In case you’re wondering, that is indeed a room filled to the ceiling with bags of vintage clothing.

For more information on the project, feel free to check out the work|spaces project blog.

Lindsay Dakin shot looking at her preferences in lighting during concept development.

For more information on the project, feel free to check out the work|spaces project blog.

Drawn from key interview points.

Such as:

Industrial Design Student
Into computers, how they work for design
Loves the file>print part of day
25% thinking
75% 3d models
15-20% building objects
Primary workspace computer lab, computer 12.
(1:35)
Computers re my tool of choice for production)
(2:03)
Ritual to start working. 3 firefox windows. Placed in different place on start bar.
link to tv channel site. background noise.
(2:57)
need white noise of my choice, especially with people around.
(3:04)
really distracted by certain noises. ticking clocks.
(3:33)
once a minute sound reassuring, time passing, but not every second
(4:05)
3d modeling to start designs, more rewarding than sketching. more versatility to modify after. to get ideas out.
(5:05)
internalize a lot of early work. 1st quarter devoted to still thinking.
(6:47)
best ideas on the way to the bathroom
(8:42)
final production, very little space. most problems worked out in 3d space
(10:34)
if someone is there, i will delay my work
(11:23)
big screens help, lots of windows open, because the computer can do many things, it should
(11:50)
visual distraction, but not really, websites up pertaining to what i’m working on
(12:25)
specific file naming to track process.
(13:05)
timelines, and ideations up becomes visual noise
(13:24)
things in peripheral vision become highly distracting
(13:50)
working virtual is timesaving and material saving
(14:20)
frustrated by flatness of drawing.
(14:35)
primary advantage is the limitlessness of virtual space.
(14:55)
one interface at a time
(17:55)
it’s all in my head (organization)
(21:48)
requirements. no visual noise. bright colors are out
(21:58)
pink blanket story. light would reflect off of it and put color cast on the walls like a high pitched scratchy whine.
(23:56)
description of computer lab
(24:38)
computer 12 at the back. most space in front of me, least likely to have social contact. don’t like people watching, or seeing work in progress.
(25:28)
if people present, will turn music up and try to get them out of line of sight
(26:09)
during monotonous production stages, it’s important to be around people. share tools, ideas, techniques.
(27:30)
ideal space. 20ft square. translucent windows. no sunlight, it’s annoying. could comfortably work in a windowless room. good acoustics. lots of speakers. daybed. to throw himself on when frustrated.
(29:36)
workstation. desk. wheelie chair. square desk with hand rail to move himself around. desk would have computer station and working area for hands-on stuff. tools in line behind laptop screen to minimize visual noise.
(31:02)
not white. off-white tawny. warm lighting. flourescent is too artificial.
(32:02)
books on shelf.
(32:27)
space to lay out process, but out of the way, so i don’t have to engage with it.
(33:46)
would want it in home. setup kills drive to work. need familiarity. if travelling to space requires effort, less likely to do it.

Marlieke, a masters student in international studies, discussed the desire to immerse herself in an intellectual environment when reviewing texts for her studies.
She also like our library because it has a lot less distractions then some of the other ones in the city.

For more information on the project, feel free to check out the work|spaces project blog.

Over the course of the semester I have been writing a praxis article for eventual inclusion in a design research journal. The topic being this project. The final paper addresses some of the issues which arise when designing in conjunction with human subjects. It provides an examination of the strong need for ethical guidelines in representing participants publicly, as well as making use of an interactive design process to enrich the final outcomes of a project. Overall, the reflective paper has given me a wonderful opportunity to examine my own working methodology and gain a new insight into my design process.

Note: Probably only of particular interest to academics and those who want to know what underlies the creation and development of a design thesis project. A link to a pdf of the complete article with images in conference publication format is included at the end of the entry. It makes for much easier reading.

work|spaces: Merging Ethics With Authenticity

Mark Stokoe
The Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Vancouver, British Columbia
mstokoe@eciad.ca

ABSTRACT
The project “work|spaces” was developed as an undergraduate thesis for the Bachelor of Design degree at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. It investigates the push-pull dynamics between individuals and their working environments drawing on a series of one-on-one interviews to produce much of the content material. Through a series of directed conversations, participant’s personal interactions with their working spaces were identified and then key points were selected to be visually interpreted by the designer. These interpretations are informed by the personas developed for each individual participant. The final goal of the project is to produce a publication which can serve as a reflective tool for readers to reexamine and consider their own working spaces.

