Jax Wechsler Transcript

Transcript

1. 1 www.captionslive.com.au | captionslive@outlook.com | 0425 904 255 UX AUSTRALIA Design Research 2020 Day 1 Thursday, 19 March 2020 Captioned by: Gail Kearney & Rebekah Goulevitch
2. 2 JAX WECHSLER: Great! Thank you. Thanks. Thank you very much. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge the Gadagal people and pay my respect to their elders, past, presenting and emerging. I am sorry I can't be there in person. Please say hi on linked in or twitter if what I am saying has resonance. My name is Jax Wechsler. I am a decliner and researcher have done a lot of work on vulnerable people and supporting people, and I consult as an independent practitioner with Sticky Design Studio and I run social design Sydney and the Systems Change Salon. My talk is called Voices of Lived Experience: Design Research With Vulnerable People. I will begin with a few provocations and then move into six considerations for research and design for vulnerable people. I hope you find this valuable. Bear with me. All the, the focus of design practice is changing. From visual designers designing posters to industrial designers designing toasters, to interaction designing digital tools and online services. Solving systems for environments and organisations. The folks of design practice is evolving and increasingly design is being utilised to support social, political and environmental change let's get clear what I mean by lived experience and vulnerable people. It is the experience of people on which social, health or combination of issues has had a direct impact and a vulnerable people is someone who is unable to take care of themselves or able to protect themselves against harm or exploitation from disability, trauma or other reason. Designers' power to influence people's experiences and change lives also increases. Designers have power. I would like to read you this quote. It really resonated with me Juul Sondergaard. Whether aware of it or not, designers bring values and belief systems into it the design practice based on their position in the world and this influences the design in a particular way. Arguing that designers influence their design is not a controversial argument to make, but when design deliberately engages with power, social change and the political condition it seems increasingly important designers reflect on their position. Human centred design. I am sure everyone in the audience is familiar with human centred design and it is a very valuable approach for designing services for vulnerable people. It used people as experts in their domains and has empathy at the core. That helps to facilitate that is discussed but what does empathy mean and is it enough? Let's look at what empathy means. The ideas that IDEO HCD toolkit say they empathy brings understanding of the problems and realities of the people we are designing for. Does empathy always lead to deep understanding? Do design methods necessarily lead to deep understanding? Design research does well supports understanding, yes. Please excuse my cynicism here, but can one build empathy by building out empathy maps? If I may, in relying on empathy alone we be fall into a trap of falsely rationalising decisions. Empathy is not enough. You can't recognise what you don't know. If you don't know how it feels to sleep rough at night, how can you recognise that feeling? If you are afraid of being assaulted, how can you actually recognise that fear? The reality is you don't and you can't. We can get close to how it feels but the more privileged you are the more likely that these realities are very distant to you to understand. Without understanding, we assume. We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. And that link below is quite interesting. It's got psychological studies about empathy and privilege. Studies have shown upper class people having more control over their
3. 3 lives and less needing to rely on relationships are less empathetic. Privilege can blind us. The next thing I would like to raise is when. When do we involve service recipients? I don't like the word users, people that we're researching with, when do we involve them in the process? Often usually design and research is done here, around before the discovery phase. And commonly done here where we validate and refine concepts or interventions. But really, to get the outcomes we should get and we can get, you really need to involve people throughout the process. If I was there I would say raise your hand if you've seen this. But maybe do that in your house. I won't know. This is a well-known framework, the IAP2 framework and it is used to inform public consultation framework. I feel it's useful here when considering participation within the design process. I have not - I'm behind, on the wrong slide. Here we are. I feel that design and research commonly we sit in the consult part of the spectrum. We will listen to and acknowledge concerns and aspirations but to get the outcomes we can get and we should be getting, we really should be moving into collaborate, where we will look to you for advice and innovation in formulating solutions and incorporate your advice to the maximum extent possible. That is where we should get. We need to stop designing for people and start designing with people. And how might we involve diverse voices of lived experience throughout our processes? How might be ensure we include the voices of lived experience and ensuring stakeholders have empathy and understanding? OK, so, eight considerations for conducting research with vulnerable people and including the voices of lived experience. Point one: Take a systems view. Life for vulnerable people is usually complex, a system view facilitates understanding. At the start, create a map of the system your user groups are involved with. Include people, policies, services, organisations, places. Keep adding to this map, it will be very useful. Vulnerable people can be hard to recruit for research. A systems view can help to understand how to get those hard to reach voices included and it can help you find partners in organisations that work with the community. A systems view will help you understand people's context, supporting you to hone your research focus and it is valuable in sense making because it can help you to understand the complexity of someone's life beyond their medical diagnosis or socioeconomic situation. It will help you understand enablers and detractors in their world and identify noncausal relationships between these, helping you to understand and recommend where to intervene. A system lens will help you, your colleagues, your partners, clients and decision makers to identify where the levers for change may lie so you can intervene in ways that have impact. I am a big fan of systems thinking and use it to inform my practice in dealing with complexity and there are links there in case you would like to read more about it. Two: Mind your mental models. Bias is unavoidable, reflect to know yours. Consider the power dynamics of the system you are part of. They are there. Where does power lie? Reflect on this in relation to your issues and the larger context. It is important to consider who is funding this work? Understand your privilege. What hinders your ability to take another's perspective? Consider your personal and cultural assumptions. Again, they are there. And be reflective when sense making. Always interrogate your assumptions. Try to tune into your judgments and it is helpful to identify patterns together, work with colleagues in field work, work with domain experts and work with people with lived experience to
