Creating Caring Spaces

Synthesising findings of Workshop 1 and 2 

To proceed in creating the care activities, I tried to make sense of what emerged in workshops 1 and 2 to unpack the themes and patterns in order to think about how the care activities can become a solution to help reframe these love/hate tensions.

• The love letters have provided a way for the participants to open and share what their relationship is like with their practice. Because of this, this has opened up conversations about tensions, emotions and support systems that give us insight into how they are ‘staying together’ with design.
• In Workshop #1, group 1’s conversation related back a lot to how the issues with professional practice, the environment would impact the designer’s journey. At times the work can be really rewarding and other times, there is a conflict of values and ethics. The issues about the designer being ‘capable’ themself to a design project were not spoken about much compared to the second group. The main themes in group 1 explored how the work environment can make the ‘designer’ feel undervalued and underappreciated.
• In group 2, as the participants were in the final year of their design degree, the conversations discussed stemmed back to their experience of the environment inside design education and how they, as a designer, are dealing with the tensions to ‘become’ a qualified practitioner. This meant the challenges and discomforting experiences related back to how they would see themselves in a competitive environment, analysing their own learning capabilities and viewed care more as the theme of having to practice more ‘self care’ due to the experience of ‘being critiqued’ all of the time that comes with the nature of practice. These conversations led to revealing how there is a lack of support amongst students to have a place that is ‘safe’ and that is not shameful to share these concerns.
• A key discovery in both groups 1 and 2 for Workshop #2 was that ‘emotions’ was the underpinning of every person’s experience. While most of the love letters leaned more towards the negative tensions and while they can be overpowering experiences, the exercise in Workshop #2 allows both groups to map out their journey toward reorientation, allowing participants to reflect and access their memories, belief systems such as their internal drive, motivations, goals, purpose or even dreams to explain their path of recentering themselves. Their maps reveal how emotions are an important part of our journey as we also carry them through to a professional context. They play a part in helping us understand the experience of our work environments and are often mistaken as a personal issue or gets sidelined due to how complicated they are to deal with. The fact is, our emotions exist all the time and there needs to be a space where they can be acknowledged without them being misunderstood or viewed as shameful.

The ingredients of care

The ingredients of care are: time, space, trust, openness, curiosity, connection and support. From the workshop experiments, these key findings reveal that: 

• Care = relationships. It is an active process of learning, reflecting and reframing our relationships to problems. The act of care is a practice that helps us build a sense of agency, to shift from one way of viewing things to another, feeling more empowered to act rather than feel a sense of powerlessness. 
• In order to foster a culture of care, its ingredients must be respected and acknowledged. Care takes time and space as it is an intervention that requires intention — intention to set aside time to learn about care and making space to allow for challenging and supportive conversations to occur.
• In the space where care can be experienced, participants need to be able to build trust to create a space that can invite a sense of openness, curiosity, connection and support. When these things can be experienced, meaningful dialogue can take place and a new practice starts to open — a practice of care.

Care Activities

The care activities have been created based on grouping the ingredients into themes that make up care: environment, emotion and support. It aims to take participants through a learning journey of building or rebuilding their relationship with practice. This is done by creating the activities to explore the three themes that make up care: environment, emotions and relationships.

Environment

Its aims are to create a supportive space where meaningful dialogue can take place. The 'environment' activities are framed by the question: How can we create caring spaces together?

Activity 1: Creating Caring Spaces 

The activity is an important one that should be at the start before any other care workshop. It is an activity that gets the group to share what creates a safe and caring place where all of the voices of the group can be heard. Having realised that early on, these workshops can get really heavy in sharing stories, therefore, it is important that people are aware of how their contribution to a space, creates a safe environment that can encourage others to participate.

Activity 2: Love Letter or Breakup

The love or breakup letter activity starts with just the participant before taking part in a workshop. Writing a letter kick starts the care journey as participants are encouraged to draw upon this artefact to reflect, question and connect newly documented experiences when taking part in the Caring Spaces workshops.

Activity 3: Capturing Conversations 

An activity refined from Workshop #1, Capturing Conversations is created for participants to hear and share their stories as it is important to see how these experiences can contribute to creating a space that can bring people together. The love letters are used as a way to start the conversation.

Emotions

Together, we are learning to develop our emotional literacy in order to work with them rather than against.

Activity 4: Rollercoaster Check-in

This intervention allows the group to get a shared picture of how the whole team is feeling at that moment. This activity involves a process of making sense, learning and reflecting on the right words to express the feelings that they can’t see. In doing this activity, if the group morale is low, it can be a signal that more interventions may be needed.

Activity 5: Understanding Emotions

This focuses on the participants accessing their memories and experiences that create their journey from disorientation to reorientation. The activity allows these messy and sometimes confusing experiences, become visible by visually mapping out their experiences.

