Last weekend was my workshop (“Did you see that? Tapping into your super-noticing power”) at the Institute of Design’s Design Research Conference. Most of the folks in the workshop completed a homework assignment where they went out and took photos of something they noticed (similar to the assignment I had given to the students I taught at CCA, discussed here). During the workshop itself, people presented their photos and stories, while I asked both speakers and listeners to think about the noticing process more than the details of the specific examples (all of which were interesting and enjoyable).
We did just a first pass at synthesizing the observations, and some of the things that came out may or may not be obvious to others. Here’s a sampling:
- To notice, we filter on our previous experiences, our personal backgrounds, and our professional experiences
- We react to something that evokes an emotion in us
- Rather than noticing details, we may simply grasp the gestalt of the details in the moment
- Taking the picture helps you notice, even if you go back to the picture later and notice things in that picture
- The importance of slowing down, relaxation, being calm/still, having a time of contemplation (in contrast to “trying” to do a noticing activity…several people reported that they couldn’t do the exercise when they tried to do it, but then later on they noticed all sorts of stuff
- In contrast, for some, there is no on/off button for their design research way of thinking/being
- There’s a need to give ourselves permission to look silly by stopping to pay attention to something seemingly trivial
- Notice similarities when you expect differences
- Notice differences when you expect similarities
- Most importantly to me, was that it’s okay not to know the “why” of something; this was tough during the workshop when some people had a strong urge to try and explain what others had noticed; to rationalize, clarify, or even solve it
I look forward to the next opportunity to lead this workshop again.
See also: Ever notice? by Steve Portigal and Dan Soltzberg at AIGA Gain
Tags: Chicago, conference, design research, drc08, drc2008, id, IIT, institute of design, noticing, workshop
Your last comment, “Most importantly to me, was that it’s okay not to know the “why” of something; this was tough during the workshop when some people had a strong urge to try and explain what others had noticed; to rationalize, clarify, or even solve it” makes me…wonder why. Yes, i think there is a lot of fun and interest in just noticing something, but isn’t the next step to ask why? If I see a guy endangering his life (as I see it) riding down the street on a double-decker bike, he must have some reason for doing it. If I wanted to sell him a new fangled bike that he would want to buy, I need to know the value that he places on that kind of bike…so don’t I need to ask why to correctly inform myself?
Comment by Matthew Gardner 10.07.08 @ 6:49 amGood question, Matthew. I think it’s important to be able to separate the two and to understand in ourselves when we are observing and when we are solving. And as a workshop, the idea was to build muscles, which you often do by isolating the muscle group you are concerned with, and just focusing on that.
The fact is, we often don’t know why, and I think freeing ourselves of the need to know why allows us to be open to a greater set of possibilities, and indeed to notice more down the road. If you have to logically resolve everything as it happens, you are going to discard a lot of stuff that you can’t make sense of.
Someone in the workshop talked about “being still” and I think that’s a lot of what I wanted people to take away. We solve problems all the time, this was a chance to slow down and just focus on part of the process, in order to reflect on what’s going on in that part of the process.
You do need to ask why, just not right away, and just not in that workshop
Comment by Steve Portigal 10.07.08 @ 9:52 am[...] workshop on noticing at the Design Research Conference; happiness and noticing; Dan and Steve write about [...]
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