i began my reflecting on my original flow, selecting the aspects of it that were personally relevent to my way of research and engagement with a topic:
the thing that clearly stands out (all the circled asterisks), and the thing that ben noticed the most, is the fact that throughout the initial method process i always draw. drawing is my way of thinking 'out loud' (or on paper to be specific). it is how i map and establish all the sporadic thoughts and ideas that i have in my head. it is also a way of physically recording as i have a poor memory (except for my visual memory which is very strong) and short attention span.
i made notes on all the main points considering their relevance and usefulness:
- the internet is a tool that will always be there to quickly find something out or gather some instant and specific visual reserach but it is not reliable (sources are untrustworthy and usually unfounded and opinionated). it is also generic and therefore not personal to me.
- the library is similar to the internet but is more trustworthy (not that information being in a book makes it instantly fact), more founded and academically developed, and reading is a more rewarding pastime than looking at a screen.
- photogrpahy is something that i am not very skilled at artistically but as another method of gathering a visual record it is useful. also the fact that my phone is connected to my computer and automatically backs up means that i have a record in multiple places and have the information i need ready for when i need to use it.
- experience is very important to me. this ties in heavily to my interest in culture and language. i really like to experience things the way different people do and try to immerse myself in a culture both for personal and intllectual development and for research purposes. there is no better research than first hand research; everything is opinion but at least forming your own opinion based on your critical experience is better than forming one based on someone elses.
- making contacts is just a thing that should be happening anyway. i think its important that i i need to find asomething out it is useful to find out who would likely know about that and try to ask them. this is something useful to me and research in general but it is not something personal to me, excpet for when speaking first hand which falls under the category of experience.
- ephemera is something that i have always collected, even when there is no purpose to it, so this is definitely something that is relevent and personal to my methodology. it is relevant to design because ephemera is design. it is relevant to research because collecting the right, associated ephemera to a topic of interest can tell you things about that topic that you might not otherwise be aware of. i also like to observe and reflect on the graphic aesthetics applied to various ephemera.
- reflection at every stage is important. it is easy to get tunnel vision when immersed in a research project and so it is important to setp back at each stage to reflect on what ive found out, what else i need to find out, and how im going to go about finding it out.
- the focus interviews and further secondary research are not relevant to my personal methodology and are just repeats of previous points.
- finaly refining my collected research is important because it gives me a chance to critically evaluate all i have found out and work out what is useful for the project the research is going towards.
having reflected on the original method i went on to refine and personalise it. the main points personal and applicable to me are (in order of importance and personal relevance):
1. DRAWING
2. EXPERIENCE
3. EPHEMERA
4. PHOTOGRAPHY
5. REFLECTION & REFINING
i proceeded to produce this improved version:
i thought this method was a much stronger version and was way more in line with me and my personal style of research. hwoever, i thought again about what ben had said and the key point i got from his advice was to keep refining because less is more, especially when personally driven.
with this in mind i went on to further refine my methodology:
while the final version looks similar to the one above it there is a difference in the things that i will actually utilise. photogrpahy should be happening anyway and so i dont need to consider that because i will always do it and it wont impact the way that i go about collecting research, it will simply visually doccument said research. reflection and refining are also things that i should do anyway after any collection of research and so that goes at the bottom as a post research task. the camera icons represent the photogrpahy aspect which is still present but not a specific aspect of my methodology.
i am happy with this methodology and feel as thought it can and will be applied successfully to any brief.
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