Specifying "the problem"

So after a lot of thinking about my project, and what my aims are with it (and another lecture about how to make a literature review), I’ve been able to switch my thinking around when it comes to my project.

I’ve spoken to a bunch of people about this, and really no matter how I turn it around, I DO NOT HAVE A TECHNOLOGY PROBLEM. It might not be my own communication that’s off either (well, slightly). But the communication between fields in general. How do I make circular organic professionals talk to rectangular technical professionals, in a way that makes sense for both? And that clearly benefits the end user of my proposed service? Well, I don’t know. But I’ve come to realise that I don’t have an emotional attachment to any particular technology. I have ideas and I’m very curious about a few certain technologies where I can see potential, but I am willing to explore all type of technology. As long as it benefits the end user.

So an example of the problems I’ve had, is that let’s say I’m talking to a medical professional. Me; “I want to explore and design this service/product that can capture movement data and then tell me when it’s off so that we can do better interventions”, to which the medical professional have so far responded with something along the lines of; “wow, that would be great because we would save time/money and the process could be more standardised”.

If I instead talk to a technical professional, the reply have been more like; “oh great, you can easily build a motion capture suit/device/use cameras for screening and then do this programming bit and then you’re set”.

They’re both right, but they also only see one side of the project, and this project does have my sides. The medical professional doesn’t understand the required technology, but reacts with relief and hope when you mention it. But they have no input on how to gather or capture technical data. They usually don’t have a clear idea on what it is that they need either, because they have no technical frame of mind. The technical professional have all the solutions, but have no idea what to use the data for. It’s very much good/bad, like is the body working well or is it not working well? At what number is it good?

The human body is very complex, and I believe a project like this will require qualitative interviews with professionals from several fields, to do a sort of idea brainstorming. The organic professionals will have to try to define how measurement can be standardised in a logical, and flexible way. Something that can be used and make the patient more involved in their process. Technical people will be challenged in the way they would design the technology, because they need to start measuring things that aren’t at all yes or no answers. And how would you build a smart system that learns just exactly how that body works?

Anyway. The big thing I need to start doing now, is the specify my problem as much as I can, so that people from both types of backgrounds can understand the problem. From there, I will start working on the literature review, and use what I find in my qualitative interviews for the future design fictions.

If nothing else, I believe that this project will make me a lot better at communicating! Be back soon with more thoughts… Now I’m going to find a relevant paper on data analysis.