Semester 2: Assignment 4 GRALI Design!

For assignment 4 myself and Ali decided to try a different approach to the task. Our idea was to work together, to design a questionnaire/interview which would give what we felt were better responses.

Mind Map

Interview Questions and Research

To design the questionnaire we started by choosing our question which was ‘what objects do people treasure the most and why?’, then we created a mind map to help us come up with more ideas for questions which would give us more feed back and avoiding closed questions. We then took our findings from the mind map, and individually created a questionnaire. After this we used the design service tool ‘role play’ and asked each other our questions to find out which questions were best suited for the interview. Some of our questions were similar so we chose we chose the question that gave us a more in depth response. Our final questions were as follows:

1. Which object(s) do you treasure the most?

2. How did you obtain this object?

3. Describe your attachment to this object.

4. Do you treasure your object more because of its monetary or sentimental value, or both?

5. If both, what outweighs more, monetary or sentimental value?

6. How would you feel if your object was lost, stolen or damaged and why?

7. How do you feel when you interact with this object?

With the first few interviewees we struggled to get an answer for the fist question, so we then amended the first question to:

1. Do you have an object which you treasure above any other of your possessions, what is this object?

We conducted four interviews which consisted of two girls and two boys. The objects that were the most treasured were: a photograph, an iphone, a bed and a playstation 3. We initially noticed differences between the male answers and the female answers. This was that the males both chose electrical items ( iphone and playstation 3) which helped them deal with every day life. The females on the other hand both chose items which had a greater effect on there emotions.

We found that the boys had a few similarities, which were that if the item had to be replaced, given a short period of time, they would feel the same for the new object as it still offered the same service as the original. Both of the males said that they get a thrill from using it. Whether to listen to music, talk to friends, or to play games. Without there objects they feel that they would be lost. The only one disagreement was that the playstation was used as an escape from reality. This interviewee is a wheelchair user and uses these games to ‘live’ as an able bodied person. The iphone user was I complete contrast as he used his phone to stay in touch and keep up to date with what is going on in his life.

As with the males, the females also had similarities. Both the photograph and the bed cannot be replaced if stolen or damaged, our interviewees felt that they would be upset if this happened. The objects both had a great deal of sentimental value, but the value differs for each object. The photograph has sentimental value because it is of a family member who is no longer with them. Where as the bed gains its sentimental value from being repaired by the user and is unique only to them. Both these objects pull on the users emotions more than the males objects. But again the type of emotion the user feels is different. The photograph evokes emotions of sadness for her loss but also happiness because of the memories. The bed on the other hand help to remove negative emotions and anxieties which creates a calm and relaxing frame of mind.

One of our interviewees, after getting rather emotional about his attachment to his object, he then reminded us both that ‘at the end of the day, it’s only an object’, we found this interesting because it’s not the object that’s important, it’s the memories behind it.

We both agreed that our memories are more significant than an inanimate object, as they can be broken, lost or changed as society evolves. Where as our memories are uniquely personal to us and never change.