Then we iterated on our research questions (who, what, where, when, why, how questions). After that, we read about initial approach methods from research from 101 Design Methods by Vijay Kumar and then selected one of those methods to use in our study. After we completed the process, we wrote an intention statement. Each student then presented the results to the class, as shown above in the photograph.
In total, not including class time, I spent about 10 hours during week one on research. I started by generating a ton of questions. It helped to try variations of the who, what, where, when, why, and how questions. What seems like a good “who” question may work better as a “when” question. Using a thesaurus is helpful. I tried to simplify my wording some that anyone can understand the purpose of my research. After I exhausted myself with questions, I narrowed my question down to “how are people prepared to cope with death and suffering?” (in hindsight, I don’t think this makes a good research question, but I will elaborate on that later). Since my selection is a “how” question, I selected the convergence map as my research method.
A convergence map helps the research understand “how” divergent topics align by studying trends and innovations. My three subjects were death and suffering, wellness, and tech companies (generally, companies that on connected software as a foundation of their service, like Uber or Airbnb). I selected wellness because it’s a big industry that aims to help people feel better about themselves. I chose tech companies because they optimize experiences (often to remove pain and suffering). And, I think it’s obvious why I picked death and suffering as a category. With my classes selected, I searched the web for trends and innovations in each area. Look at the scribbled Venn diagram above to see the ideas that rose to the surface. Between the circles, I began to see possible connections from which I started my intent statement.
The intent statement is like a project brief. It sums up the purpose of the research, including the problem you hope to solve, who it’s for, and potential risks.
Intention Statement
AUDIENCE
The audience, as alluded above, are people responsible for culture change at the world’s leading companies. It’s also the people who create curriculum at schools of design, engineering, business, and computer science. These are the people who can clean up the groundwater that sources the inability to address death, suffering, mortality, and the end of life.
FAILURES
The audience claims to be problem solvers. Some even try to solve death. What if that’s the problem? Their inability to recognize that all issues aren’t worth solving equally? That some things are worth accepting?
NEW VALUE
The idea that accepting difficulties like mortality helps you live better and more creatively and may increase your ability to serve the needs of a broader audience.
OPPORTUNITY
Create a platform where students and tech company employees can begin to address death and suffering. There are already models of death cafés, death dinners, and death parlors working at normalizing these conversations. Imagine having death clubs on campuses and having sponsors from tech companies. Imagine a type of “mortal mentor” that works with someone to help them accept the realities of life. Someone to remind you that you’re human just like everyone else (and that’s okay).
RISK
The researcher doesn’t know enough about this sensitive topic. Asking people to think about death could be a trigger. There needs to be a strategy for these moments, and it has to be warm and inviting of all people at different comfort levels.
Next steps
Everything above is a draft and will evolve as I continue to work on the assignment. Nothing’s precious, and a lot of it will change. First and foremost, I would like to scrutinize my research question. It works better as an interview question rather than a guiding question, but even then, I think it can be simplified. For instance, death and suffering can be summed up with the word mortality, making it “how are people prepared to cope with mortality.” Again, probably not a great research question.
Here are a few more riffs:
The researcher will describe how considering mortality influences the creative process.
The researcher will identify how to have conversations about mortality within tech companies and design schools.
The researcher will identify how it harms society when designers don’t consider their mortality.
The researcher will identify ways to encourage designers to consider mortality.
The researcher will identify tools that encourage designers to consider mortality.
The researcher will identify tools that help designers feel comfortable considering mortality.
The researcher will identify tools that help designers feel comfortable, welcoming mortality.
The researcher will identify tools that give designers the confidence to consider mortality.
The researcher will identify how thinking about mortality makes us better designers.
These questions, especially the last two, begin to form a research question that can translate into a designed product. But let’s not put the cart in front of the horse. The statement needs to enable a range of research opportunities before it can lead to a product. The last question, in particular, opens up the potential for a variety of research. Many of the items above it, fall into a subcategory of “tools that give designers the confidence to consider mortality.” For instance, knowing the benefits of considering mortality is a tool that increases confidence. For now, I’m going to play with the question in my second week of research and see where it takes me. As a plus, it falls in line nicely with the mortality mentors idea that I reference in my intent statement above (though I don’t want to get too attached to this idea).
What else do I need to consider and iterate further? With a stronger project statement, I could redo my convergence map or try another method from the Sense Intent chapter of Kumar’s book. One that comes to mind is a Trend Expert Interview. I reached out to a thanatologist (some who studies death) about setting up a conversation. Hopefully, that will happen because they can give me a much better sense of how society feels about death. What’s more? This thanatologist has a background in design.
Another route forward is to begin using methods from the second chapter of Kumar’s book. The techniques in section two are all about discovering the context of a topic. One of which is a subject matter interview and could overlap with the trend expert interview above. Though, I have to admit, interviewing is my comfort zone. If I stick to the mortality mentors idea, Analogous Models may be a good tactic as well. There are likely thousands of mentoring programs in the United States that I can study for best practices. I like the idea of thinking outside of the industry in light of my reading of the book Range. There was a whole chapter on lateral thinking and how it spurs creative problem-solving. Again, I aware that this method may be within my comfort zone.
Perhaps a helpful exercise would be to think of the questions I’d still like to answer or that are just underneath the surface of my consciousness.
Who else is thinking about this topic in a similar context? I think about Ryan Holiday and his writing on Stoicism.
Would anybody use an app that mentors them through a difficult topic like mortality? Are there similar products already out there? I think of philosophy-centered products like The School of Life.
What’s the threat of not thinking of mortality? Nobody wants to talk about it and is that that big of a problem?
What are the benefits of a life with limitations (i.e., mortality)?
It’s easy to throw tech giants under the boss about obnoxious headlines, but are they the monsters we make them out to be? Do they think they are gods? If so, is that a problem? How does that trickle down into society?
College students are highly sensitive people (according to some news sources). Is it safe to talk about mortality in the university setting? If now, how do you make the topic approachable? How are others making it friendly?
A lot of these questions addressed through the Sense Intent methods in Kumar’s book. It wouldn’t hurt to stay in the first phase of the project. Answering the above items may lead to new perspectives and change my trajectory. Better to figure that out now rather than later.
That’s probably enough reflection for now. I have quite a bit of work ahead of me, which is good. The temptation is to rest on my first ideas and close my mind to better possibilities. Trying different methods will hopefully help me uncover stronger outcomes or better the ideas I already generated.