4. 4 help you make sense of the data. Reflect, reflect, reflect. It's OK to have your own biases as long as you make the effort to know them. Point three: Accessible and appropriate. Be appropriate, enable and scaffold participation. Not all approaches are appropriate for all cohorts. It sounds obviously, but accessibility needs to be front of mind. Firstly, make sure the locations are accessible and then go back and check and visit. It is embarrassing when someone in a wheelchair rocks up and you are unable to get them into the building. Ensure the locations are appropriate and participants feel comfortable. Some locations are not appropriate for people, make sure participants feel safe. For example, conducting research with regional Indigenous communities on a family community services project, it was not appropriate to do any research in the office so we worked with the local community YWCA that offered their space. Language: Always use plain English. Collaborative design methods needed adaptation for trauma. Be prepared to modify you ways. Ability is diverse. Provide flexible ways to gather data. It is a big mistake to assume people are literate or comfortable with reading and writing. Story telling, everyone can tell a story. Seek advice and support. Get support to shape your research so it's appropriate. Involve others who understand the cohort. Cultural understanding is so critical. Consider working with others to help you shape and interpret your research. Utilise carers and supporters to facilitate data gathering. They know the people and can be helpful to support your research process. 4: By adaptive like water, flow, reflect, adapt. Creating trust and a sense of security is critical. It takes time. So recruitment and research will take longer than you expect. Try to allow more time than you think you need. Be flexible. Work around participants. Build in choice. You may need to run research activities in ways and locations you're not used to. Participants may participate in unexpected ways. Go with the flow. Build in choice and enable participants to participate on their terms. I ran research of people with lived experience of mental health with diary studies so they could participate when they wanted. It can be challenging to access some groups. Consider working with advocates to run research activities for you. On another project with a regional Indigenous community I designed activities for the leader of a men's group, including men who had been incarcerated as I was unable to directly access the cohort. Don't be a purist, get what data you can. Consider the next best option if you can't talk to users. Payment: Always pay participants, some need interpreters and carers and make sure you have budget for that possibility. Well being: Put wellbeing at the heart. This includes your own. Wellbeing is important for everyone, always. Ensure there are supports, support avenues in place for everyone. For researchers, it can be very hard not to be affected by what you hear. Create mechanisms for support for your team. Make sure you debrief after interviews and it can be helpful to work in pairs. Ensure your team has access to the support they need, when they need it. Before starting, tell participants that they can stop whenever they want if they feel uncomfortable. During interviews, tune in. Are you being strengthening and not triggering? Tune in and ask. Ensure you have supports in place for people. Give participants a contact so they connect with someone for support after in case they are unsettled. Some topics can be triggering. Become trauma informed. There are courses you can do. 6: Partners, not informants.
5. 5 Move from consult to collaboration, to co-create. Build capacity for participation. That can take time. I love the concept of - sorry, scaffolds for participation, Liz Sanders is one of my heroes. It is a great analogy when trying to design research activities to people who may have different ability to what you are used to working with or different perspectives. Highly recommend, look her up - scaffolds for participation. It is helpful to work with partners who are trusted by your cohort. And try to involve influencers. Gaining their trust can get trust from the community. I was lucky to work with elders on a regional project and it helped me gain access and trust. Involve community influencers in recruitment and data gathering. I just want to add here that having a close relationship with somebody trusted by the community really, really helps, not just the recruitment but along the whole process, to help you translate, to help you understand if you're being appropriate, and to help you really get the best results. It can be really, really important. And that has a lot of value for them too. Because that can really help build confidence and that is a sort of intervention in itself, often. Always be realistic and ethical. When engaging, we need to be able to deliver on outcomes. Is your programme able to deliver outcomes? If there answer is no, is it ethical to be involving people in research? Be realistic about your locus for change. And ongoing engagement. It is really great if you can establish working groups surrounding your initiatives because change takes time and your work should inform a longer piece of work and it should not stop with research. Bring people with lived experience along with you on the journey. Sorry, I didn't have that up there. 7, ethics protocol. Commit to ethics. They are so important. There's lots of borrowed stuff, heaps of stuff on the Internet, I did a quick scan. I liked the ethical questions for design work by the Auckland Colab. Within that PDF document they list all of the different phases of the design process including the execution layer and they posit questions to consider to ensure you are being ethical. I think it is a great prompt and something to utilise. There are a couple of other links you can use. There is heaps of stuff online and just borrow and adapt. 8: Amplify effectively. Amplify the voices of lived experience. Facilitate empathy and understanding. Your audiences. What is their understanding of the cohort and context? Build empathy as well as understanding. Paint a systems view. How can you help your audiences to better understand the system and potential places to intervene? How can you help decision makers make sense so that the right decisions are made? Use stories for your data gathering, for your sense making and for sharing back. Our brains are wired for story. They are memorable and meaningful. Amplify real voices. Using audio and video recordings can be very powerful. I ran a workshop with some government people looking, where we did some research with people experiencing homelessness and we created some audio exerts of interviews that people listened to and we had a lot of photos. It really pays to bring your research alive but actually to try to utilise real voices as well, not your interpretation. Amplify for longevity. What aligns with your research down the track? Bring your research to life so it continues to have a life and doesn't get buried on a hard drive. Might it be possible to bring your participants to meet your stakeholders? There are eight considerations. Take a systems view, mind your mental models. Accessible and appropriate. Be adaptive. Wellbeing. Partners, not
6. 6 informants. Ethics protocol. Amplify effectively. Power is the ability to alter the states of others. As a designer and as a researcher, you have power to change lives and support change. Don't forget that. Thank you.