Author Keywords
Action research, interviews, working spaces, publication design, persona development.

WHERE DO YOU WORK?
Ask someone about where they work, and most people could probably tell you volumes. The deep interaction that many people have with their working spaces goes beyond a simple job description. The undergraduate thesis project “work|spaces” seeks to examine the push/pull dynamic that exists between individuals and the spaces in which they work. The end goal of the project was to present an investigation of where the line falls between how much someone can influence and direct their working environment, and where it starts to influence them in turn. Initially seeking to find a standardized representation of this dynamic, and identify commonalities across occupations, it became clear early on that investigating this highly subjective topic would entail something more than statistical research.

Through individual story-telling and appreciation of the needs and desires of the project’s participants, a collection of rich accounts have been compiled and interpreted to create a reflective publication seeking to inspire its readers to reconsider their own workspaces. Through the application of a rigorous set of checks and balances throughout the design process, veracity in the information presented was ensured, and allowed both participants and designer to gain valuable insights at each developmental stage.

PROJECT CONCEPTUALIZATION
The concept for this project emerged from extended reflections and discussions with colleagues on the importance of studio spaces to design students and professionals. Working within the framework of an educational institution with limited funding, such facilities are not always accorded to students. From this jumping off point, my research moved into exploring varying different types of working environments for designers and other creative professionals. Through secondary research methods, principally through websites and books that explored working spaces or “office porn,” I began to be fascinated by the wide variety of individual customization that was applied to these spaces. I also consulted with a specialist in workplace ergonomics from the New Brunswick Workplace Health and Safety Commission in order to familiarize myself with some of the standards currently in place to allow people to physically function within environments.

When I compared the information received from these three sources, I began to realize that rather than discovering any singular unifying ideas that would inform how people shape their spaces, these relations were of a more personal and individual nature. As Swann states in discussing the methodology of action research in the field, “Design research is not as quantifiable as in science and engineering and ‘interpretive’ research is a form of qualitative research which is better suited to the behavior and sensitivities of human beings, relying more often on insight for the interpretation of human actions” [1]. From this, I decided to explore the project through the presentation and interpretation of personal narratives.

WHERE TO LOOK
At this point I was faced with the challenge of determining who to talk to. The selection of the participants for the project was a key decision, as their stories would form the foundation of the content well from which the project would draw. This task, would prove to be one of the most rewarding and frustrating aspects of the project. First, a list of professions was generated, then filtered down using criteria based on the spatial considerations associated with the occupations. For instance, while a firefighter might have a very interesting profession, their work does not rely upon the establishment and ongoing engagement with a principle working environment. Thus participants were limited to occupations which made use of a reasonably constant working environment, and whose working spaces would have the potential to highly affect their working mindset.

GATHERING CONTENT
Armed with a refined list of potential occupations to investigate, the process of locating and securing the participation of the interviewees began. Since the visual methodologies of the project were largely undetermined at this stage, a few key commitments were necessary to secure from participants in order to ensure their suitability for the project, and this led to some of the aforementioned difficulties. These commitments included the participants willingness to have their thoughts and reflections presented in a public forum, and potentially offered for publication. They also needed to be willing to consent to a photo shoot which would document and interpret their relationship to their working space.

It was at this point that a number of challenges were encountered. Some individuals contacted were simply unresponsive, while others were uncomfortable with being the subject of any visual documentation. Another hurdle faced was the wide variety of confidentiality agreements and legislation which govern these spaces. In one unfortunate case, a very willing potential participant with a fascinating working environment was unable to be included in the research due to strict contractual agreements which explicitly prohibited the taking of images within the office environment.

In spite of these difficulties, an acceptable number of interviewees were secured and the interviews were conducted. These interviews were all recorded by audio to allow for complete review at later stages in the project. Due to the personal and highly subjective nature of the topic being explored, I determined that the use of a standardized set of questions would not be appropriate. Thus, the decision was made to approach the interviews as a series of directed conversations. This would allow the questioning to be adaptive and responsive to the unique viewpoints of each participants. Since the goal of the interviews was to uncover the nature of the emotional and visceral dynamic between each person and their space, this mode of questioning also allowed me more flexibility to keep the discussions on this line, and avoid excessive digressions into more mundane interactions and quantitative details.