Relationships

Activity 6: 4 perspectives

An activity that gets participants to explore care in 4 different contexts: you (yourself),  care in their relationships, in practice and in the future. Getting a shared picture of the 4 perspectives from each person in the group, allows participants not only to acquire new knowledge about themselves, but also of others. Through the conversations of retelling and resharing, the activity aims to help participants think of different ways to support each other personally, in their relationship with others, in their work (practice) and how to grow their support for the future.

When designing the activities, while it was all well and good to have tools that help you care, there needed to be a guide on when each of these activities would be undertaken. I had decided to run a survey with the participants who participated in workshops 1 and 2 to get an idea of how they saw these interventions would take place during a normal workday. From these findings, some of the key points I found helpful were:

• "Hopefully acting with care to each other is a characteristic or something that we try to adopt whenever it is 'work time'. Although for an 'intentional moment of practicing care', morning sessions will help where everyone is perhaps a little more calm with possibly clearer minds."
• "It should always be practiced, but dedicated sessions of care with group workshops would be good to do at any stage of the practice."
• "I think care as a group should be practiced before it is completely necessary to make sure communication can occur with some perspective can still be used. If it occurs too often or not often enough, it can seem either repetitive or too emotional to gain proper perspective."
• "Perhaps making it regular so it becomes a part of the organisational/ team/ project culture, and is then just an inherent thing or expectation of the group or team."
• "I don't think there is a specific timing, but more as a continuous level of acknowledgement that we need care, and try to be conscious of times it is needed more than others."

Based on this data, I had decided to build a timeline for teams to create their own care plan. The idea is that if this is being made public, most teams will have their own work and project schedule, which makes it harder to provide a specific time to practise care, especially if it is at a collaborative level. Rather, the solution to this approach is to give them the option to customise and plan when these activities can take place based on their own schedules. This gives them the flexibility to plan and even prepare enough time before each activity.

Designing ‘Experience’ —
Virtual Workshops 

It is here that I chose a pathway to continue down the road of designing for an online, collaborative space solution. Even though I’m not UX designer, I saw that there were opportunities within the resources available where a template could be created to allow virtual collaborative workshops. The other thing was, you would usually see generative workshops being held in person and that’s because being able to be in a space where you can have a physical interaction with generative tools, this experience invites you to use your five senses to help further trigger a process of thinking. Not only do the tools invite a ‘forensic’ way of making a connection to things, the experience of being in a workshop face-to-face with people is an experience that can also help with innovative thinking. Being able to watch what other people are doing, what materials they have decided to use to the conversations that you can hear from the other side of the room — are all the elements inside a physical space that helps create an experience of inspiration, productivity and connectivity.

This leaves me to think about the limitations of designing for a remote workshop experience as they are the important details to consider because this has an impact on how care is experienced. Without being able to get a ‘sense’ of the room on how everyone might be feeling based on reading their body language, there are limitations to figuring out how we might need to ‘be’ in a virtual space. I decided to review the four workshops held this year, one being physical while the other three were held remotely, and analysed what worked and what didn’t work. The aim of doing this was to ensure I was taking into account the limitations of designing in the space that may also affect the other elements that needed to be designed such as the care activities and the Miro template. Here are my notes from the following: 

Face-to-face

• Can read the room including body language and verbal language
• Easier to ‘physically’ collaborate, facilitate and direct people, due to them just being there. You’re able to walk over and help that person.
• Generative tools using physical materials have the advantage of using our 5 senses
• Group work or group activity, the dynamic flow of this and it being experience in real time, flows smoothly as reaction times are faster.
• Easier access to materials as the facilitator can bring to the workshops. The instructions are simple. Play with the material that is infront of you.

Remote

• Can’t read the ‘virtual room’. There is video etiquette where most people mute to stop distracting background noises coming through. Because mute is on, the silence is even more dominant.
• Making, creating and collaborating at a remote level is difficult as a ‘whole group’ because of the silence. Not everyone can speak at once, it is interrupted by waiting for the mute button
• Digital generative tools are can only be experienced by 1 sense – see. 
• High limitations to group collaborations. Video conferencing means only one person can speak at time. Reaction times are slower.
• Interaction with digital materials can be hindered by technology and technical challenges such as choosing a software that everyone can work with.

Miro Space

This was a hard decision as I was really torn between both platforms. Miro was something most people are familiar with as it was the go-to tool since when the pandemic started. However, only until recently, FigmaJam had also released a whiteboard version that was much more simpler to use for both the designer and the user. After many experiments testing simple images and doing an audit on the capabilities of both programs, it all came down to one thing: master layer lock.

Miro had the capability to lock layers in templates where participants who are invited to the board are unable to unlock them. FigmaJam, unfortunately, missed out on this feature as this was a key decision to proceed to design in Miro.

A decision like this meant it would not interrupt the user experience when they are interacting and collaborating in the space. FigmaJam have only released their beta version in 2021 however, once they have updated this feature, there is opportunity to also make a Caring Spaces template applicable to this program, given its similar functions and features. 

Workshop Wireframing

During the wireframing process, I was really certain on one thing when designing this template that it needed to consist of a place for: care activities, team, collaborative space or workshopping space, tools and journey. These things all make up the “physical” bubbles that you would usually see at a physical workshop. The aim was to re-create these bubbles and have them replicate in a digital space, getting the user to think and feel like they are operating in a workshop space.

