Emotions and reactions at the bowling alley

BOWLING ALLEY

We went to the bowling alley with a

group of about nine people. Some of us

played better, others were “unlucky”, but

everyone enjoyed the outing! We were

intriqued that each player had their own

routine, style of throwing, and way of

showing their reaction to the the row.

It was also interesting to see, that

Manuela‘s dad who doesn‘t speak any

English, was as much part of the group

as anyone else, as the communication

during the game was mostly based on

gestures and facial expressions.

Sharing stories at paintball

ADRENALINE JUNKIES

We arrived in a bus with other students

and once we got there, we got instruc-

tions for how to play the game safely

from a scary ex-marine. It was very inte-

resting to see how at first the group was

quiet and seperated, but after just one

round of play everyonewas really ex-

cited to share their stories from what

happened during the game and show

off their battle wounds. We found that

throughout the day, the individual cli-

ques melded into one big group.

Getting waxed!

EYEBROW WAXING

Monday morning at nine, we arrived

at “Judit”, a beauty-salon in Southside

for our appointment to get our eyeb-

rows / arms waxed. We entered a very

carefully decorated room with little figu-

res, flowers and lots of little beauty sup-

plies. The whole procedure of the wa-

xing itself was very relaxing, even though

it was painful. We wondered about how

much pain people, especially women,

are willing to take on in order to fit into

society.

Analyzing chicken nuggets

CHICKEN NUGGETS

We decided to eat some chicken nug-

gets very attentively. Before preparing

them, we read carefully what‘s inside the

nuggets we were about to eat. Although

everyone knows that eating chicken

nuggets is not healthy and that it‘s not

only chicken in there; it was weird to

read about it and eat the nuggets at the

same time. Usually we tend ignore the

truth about what we out in our bodies.

We questionned – why do we eat Fast

Food, even if we know how harmful it is?

CONCLUSIONS

As we started to analyze and try to un-

derstand the experiences we had over

the weekend, we realized how much all

the things had in common, even if they

seemed to be very different at the begin-

ning. All of them we‘re somehow related

to how people interact which eachother

or society and the norms in it.

How do we act in certain places? Why do

we pay for experiences that can be pain-

ful, hurtful, or unhealthy for us? When do

we decide to really engage in something

and behave that way? How much a part

of an experience are the people around

us? Would we act differently, if we were

with other people? Why would we act

that way? We decided that we wanted

to dive deeper into how we act/interact

in certain situation and and with certain

people.

QUESTIONING

To synthesize deeper what we had ex-

perienced, we rearranged all our pictu-

res and sticky – notes. We tried to figu-

re out, what all those experiences have

in common and how can we break this

common ground apart to very concre-

te questions. A very interesting moment

seemed to be the point when people

switched between certain behaviours.

Where do we decide in playing paintball,

that this is just a game and has nothing

to do with real war? How can we get

really emotional about the score in a

bowling game, even if there are so many

more things to care about? Why is it im-

portant for us to be able to play? What

do we gain from a game? Why do we

still enjoy it that much, even when we‘re

“grown up”? Do we interact different-

ly if we play the same game with our

closest friends than when playing with

our buddies from the soccer team?

When is it appropriate to play, and are

there people with whom we can never

play a game? How do we make that

choice?

DRAW US A PICTURE …

After all those questions emerged, we

decided to go out to discover people‘s

opinions about their behaviors with re-

gards to groups. We went to different

places in Squirrel Hill and on CMU Cam-

pus to talk to people from a lot of dif-

ferent age groups, cultural background

and genders. We asked them to draw

us a picture of the groups they belong

to, what they do with each group, and

what their role is in each group. It was

interesting to see that people were very

willing to participate. A lot of the people

we talked to told us that they had never

really thought about what groups they‘re

in until then.

TRYING TO FIND AN ORDER

After recieving more than 25 responses

from people from age 16 to 55, we tried

to arrange them in a meaningful order.

We hung themup based on age and also

seperated them by gender. We listed

the different types of groups that people

listed on purple sticky-notes and all the

roles that they think they have on pink

sticky-notes. After a little while, we dis-

covered, that age really affects how peo-

ple see their own role in a certain group.

First of all, the older people were, the

less groups they listed. It seemed as if

they chose to only draw the more im-

portant ones — or maybe had become

to focused or busy to be part of more

groups? We wondered – do people really

have less time or interest in belonging

to groups when they get older, because

of their responsibility to a family or job?

It was also interesting to see, that the

roles that younger people defined for

themselves were rather superficial, for

example: “I‘m the funny one” or “I‘m the

well dressed one”. We also found that

the 40+ crowd tended to describe their

role in a more functional way, such as

“I‘m an electrician” or “I‘m the mom”.

