Meeting 7: Audience and Background Research
In meeting 7 we began to collect more background information about your proposed projects. Given that you will have now identified a project design challenge and have defined your audience, you need to learn more about its broader context. It is good to seek inspiration for solutions everywhere you can, but methods of gathering insight such as conducting interviews can be less objective. So you will need to use secondary research to collect facts and figures in order to better understand the context of your challenge.
Basic guidelines to begin secondary research
- Explore recent news in the field. Use the Internet, newspapers, magazines, or journals to know what’s new.
- Try to find recent innovations in your particular area. They could be technological, behavioural, or cultural. Understanding the limits of what is possible will help you to innovate and ask good questions about your proposed solutions.
- Look for analogous solutions or partial solutions in your problem area. Which ones worked and which ones didn’t work? Are there any solutions that seem similar to what you might design?
- Interviewing experts in the field where your problem is situated can also provide useful insight for generating or testing solutions. Secondary research is needed to help you prepare good questions and to be ready to follow the conversation as it happens.
Secondary research class activity: finding source material
Instructions
- Go through the ChatGPT prompt activity on secondary research:
Link for inclass activity here. Submit outcomes and reflections from 1. in the "Assignment 7" drop box on Lea.
2. Background: Collect at least 3 sources related to the background of your problem.
3. Innovations: Are there any current innovative ideas that might help you solve your problem. Try to list at least 2.
4. Existing solutions?: Try to collect an additional 1-3 sources where others may have put forward a solution (or partial solution) to your problem area.
Use this as a guideline for future secondary research. You will be asked to cite your sources in an end-of-term report.