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Monday, July 25, 2011

Week 11: Participatory Workshop

During these weeks we held a workshop, in an attempt to draw out design solutions from the youth group.

All participant names have been censored, at their request. Instead we have used colours to represent each of the participants.


Submitted:
Workshop Script
Workshop Documentation
Summary & Findings

5 Min Presentation


Process Documentation:

Working Doc
Script V1 (Not Used)

In Week 10, we brainstormed a possible script we could follow when we conduct a participatory workshop the following week. We added additional content to the existing template. We did not randomly select activities that we could do with the team. Instead, we suggested possible activities, discussed possible information that we may collect from the activities and also research additional activities we could do with the group. Serge delved into the psychology world by researching how ice breakers affect a group psychologically; for example, how ice breakers would relieve the tension within the group and the facilitators. Also, ice breakers are interpreted as ‘games’ therefore, it is assumed that one would have a more enjoyable experience with ice breakers than with traditional interviews and questionnaires. From the research and group discussions, we learned that we cannot just have activities that were just activities. Instead, we had to be reflective and decide which activity for the wishing and dreaming phase we could use. If we were to conduct the workshop with random activities, our workshop would not have been effective because the information gathered may have been extremely irrelevant; thus, reflecting poorly on our design intervention ideas.

After conducting the participatory workshop, we gathered together and began to analyze the information. We were able to learn a what worked and what didn’t from the feedback we received from our participants. With the feedback, we were able to revise our idea into something that would be more suitable to the group members. We planned to incorporate certain elements from suggestions the group gave: the balloon and instant text message. We wanted the participants to feel like they were also designers in the project and not just subjects for the facilitators to gather information from.