While, people in their 20s were more

likely to use specifics and personality

traits. We wondered about how our un-

derstanding and awareness of our own

role changes over time?

the decision maker

don‘tbuildstuffyourself beconfident bedominant,evenifunsure beunwavering makejudgements speakyouropiniondirectly talkloudly

talkoverpeople

the listener

beattentive understandeverything beempathetical makepeopletalkaboutideas don‘tjudge

don‘tquestionideas beopen-minded

the maker

makeitwork experimentwithmaterial thinkconcretly focusonoutcome limitdiscussion

the idea maker

beforwarthinking beidealisticandcreative delegate don‘tbuildstuffyouself seethebigpicture thinkabstractly communicateideas

the decision maker

don‘tbuildstuffyourself

beconfident

bedominant,evenifunsure

beunwavering

makejudgements

speakyouropiniondirectly

talkloudly

talkoverpeople

the listener

beattentive

understandeverything

beempathetical

makepeopletalkaboutideas

don‘tjudge

don‘tquestionideas

beopen-minded

the maker

makeitwork

experimentwithmaterial

thinkconcretly

focusonoutcome

limitdiscussion

the idea maker

beforwarthinking

beidealisticandcreative

delegate

don‘tbuildstuffyouself

seethebigpicture

thinkabstractly

communicateideas

the mediator

gatheropinions

thinkneutrally

actrationally

beempathetic

staycalmandfriendly

connectandcompromise

becurious

the class clown

entertainpeople

becharmingandclever

winpeopleover

don‘tcontributetothetask

berelentless

makeitfun

bringtheparty

the disagreer

questioneverything

don‘texplainyourself

bepersuasive

bepicky

makepeoplerethink

speakdirectly

the organizer

bestructured

makeitrunsmoothly

makeaplan

tellpeoplewhattodo

overseethesituation

keepitcleanandincontrol

the mediator gatheropinions

thinkneutrally actrationally

beempathetic staycalmandfriendly

connectandcompromise

becurious

the class clown entertainpeople becharmingandclever

winpeopleover don‘tcontributetothetask

berelentless makeitfun bringtheparty

the disagreer questioneverything

don‘texplainyourself

bepersuasive bepicky makepeoplerethink

speakdirectly

the organizer bestructured makeitrunsmoothly

makeaplan tellpeoplewhattodo

overseethesituation

keepitcleanandincontrol

CREATING A TASK

We spent a lot of time discussing how

people take on roles in different groups

and how these roles work together. How

do we define our role in relation to other

people and their roles? We realized that

we stumbled on something really inte-

resting and decided to create an activity

to gain more information from people.

What would happen, if people were told

to take on a different role? We tried to

develop a task that would be taken on

by a group of strangers with roles given

by us. Example roles- “the mediator”,

“the disagreer”, or “the decision maker”.

We created a list of attributes to help our

participants get into their new roles by

surveying our peers. But after we trying

a test-run of this activity with our class-

mates, we real ized that we might

not be able to gain that much informa-

tion from this activity, and that our idea

was too dependent on the task itself to

really gain insights about the behavior of

people.

GIVING ROLES

We decided to stay on our path, but we

had to change the way we approached

the probe. Should we really make them

do something specific and fullfill a mis-

sion, or would it be more interesting to

see, how they behave in the “real world”

on a saturday night? We invited friends

to go out with us after a dinner at Luci‘s

house. Before we actually went out to a

bar, we pulled out a bunch of name tags

that people usually wear at first mee-

tings or group gatherings. But on our

name tags, we wrote roles and stereo-

types like “listener”, “artist”, “foreigner”

or “the flirt”. We had our friends choose

tags for eachother, with the propositi-

on that the tags didn't have to exactly

match each person's personality. It was

funny to see how much people enjoyed

to do this, and that all twenty tags were

distributed after a few minutes. Howe-

ver, there were some undesirable roles

that people didn't want to wear even if

they knew that it was just for fun and

didn‘t really represent their actual per-

sonality. But mostly, the decisions were

made very easily, and soon we were rea-

dy to go out and observe what would

happen next.

TAKING ROLES

Only a few minutes after arriving at the

bar, we realized that our simple name

tags got a lot of attention. People that

weren‘t involved showed a lot of reac-

tions to it. These ranged from “Hey,

what‘s this?” to “Why would you wear

that?” and “Can I have one, too?” We

were surprised how much feedback we

got. In some way, people seemed to

believe in what the name tags said. A

stranger wentup to the person who was

wearing the “Pushover”-tag and told her,

that he could totally see that in her. Ano-

ther person, wearing the “Princess”-tag,

got handkisses from strangers, and the

nametags seemed to actually affect the

service at the bar. The person wearing

the “do-gooder”-tag didn‘t get a drink,

while the person wearing the “out of

control“-tag even got kicked out of the

bar by the end. We also noticed that

some people that participated hid their

tags after entering the bar or changed

it during the night because they found

their tag to be unfavorable or embaras-

sing. How could those little name tags

cause so much action?