INTERPRETING AND TRANSLATING IDEAS
After or during the interviews, preliminary documentation of the participant’s working spaces was collected first hand in order to help inform the visual development of the project, and to gain a better understanding of the topics discussed (see Figure 1). Once the interviews and preliminary documentations were complete, the next step was to take the content and shape it into a form which would allow for the most engaging and accessible presentation for the eventual audience. The initial plan of including the complete transcribed text of the interviews in the final publication had to abandoned early on due to budgetary issues resulting from the high cost and time-consuming nature of audio transcription.

A complete transcription also would have required the audience to engage deeply with the written content to gain any meaningful understanding from it. This required that the content should be condensed down to the relevant points to assist communication of the ideas expressed by the participants, and helped to refine the eventual construction useful personas [2]. The audio recordings were reviewed multiple times, and then a variety of key points in each interview was selected to be interpreted in the final work. These salient points were selected based on their ability to be translated visually, and their relevance to the overarching ideas which informed the participant’s relation to their space.

Once a variety of key points were identified, a moodboard was created for each participant to guide the development of the visual expression of their ideas and develop personas based on their experiences (see Figure 2). These moodboards consisted of visual imagery, keywords and color palates based on their responses. For example, one participant, a communication design student, repeatedly came back to ideas of structure and delineation between working spaces and living spaces, something often difficult for students to achieve, as well as a desire for visual neutrality in his working environment [3]. He also assumed a relatively objective and analytical stance in his reflections on his work space. This led, in turn, to the development of his moodboard with a strong emphasis on visuals such as information graphics, low-key documentary photography, and a muted color palate consisting of greys and beiges. In contrast to this, the moodboard created for the retail manager of a boutique vintage store made use of vivid rainbow hues, collections of old record covers, and high-key and Holga-style photography.

CHECKS AND BALANCES
The creation of the moodboards and development of personas for the interview participants brings us to a number of issues that are necessary to address when conducting research with human subjects. Underlying the motivations for the project was a strong desire to maintain veracity and sensitivity in the portrayal of the participants. Even putting aside the potential for unfavorable portrayals, the intuitive nature of the process and mediation of content through design poses a great risk of misinterpreting the responses of the participants. With this in mind, it was essential to establish a few levels of evaluation in the development of the project, a number of which were facilitated through the use of an open and ongoing project web log [4].

The first of these evaluative checks is embedded in the research gathering tools which were used. By recording the interviews in full, it was possible to ensure that no errors were made in the transcription of the participant’s words, and allowed key points to be reviewed in their original context. In some cases, participants requested that the audio transcripts of the interviews not be made available online through the project website, citing the desire to ensure that any statements published would be subjected first to my editing. In one case where this became particularly important, a participant, during the course of the interview, began discussing her former employer’s substance-abuse problem. As the public disclosure of this information could potentially have a negative impact on the participant or her employer, and was not relevant to the project research, the complete interview audio was omitted from consideration for the publication.

The creation of the moodboards presented another opportunity and need for a reevaluation in partnership with the participants. In order to ensure that my interpretations of their stories was in line with what they sought to express, the moodboards were subjected to review by the participants. In an informational discussion setting, participants were shown the moodboards, and their usage as a design tool was explained. At this point, the participants were asked to indicate if they felt that the boards reflected their feelings regarding their work spaces as stated, and provide any suggestions for improvement. Once the moodboard was approved, the visualization process was able to begin. Since much of the photographic visualization directly involved the participants, they were able to take an active role in the generation of the visual content. This meant that they could also contribute their thoughts and insight on the process as it was happening.

Although it was not one of the original goals of the project, an unexpected benefit became apparent during the later development stages. During the ongoing consultation with the interviewees, a number of them stated that their participation in the research process provoked a personal reflection on their relation to their working spaces. They stated that after the interviews, they had a new insight and consideration of their own working methodologies, and some suggested that these insights may enable them to refine the ways in which they work. This is an aspect of the reciprocal factor which often occurs in interviews of this nature, and allows a meaningful contribution to be made on the part of the interviewer. [5] I feel this is quite noteworthy considering that as there was no financial compensation offered to participants, some of them were nevertheless left with information of value which was derived directly from their involvement with the research.

