design thoughts / reflections / considerations

Ideation & feedback from Cohort

When I sat with a group of fellow students to ideate with, I was immediately concerned as I felt this was a tricky topic for them to dive into when they did not know much about the topic.

So I decided to ask one of the sex workers to write a letter to them, so that they could feel closer to the persona just before the ideation session.

The reality of being in the synthesis phase for this project was a lot messier and more complicated then I imagined. There were a lot of stakeholders involved and many voices to consider.

I kept dipping in and out of it throughout my project. I kept speaking and engaging with my stakeholders, even when building. It was always important to stay close to them, to keep getting insights.

Synthesis

Participatory Research

As I was in an entirely foreign country and knew little to nothing about this group, from the get go I tried to utilise as many design techniques to get to know to them and understand how they thought about life, things - from the mundane to the abstract. Namely participatory activities that I had made.

There was no direct goal related to specific design agendas or learnings but more to free fall on knowledge, to be able to put myself in their shoes and become a better intuitive designer.

I would conduct home visits where I would start by asking them questions like “what is the first thing you think about when leaving your house” to “how do people react to sex work in Costa Rica”.

I was aware that some of the people I interviewed may be illiterate. So I used colours to get them to reflect on the things that were important to them. Many spoke about the colour red, either as the lipstick they wore, to power/lack of it or violence and the need for protection.

In fact, safety and protection became one of the main themes of the 3D sound scape stories of the final design. And red was the colour of the arrow, the first button you would click, to enter their neighbourhood.