Intercultural Design | Task 2: Field Study

Intercultural Design | Task 2: Field Study

  • Date: 03/03/2025 - 08/03/2025 (Week 4 - Week 5)
  • Deadline: 08/03/2025 (Week 5) 
  • Aishath Eshal Shihab, 0381863
  • Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media - Taylor's University 
  • Task 2: Field Study

Table of Contents


Lecture

Most students projects are visually impressive, but culturally thin, socially irrelevant, and a portfolio trap.

Decorative Design
Designs that start with aesthetics and solved assumed problems instead of lived ones.

Impact Driven Design
Starts with people, and responds to lived experiences. 

Designers vs. Users
Designers are biased to clean, minimalist, and modern visuals, a universal scope, and focuses on aesthetics. While users prefer cultural and familiar visuals, a local/contextual scope, and focuses on a clear direction. 

 


Instructions

Module Information Booklet

Task 2: Field Study

Students will conduct a data gathering collection process about the culture with relevance to the theme and your research objectives.

Requirements

The students are required to collect visual, oral, textual and tactile
artefacts that would be part of their research materials for the ideation in Project 1 (proposal). All collected artefacts and materials must be recorded, kept and documented, accompanied by necessary
information such as the type of artefact and material, its purpose, its symbolism, its cultural/historical background, and more, depending on the kind of artefact and material.


Field Study Presentation


Feedback

Week 4

General Feedback: No class, field study.
Specific Feedback: No class, field study.

Week 3 

General Feedback: None.
Specific Feedback: Use what we found in SS15 to compare with the situation in Al-Balad to come up with ways we can improve the navigation situation in Al-Balad.


Reflections 

Experience

My experience with this field study was quite positive. My group and I walked around the streets in SS15, taking notes of the useful places and signs we saw, and we took pictures of things that we observed that we felt like was either good or bad for the navigation for the area. It was really hot and a lot of us were fasting so we got tired pretty quickly but that helped us experience how people navigating SS15 feel.

Observations

On the field study at SS15, we observed that navigating SS15 is also inadequate for how popular the area is. While most of the sidewalks are spacious and shaded, there is no signage used to direct visitors, while there are an abundance of signs all around the signs and walls to advertise all sort of stores and products. So even if they added signs for directing, visitors would get distracted and miss it. My group and I also noted how many places would be perfect to create shaded seating areas and all the trash that was piled up on the sidewalk.

Findings 

I found that doing a field study is more efficient than making assumptions about the place and taking other people's word, because we were able to see and experience for ourselves how navigating around SS15 is like and what would improve a person;s navigation experience and what would make navigation harder.

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