In a world where our lives are constantly measured in metrics, analytics and data we need to design for people – not types.
Design is concerned with the deeper, meaningful relationships we create within our lives, and our lived experience.
For design to be relevant it must be for people, and about people.
We need to know who we are designing for.
How do they think?
What do they value?
How can we make their lives better?
Design research is actionable research. It helps to generate an understanding that can lead to innovation and change.
Because human beings are complex and deep we must learn to listen to what they say – and don’t say – without judgement, or bias. It is the way they see it.
Human-centred research relates to the individual’s experience: how they see, how they interact and how engage with the world.
In design a human centred design approach helps to identify and solve problems in the real world. It has to be rigorous and specific, but captured in a way that allows for ‘the unknown.’
Design is essentially about how things work, how things connect and perform.
Design research can help business to anticipate shifts and gaps in the market; to be more prepared, agile and responsive. To act quickly, and sensitively to consumers’ needs.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Søren Kierkegaard
Anyone At Home features stories of everyday lives, in everyday spaces. It is about who we are and how we live today.
These are personal stories. They relate to a specific time, space and place as lives lived in homes shaped within the social, cultural, political, economic and spatial sphere.
Each story reminds us that as our own story enfolds our lives are constantly changing.
Milestones, such as the arrival of a new baby, poor health, disability, empty-nest syndrome and bereavement all have a massive impact on how we live.
What people say today, may not be what they say tomorrow.
This project highlights personal histories of occupancy. It produces evidence, insights and knowledge that cannot be found elsewhere.
It is a self-funded project developed from my own sense of curiosity and interest. Quite simply: it is based on a desire to know more about the changes and relationship we have with the space that is our home.
Across many different disciplines, people are at the heart of what inspires us.
Anyone At Home is a qualitative research project that goes beyond the rigidity of discipline to show how design and social sciences meet, overlap and blur.
Research is simply about taking the time to look and think – so we can know more.
But more than that….
At some point one of these stories could become our story.
As we get older we cannot know exactly what the future will bring and so it is reassuring to know how it is for other people, so we can learn from their experience.
These are stories and voices of people who may be outside of our own circle, demographic and culture, living in circumstances and situations that we may yet to encounter – or, where we have been before.