DESIGN RESEARCH METHODOLOGY/ PROPOSAL

Luisa Audrey / 0348741 / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Design Research Methodology

Research Proposal

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LECTURES

What is the goal of a statement of problem?

The ultimate goal of a problem statement is to transform a generalized problem (something that bothers you; a perceived lack) into a targeted, well-defined problem one that can be resolved through focused research and careful decision-making. 

Here are your simple four steps to write a statement problem

• Step 1 (Statement 1) Construct Statement 1 by describing a goal or desired state of a given situation, phenomenon etc. This will build the ideal situation (what should be, what is expected, desired)
• Step 2 (statement 2) Describe a condition that prevents the goal, state, or value discussed in step 1 from being achieved or realized at the present time. This will build the reality, the situation as it is and establish a gap between what ought to be and what is.
• Step 3 Connect steps 1 and 2 using a term such as “but,” “however,” “Unfortunately,” or “in spite of”; 
• Step 4 (Statement 3) Using specific details show how the situation in step 2 contains little promise of improvement unless something is done. Then emphasize the benefits of research by projecting the consequences of possible solutions as well. 

Problem statement, Research question, Research objective

1.Objective: To describe what factors farmers take into account in making such decisions as whether to adopt a new technology or what crops to grow.

2.Objective:To develop a budget for reducing pollution by a particular enterprise.

3.Objective:To describe the habitat of the giant panda in China.

• In example no. 1, the research will end the study by being able to specify factors which emerged in household decisions.
• In example no. 2, the result will be the specification of a pollution reduction budget.
• In example no. 3, creating a picture of the habitat of the giant panda in China.

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INSTRUCTIONS

For this assignment, we were tasked to make a proposal. I was clueless at first about what is proposal. I read the lectures that Ms. Hayati sent in teams and tried to learn for a bit. Before that, we were tasked to find the topic that we wanted to talk about. The topic must be related to the specialization that we are going to take.

I tried to look for articles about UI/UX in the internet. In the end, I found a topic which related to Empathy. The reason why I wanted to research this topic is because I'm interested in human's behavior and it would be interesting to see the correlation with UI/UX.

However, it seems like Ms. Hayati didn't really like my idea at first. I told her that I won't focus too much into the empathy and more likely to find existing papers and correlate it with mobile application.

After doing several refinement, here is my proposal:

Here is my first proposal:

After submitting this, I showed the proposal to Miss. Hayati and she suggested me to change the focus to elderly. I did not want to change it at first because I thought it will be harder. However, the next meeting she told me to change it again to elderly. In the end I changed it just like what she told me and this is the refinement version:

Here is the powerpoint:

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FEEDBACK

Week 2:

Ms. Hayati reminded me not to research too much into empathy since we are not psychologists and to just take from existing papers. She also asked me to narrow down the topic.

Week 3:

Ms. Hayati told me not to focus too much on empathy. She also told me the difference between Research problem and Problem statement so I could fix and recreate correct ones.

Week 4:

Ms. Hayati told us to submit our assignment in google classroom in the form of PPT that has been saved as PDF.

Week 5:

For the proposal, Miss Hayati told me to change the focus on my proposal to elderly as it will be easier for me to do my further assignments.

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REFLECTION

This week I decided to find the topic that I wanted to research on. I found out that it is pretty interesting to talk about the relation between empathy and UI/UX. Therefore, I managed to research on a topic “Why is empathy the key to the growth of UI/UX”. After that, I wrote the rationale.

Afterwards, I decided to change the topic into something narrower. I decided that I want to research mobile applications because it is such a popular device nowadays. The next thing I did was create the Research problem, Research Questions and Research Objective. Next, I decided to create the research problem and recreate my problem statement. I also changed my research questions and narrowed them a bit. I finally made the last refinement for my proposal and submitted my first assignment. I then work on the next assignment which is critical review. I decided to search for articles that are relevant to my topics. So far I could only find less than 5 and I tried to highlight the points that I want to point out in the future

For this week I searched for more relevant articles and tried to highlight some of them. I also changed the focus of my proposal to elderly. I changed the problem research into “The effect of empathy in UX design in mobile applications towards elderly”.