STBY held a 2 hour workshop as part of the Service Design Fringe Festival on September 20th at our studio in Shoreditch. Here we explored visual methods for design research, building on STBY’s latest publication Viewfinders: Thoughts on Visual Design Research. Participants were invited to play with different technologies and techniques (e.g. GoPro, Narrative Clip) to capture and communicate user journeys.
We worked in small groups to document, edit, arrange, and present visual design research. We then critically reflected upon tactics and approaches for capturing everyday life in a visual and engaging way and the latest technologies used to do so.
During the workshop we proposed a client brief to the participants. We found this evoked participants to engage in the activity with the end goals in mind, considering possible client needs and desires along the way. We found that each group used a different visual research method for capturing their stories. This raised discussion as to why and how they used this method, and what they would have done differently in reflection. Moreover, the workshop stimulated discussion around the added value of visual design research methods in capturing and communicating rich and nuanced stories and experiences. We also encouraged and inspired participants to broaden their tools and methods in their design research “tool boxes”.
