Collaborative Workspace |
User-Centered Research
The following project is part of a semester-long studio course dedicated to the issue of digitally assisted collaboration; how networked communication can contribute to some form of collective problem solving by participants, particularly among individuals with different expertise and ways of thinking. The course, Design as a Cognitive Artifact, promoted the development of certain basic skills including including mapping, user-centered research methods, and quick visual studies of user behavior. Some of the work was in teams, while other work was individual.
The goal of the project was to demonstrate how design can mediate the relationships among people in a shared task: break up support as a collaboration in a university context. The project started as a collaboration of a collaboration with a group-produced interview/observation video with users on tasks that are central to the collaboration. The second part of the project was a large scale concept map illustrating the relationships among people, activities, tools, and settings in the chosen collaboration as a larger system.
The third part was individual. It included a user journey map showing the sequence of actions or activities that users take in executing the collaboration. The actions and activities of this journey map were then illustrated as user behaviors assisted by some sort of technology in a quick prototype study.
Video of interviews with various people related in the collaboration of break up support on NC State's campus. These individuals include a student who experienced a relationship termination during her time at NC State and two members of the Counseling Center, a resource that is vital in the support of students in crisis. The interviews helped my teammates and I gather research on the key players in break up support as a larger system on campus. We then took this information and put it in a concept map.
Concept Map of the relationships among the people, activities, behaviors, tools, and settings of the university system of break up support as a collaboration. 40"x70"
Poster Detail
Poster detail
A user journey in a support group similar to a 12-step recovery program.
An application that assists a collaboration between support group members of a break up support group. The relationship illustrated here involves a sponsor - sponsee one.