Chosen Wireframe

I decided to go with this wireframe due to the position of the collaborative space being able to move in and out to the activities and tools area. I found that these two areas need to close or along the side of the ‘workshop’ space as the user will need quick access to instructions and the tools.

Visual Elements

When designing a space for care, one simply asks, ‘what does care look like?’ During my earlier presentations and contributing to making posters in the experimental workshops, I had pre-started this experimentation of how to represent the visual identity of the project. It kept changing overtime as the project progressed, new themes would emerge and it made me think about how to represent care as this ‘conversation’ with relationships. It then became clear that it was all about trying to build an identity that can carry this humanistic value.

Typeface

Cooper is a very warm and friendly typeface as it displays humanist qualities through its organic shape and lines. Its rounded edges embodies a lighthearted weight in its tone. These details create an impact at both a mirco and macro level. Sneak will used for secondary copy. The serif and sans serif pairing, aims to provide clear differentiation between headings and body text.

Colours

Warm, soft, muted colours have been intentionally selected for this space as an alternative to avoid the standard, 'Miro Grey' background. It is still lighter on the eyes, when users need to engage within the space. These colour will are currently being considered as themes to carry through the whole visual identity system.

Tools

The tools in the Miro space will undergo a refresh as they aim to be stylised in a way that can achieve consistency with the rest of the visual identity. There is an intention to stray away flat, coloured vector icons, as these elements can already be created in Miro. Introducing elements that can show ‘tactile’ details, is an opportunity for these tools to become triggers, that may invite participants to get crafty and play with the materials.

Issues the Movement

When bringing the refined template into the space, I started testing the area with the Miro tools and implementing some instructions. The problem that I was having was trying to figure out where I could put these care activities without having to ‘disrupt’ the collaborative space. It got to a point where I almost went off track experimenting.

Downfalls of Miro when designing

• No rulers and can’t set layers
• Things aren’t as aligned
• Limitless scale, therefore you have to decide what you want users to see at 100% scale. The whole design of the template needs to be at full screen at approx. 20–30% zoomed-in scale (so that line weights and text don’t appear too small) 
• Png. files can really slow down the program, trying to keep export settings as low as possible without trying to compromise on quality.

Key changes

Responding to the downfalls of Miro, I’ve made some key changes in order for the design to respond to the constraints of the program, without having to compromise on the quality of the design:

• The 12 column grid is now ditched due to the template being made a simple image which has caused scaling issues. My concerns were that if I needed to add more tools, I wouldn’t be able to scale the tools area — I would have to scale the whole image itself. A solution to this is that now, all the bubbles are separate on their own. To make it easier to design in Miro, I’ve used the Miro dotted grid — which they only just added into the software a month ago!
• No more rigid structure. The bubbles are now at all different sizes, which solves the problem of scaling. If users decide they need more space, these bubbles can be easily adjusted. Making it more responsive to the space that they are working in.

The intention of creating a website was to let Caring Spaces become a shareable resource on a public platform. The purpose of this site is to tell the story of the Miroboard, taking you through the important features of the template such as: the workshop area, care activities, team, tools and journey. The care activities will also have a home on this website, as they will be written in more detail with extra facilitation notes.

Being able to have this information stored on a public platform, allows the project to be ongoing where new updates can be added like: new workshops, tools and care activities. Overtime, these can become a library of downloadable resources.

Final Design of Caring Spaces

To Conclude

Designing a space where care can be practiced remotely, does not erase the complexities and challenges in our relationships with design practice. They are inevitable as practice continues to evolve and therefore, new and current interventions will need to be updated in order to adapt to the challenges ahead. 

Caring Spaces has been created as a first step, to acknowledge that these tensions exist and aims to help people reframe their problems by coming together in a space, to make sense of their own language, feelings and experiences. The importance of this space gives permission to allow these conversations and acts of sense-making to occur as it starts to open up a new practice — a practice of care. 

The activities become tools that can help facilitate and drive conversations around tensions. They are created with a purpose to bring people together to learn how to neutralise, ease or find new ways of reframing problems. These are the important experiences that help contribute to co-creating cultures of care.

References

Schön, Donald. (1983) Design as a Reflective Conversation with the Situation. In "The Reflective Practioner: How Professionals Think in Action."

Grocott, Lisa, Kate McEntee, Kathryn Coleman, and Roger Manix. 2019. “The Becoming of a Designer: An Active Pedagogical Approach to Modelling and Sca;olding Risk-Taking.” Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education 18 (1): 99i112. https://doi.org/10.1386/adch.18.1.99_1.

Staal, Gert. (2000) "Copy Proof, A New Method for Design Education."

Sanders, Stappers P.J. (2016) "Convivial Toolbox, Generative Research for the Front End of Design."

Sanders, Stappers P.J (2014) "From Designing, to Co-Designing to Collective Dreaming: Three Slices in Time."