Last Monday (26th Jan) we went to Edinburgh for the day on a fieldwork trip which was called "Traces of Human Activity" where we were to go out into the streets of the city to observe and record traces of:

By-Products of use
Adaptations for use
Displays of self
Public messages
The Context of these traces i.e. showing the 'bigger picture' of where these traces were situated.

I was with Lindsey and we went firstly in the direction of the old town, going up the enclosed stairwell leading up from the station to the North Bridge and the entrance to the old Scotsman building.

Climbing up the stairs showed plenty traces and evidence of people 'hanging out' - with by-products of use (leftovers - beer bottles, plastic cups, lots of litter and human 'waste'); displays of self (stickers and graffiti on the old boarded up windows and doors) and more human detritus the further up you climb up the stairs.

The real contrast was at the top. The old Scotsman building has now been turned into a hotel with window boxes of topiary plants. So as you arrive at the top of the stairwell the sharp contrast between the stylish hotel above and the seedy world below is clear (see photo).

Why design is key for healthcare improvement

I am currently doing a research assignment looking at patterns of language and communication behaviours in a dementia sufferer. Dementia is becoming a huge problem for the healthcare services with increasing demands on the services as more and more people suffer from neurodegenerative diseases in later stages of life.

I was therefore very interested to read the article, Creative thinking about Alzheimer's - about a Design Council initiative to promote design in the North East, which invited thinkpublic to work with regional branches of the Alzheimer's Society in order to investigate ways of improving the lives of people with dementia, their carers and service providers. As the article states, it set out "to gain first-hand insight into living with dementia and the preliminary stage of the project involved interviews with people whose lives were affected by the condition. The investigative and co-design process led to a number of recommendations, including a dementia signposting service, a mentoring programme for carers and the design of a safe "wandering garden". The recommendations were fed into the national dementia strategy.

Cultural expectations can affect the way people approach and interact with those suffering from dementia and influence how they communicate with them. My own close experience with someone suffering from vascular dementia leads me to think that our beliefs can often cause us to act in ways that are less than optimal for good treatment and communication. Deborah Szebeko, director of thinkpublic has published her article in the Health Service Journal (HSJ) to argue this very point saying, "design aids a better understanding of the people who use and provide services and offers a range of tools and processes to support working together to develop and make improvements." The full version article, Designing Healthcare Environments, is available to view on the Health Service Journal

What People Say is NOT what they Do

"Ethnography informs design by revealing a deep understanding of people and how they make sense of their world" - see the Cheskin article on Ethnography and Design which includes a downloadable Ethnography Primer. A real find!

User-Experience Research Methods

I have one or two articles on web design and usability which I read, and one I read regularly is Jacob Neilsen's Alertbox and an article of particular interest is When to Use Which User Experience Research Methods by Chris Rohrer. In it he helps to make sense of the wealth of methods available and how they relate to each other. These methods are along the three dimensions of:

1. Attitudinal vs Behavioral
2. Qualitative vs Quantitative
3. Context of website or product use

Worth a read, more thought on this later.....

The Joy of Sketch

I like to doodle and was heartened to read the essay by Kate Rutter (Senior Practitioner at Adaptive Path) on Sketchnoting which she describes as "simply journaling with imagery". In the past I sketched a lot more, but sadly it has fallen by the wayside in recent years with the mouse taking over from the pen!

Research has shown that visual thinking activates different parts of our brains than does language thinking. So, now is the time for me to start sketching/creating storyboards again - to notate and express my ideas and findings e.g. my fieldwork synthesis process:

As Kate Rutter says, "Pictures allow a holistic view of something. Graphic elements create stronger memory and recognition points; it’s easier to remember an image than a page of text.

Illustrations communicate ideas faster than descriptions, because processing pictures requires less "translation" than written language. We need to be able to communicate scenarios and interfaces clearly and visually, but at low fidelity. More meaning in less time. In addition, there is a tactile pleasure to hand sketching that is rich and engaging."

Medicine, Life and Art: exploring the connections between medicine, life and art

The Wellcome Collection opened in London in 2007 and is a public venue dedicated to exploring human wellbeing through medicine, life and art and "brings to life Sir Henry Wellcome's vision of a place where people could learn more about the development of medicine through the ages and across cultures".

The Wellcome Trust was founded by Sir Henry Wellcome (1853-1936) who was a pharmacist, entrepreneur, philanthropist and collector. He had a passionate interest in medicine and its history, as well as ethnography and archaeology, which led him to gather more than 1,000,000 objects from across the world. Over 900 objects from Sir Henry's collection are on permanent display in the Wellcome Collection.

One of my own studies will be an observational/participative ethnography of someone in the early stages of dementia, looking at it through the eyes of a carer living with their partner's changing behaviour patterns and erratic moods swings as well as the growing loss of reality of the sufferer. Neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia represent a significant human, societal and economic burden, which is continually growing as the elderly population increases worldwide. In conjuction with the MRC, the Trust provides funding for Research in Neurodegenerative Disease with a focus on advancing the understanding of the biological processes underpinning neurodegenerative diseases which could lead to early diagnosis and effective therapies.

Another area on their site that I found interesting (and ties neatly with my earlier entry - Sex on the Brain) is one entitled Art on the Brain. Professor Semir Zeki at University College London has received a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award to study what happens in the brain when we create or perceive art and beauty. This new field - dubbed ‘neuroaesthetics’ by Professor Zeki - combines the arts and humanities with cutting-edge science. His team will use brain-imaging techniques and other tools to measure neural activity when people are engaged in the arts.

And all this just goes to show that the more you know, the more there is to know......how DID we manage before the web?

On Understanding People

Behavior is a mirror in which every one displays his own image.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The idea that behaviour is a mirror interests me - yes, my behaviour does reflect my inner thoughts and feelings SOME of the time but perhaps he means that this is the mirror where we can see a true reflection of our own selves - the real function of a mirror. Or am I just havering? Anyway, it is certainly true that we must dig deeper than behavior to really get to know people. In the words of Dev Patnaik and Michael Barry of the Product Design Faculty at Stanford University:

Watch what people do
Listen to what people say
Listen to what people SAY about what they DO
......particularly the stories.