GENERATING VISUALS
As stated, the determination of the specific methods for visualizing the ideas expressed during the interviews was left open until later in the development in the project. Once a number of the interviews were completed and reviewed for key points to be addressed, it was time to make determinations and set constraints for their expression in the final publication (see Figure 3). The decision to include photography was made early on, principally due to it’s versatility and effectiveness as a communicative visual technique. Given the time constraints of the project, it was also a sensible decision, since it is a medium I am capable of working very rapidly within. One of the criteria set for the photography was to rely primarily upon the incidental lighting within the working space in order to help maintain the veracity of the imagery.

Since photography alone would not be enough to effectively drive the content of the publication, and could run the risk of simply making the project eye-candy, other visual elements were needed to help reinforce the voices of the participants. This was accomplished, most literally, in the form of expressive typography, allowing the visual treatment of their exact words to convey the feelings they wished to get across.

The final visual element included was digital illustration, which allowed for topics such as factual statistics to be represented effectively. The incorporation of a third visual element also enabled me to create some addition variance in the visualization to help mitigate the visual fatigue that can occur when a reader is subjected to a large amount of images in succession.

PUBLICATION FORMAT
Up to this point the final format and layout of the book is still in some amount of flux. The completed deliverable will take the form of a bound book approximately seven by ten inches in size. The content gathered from the interviews will be structured into chapters based on the experiences of each individual. In order to maintain a sense of visual unity throughout the publication, certain elements such as running heads, margins, and typographic treatments will have a consistent application, while the visual language of the content will vary dramatically within those guidelines. The goal being to create a distinct voice for the publication, but one that speaks quietly enough to allow the ideas and feelings of the participants to come through clearly.

AUTHENTICITY IN REPRESENTATION
Designing with the desire to represent the ideas and personal experiences of other individuals has proven to be a rewarding and challenging endeavor. When approaching a more traditional design problem, such as representing or creating a brand image the designer is obliged to check in with the company stakeholders to ensure that they stay on message. This can be problematic, but when the subject being represented has been called upon to share their intimate feelings and experiences, the evaluation process must go beyond that of straight-forward approval and signing off, and entails a multitude of auxiliary considerations. It is only through directly addressing of these considerations, such as personal respect, veracity, and confidentiality, that the designer can hope to effectively communicate in conjunction with active participants. Creating a result that will advance the hopes, desires, and sense of accomplishment for all the project stakeholders.

Through this analysis and reflection on the evolution of a project which draws heavily upon the willingness of participants to share their experiences, a combination of methodologies have been presented to help assist in developing an effective framework for ensuring a positive and ethical research standard, even in straightforward participatory projects. By establishing and adhering to a system of self-imposed checks and balances, a designer can take great strides towards ensuring that his or her work creates beneficial impacts and avoids any detrimental effects arising from their research and project development. Finally, a constant and active reminder of who you are designing for can provide a vital and vibrant touchstone, allowing your work to become infused with a deep sense of emotion and autheticity often sought after, and all too rarely acheived.

REFERENCES
1. Swann, Cal. Action Research and the Practice of Design. Design Issues 18, 1, MIT Press (2002), . Pearson Education Ltd, Boston, MA, (2006), 51

2. Pruitt, J. and Adlin, T. Storytelling and Narrative. The Persona Life Cycle: Keeping People In Mind Throughout Product Design. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco, CA, (2003), 531

3. Ottahal, Tobias and Stokoe, Mark. Interview: Tobias on Space. January 13th, 2009. http://markstokoe.ca/spaces/?p=91

4. work|spaces Project Web Log
http://www.markstokoe.ca/spaces

5. Glesne, Corinne. But Is It Ethical? Learning To Do It Right. Becoming Qualitative Researchers: an introduction. 3rd. ed. Pearson Education Ltd, Boston, MA, (2006), 143

Complete article in Conference Publication format:
Workspaces Praxis Article (pdf 3.4mb)

"What I absolutely hate, is when I am late with a project, and I am alone."

For more information on the project, and to listen to the interview with Tobias, feel free to check out the work|spaces project blog.

"What I absolutely hate, is when I am late with a project, and I am alone."

For more information on the project, and to listen to the interview with Tobias, feel free to check out the work|spaces project blog.

On the darkroom as a location which demands neutrality.

For more information on the project, feel free to check out the work|spaces project blog.

From the spread discussing how the work in the darkroom simply serves to make manifest what you have already created.

For more information on the project, feel free to check out the work|spaces project blog.

Lindsay Dakin is a photography student at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She works in principally analog photographic mediums, and divides her time between processing film and printing in the darkroom, and shooting in various locations with a variety of subjects.