CONCLUSIONS

We got back from this roleplay excursion

with a lot to think about. Obviously, we

had hit on something that resonated with

people. We tried to split up the evening

in three parts: 1. What happened when

people could define roles for eachother?

People had a lot of fun, picking roles for

eachother and discussing if this was a

good choice or not. Even if the role was

supposed to be the opposite of the acu-

tal personality, often there was still some

spark of truth in the role that the per-

son got. 2. What happened, once they

started to get into that role and played

the game? Once people got the name-

tag slapped on, they started to expe-

riment with what they could act like... if

they would really be like that role. It was

surprisingly easy for everyone. We

found that people really enjoyed taking

on the roles, even if we didn‘t tell them

specificly to act in a different manner.

3. What were the different kinds of re-

actions that we got and how did those

reactions affect us? We noticed that the

tagged people got a variety of different

kinds of reactions. And obviously, the

reactions and potential judgements from

outsiders influenced how comfortable

people felt wearing the tags. Somehow,

people were also very ready to accept

and believe in the roles …

it‘s not good for my kids

if it‘s «diet», it won‘t be that harmful

i should get my picture printed on it

if it‘s not cold enough, i won‘t take it

CREATING A TOOL

Now we reached the point where we

wanted to show what we learned from

our experiences, and how other peop-

le could benefit from them. How could

we apply our new-gained knowledge to

a useful tool for designers? Our experi-

ment showed us, that people are willing

and able to take on roles, and believe

in it to a certain degree. What if desig-

ners could also take on different roles,

and through this gain new perspectives

on the product they are designing? We

decided to work further in this direction,

and try to develop a kit that would help

design teams who are stuck on a pro-

ject, to change their point of view and

gain new approach to their work in a fun

and playful way.

WHATis iT

A plAyful WAy To reseArcH And find inspirATion.

WHois iT for

projecT TeAm THAT is sTuck And needs To discover neW perspecTives.

HoWiT Works

escApe from your usuAl perspecTives by selecTing neW roles for eAcH TeAmmATe. imAgine HoW your neW self inTerAcTs WiTH your projecT.

WHenTo plAy

leAve THe office An Hour eArly And HeAd To THe neAresT bAr. slAp on THe TAg before you depArT And leAve your old self AT THe door.

WHereTo go

pick A plAce WHere you HAven‘T been before And geT inspired by THe environmenT, seen THrougH neW eyes.

WHyiT Will cHAnge your life

design isn‘T jusT for you. Try To see your projecT THrougH THe eyes of An user you mAy noT HAve considered yeT.

CREATING A TOOL

If we wanted to create a tool, we first

had to answer a few questions to our-

selves, to better understand what we

were creating.

PREPARING THE FINAL PROBE

To make sure that our idea could actu-

ally function in a space that we couldn‘t

control, we decided to re-run our expe-

riment and try to get strangers involved.

Maybe our first try was just lucky or our

friends only participated because they

wanted to do us a favor? We set up a

board full of prepared name tags with

roles on it. We also posted simple inst-

ructions: “Pick a role. Pick a friend. Slap

it on”. We wondered what would happen

if we just set it up and watched. Would

people be curious about it? How long

would it take until people started to play

the game? Would people get bored of it,

or would it just need one person to start,

so that others can “catch fire”? Well

prepared with more than a hundred name

tags and lots of curiosity, we went to a bar

in Shadyside and set it up.

TRY OUT IN PUBLIC

Only a few minutes after we arrived at the

bar and started to unpack our project, the

first person came and asked us what we

were doing and why. She immediately de-

cided to participate and took three name

tags to slap on her friends. We started to

make the rounds, carrying a few name tags

with us, slapping them on random people

to gauge their interest and reaction. At the

beginning, a few people even asked if they

had to pay for it. It was interesting to see

that most people enjoyed being “involved in

something”. On the rare occasion that the

first person of a group that we approa-

ched didn't want to participate, the rest

of the group often didn‘t want to either. Af-

ter a while, we just let people pick and play,

and waited for others to come up to the

board and ask what it was. People seemed

to enjoy it a lot, to pick tags for eachother

and the feedback was very positive. We

couldn‘t believe that after only two hours,

almost all of our nametags were gone! The

few leftovers were all unfavorable roles e.g.

“over-confident” and “unhappy”. The name

tags seemed to be a real icebreaker – peo-

ple wearing the tags started conversations

even if they didn‘t know eachother before.

THE TAG TEAM KIT

We packaged our probe in a kit that

could be distributed to or purchased by

design teams. The kit contains name

tags, a sharpie, a disposable cameras,

and instructions for use.

tag team- process

Documents

group of people

pain people

big group

beauty salon

little beauty supplies

bowling alleybowling

new experiences

scary exmarine