Post Secrets September 21, 2008
I think that this site is so interesting. People put their secrets on a postcard and send them in to a stranger. Wow!!! what a concept… personal secrets that they don’t have the nerve to say out loud feel release when they send this card to a perfect stranger. It got me thinking about a lot of the blogs I read regarding emotional eating. I feel like the people who blog are doing the same kind of thing here.
Kinsey (research) September 21, 2008
I watched the movie Kinsey this weekend because it was mentioned to me in class. Alfred Kinsey is known for being driven by scientific passion and personal demons to investigate human sexuality. This project was meant to take this topic of sex and make it something that people could talk about rather than hide it.
I took some notes that I thought I could apply to my project.
Notes on how to interview people about a sensitive topic:
• Don’t ask the obvious
• Don’t make judgments about people
• Smile, nod your head and look at them in the eye
• Ease people into a conversation first
Kinsey started out with this because he experienced sexual difficulty when he got married
Overall notes and thoughts
• Do I do things normally?
• Are secrets safe?
• Talk to people
• Everyone wants to be the same
• Find groups
• Overlap interviews
• People benefited from these studies and stories because it allowed them to be themselves knowing that other people went through the same things.
I think I am take some of these ideas and apply them to my project. Emotional eating is a sensitive topic and I think going out and doing interviews like this can help people understand this area more.
Mind Map September 18, 2008
I need to make another MINDMAP asap… like tomorrow…(to be continued!!!!!!)
Week three presentation September 18, 2008
This weeks presentation went okay, however I am feeling a little more confused about where I am going with this. I know that all of my data will somehow form this project, but in the end I need to be happy with what I did for a whole year. Honestly, I have ups and downs with it on a regular daily basis and am constantly uneasy about it. I guess this is a normal feeling for people in their thesis year. I guess I am just the type of person who needs to know something yesterday rather than letting someone ride out.
Anyway enough of that… Sven ended up sitting on our class as a guest and for the most part it went pretty well. I think he found my presentation interesting, but still had some concerns.
• Make sure I am doing something that I won’t hate in 6 months
• Don’t try to reinvent the wheel
• Don’t feel pressure… do what I want to do and be happy with it
Experiment Video September 18, 2008
This week I decided to have my journal responses and a video. The video consists of my journal of blogs a few interviews and a cut from a movie that brings up emotional eating. I wanted to do this experiment to start to see how all of my collection of data can be put together. I like the way it turned out, I just need to constantly build it on a weekly basis. I am having trouble uploading the video right now, as soon as I get it working I will post it.
Second Week Presentation September 13, 2008
Overall I think my presentation of new work went well for this week. It was the first time presenting new information since my original concept has changed. I must say that I like where this project is going a lot more that I had originally planned. This feels more natural and something that has the potential to evolve into a great piece.
I presented right from my blog and showed my blog journal, calorie menu, and Edward Tufte inspiration.
My feedback for this week…
• it is a step in the right direction
• people in general find patterns in their lives
• our bodies change when we get older
• this could possibly become an interactive piece
• look up sense making
• find different groups and find patterns between them
• do video interviews
• Robert Kinsey is a good example to check out for his provocative documentary
Things we have to do for next week….
1. information diagram what applications
2. thesis question
3. make simulation or really have something that shows the emotion of my project
Journal Update (in progress) September 13, 2008
I sent out an email to a bunch of people and I got 20 responses back. I’m sure I will continue to get more, but for now I felt I had enough to make a prototype. I am doing this prototype in steps:
Step 1: Sent out the survey
Step 2: Recorded all of the answers in a word file
Step 3: Converted all of the journals into an excel spreadsheet for some organization
Step 4: Highlighted all of the connections on the spread sheet
Step 5: Converted all of that information onto a large piece of paper for the wall
Step 1:
All I need is for each person to keep a food journal for ONE day and than
fill out a survey with the information from their one day food journal.
All the information is completely ANONYMOUS! (Please be honest with your answers.)
Please finish journals & survey’s by Tuesday, September 9th.
Below are the instructions:
1. Record on a piece of paper a food journal for one day including:
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and anytime you Snack
When you eat please record
The time:
What you ate:
What emotions you felt and why:
If you felt guilty and why:
2. When you are finished with the journal please go to this link and
fill out the survey. It will have the same format as above. It should
only take you five minutes tops.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=DB2nRf7IIsuaoh09qiDZQQ_3d_3d
Thank you in advance! I really appreciate your time. If you would like
to pass this along to anyone please feel free, the more I get the BETTER.
Step 2:
Here is a snap shot of the first page of the word document…
Page one of word document
Step 3:
Converted word document into a spreadsheet to organize all of the information. Here is a screen shot (it is just a small portion of it).
Spreadsheet (starting to make sense of all the information)
Step: 5
This is what my final prototype ended up being.
1. I took a roll of packaging paper and made a grid like format on my chart.
2. I recorded information from 10 people out of my journal group.
3. Divided the information into two sections at the top (occupation and emotions)
4. Occupation had social services, artists, business, and students.
5. Emotions had happy, upset, depressed and guilty
6. Took string and matched it to the occupations and emotions that showed patterns
The whole piece
Showing relationships
Anyone need insight? September 9, 2008
Please check out this link…
An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth: These are his strategies, beliefs, and motivations. (it is worth checking out)
http://www.brucemaudesign.com/incomplete_manifesto.html
I think number four is my favorite! Bruce Mau was mentioned in class last Tuesday.
Edward Tufte: Visual Explanations September 9, 2008
Since my project is forming into something different than I had originally planned I need to explore a lot more. Edward Tufte is a resource that is becoming very useful to me. What interests me about Tufte is that he considers design strategies which can be presented in a way of arranging images as a narrative. I know that I will be using images and words as I have been collecting a lot of my own research. What I don’t know yet is how I will be presenting this information. His work has a very rich quality to it which makes his work so beautiful. He answers questions dealing with information design.
I really enjoyed reading about the “Cyclogram” narrative of the Salyut 6 space flight. The flight orbited the Earth for 96 days which was the longest space mission of its time from December 10, 1977 to March 16, 1978. This was a meter-long chart that was laid out before it’s departure which would give them an idea of the entire program. The two cosmonauts decided to rearrange it to fit to their needs. After coming up with a redesign they were still not happy with it as it showed the entire journey and made more difficult for them. What they ended up doing was folding this chart like an accordion so that they could not see past 15 days in the future. This method made it more comfortable with the amount of time they would be spending in orbit. These cosmonauts were the first to change an information design while they were in space. From their tracking they experienced 1500 sunrises and 1500 sunsets.
When I first looked at if without reading about it first it looked so interesting and organized. The colors were so beautiful, at first I thought it had something to do with water, but later read what it was about. I find it amazing that this information was arranged the way it was to help people see the journey that these cosmonauts went through. They told their story and they told it well. It is very impressive this system that they came up with that kept track of their activity for the day, days of rest, spacewalks, and much more.
