Dates: 21/07/2023- 30/11/23

Group Members: Anushka Kurien, Munira Kazi, Anushka Motiani, Sushil Sylvester and Akriti Goel

WEEK 1 & 2

This final major project forms the largest chunk of my Master’s course and to get started we were advised to put down our long term goals, skillsets and interests in order to make a more informed choice of a topic and a group. My group formed almost organically since the five of us that decided to work together on the group had worked previously over the year in different pairings and capacities.

We set out to do this project right by brainstorming everyone’s suggested topics for a thesis project. We discussed topics ranging from Fast Fashion to E-waste to Sealife.

Doing such discussions, we were taking two steps front and then one step back because we would decide on a topic and then the next day everyone would have new ideas. A week into this we decided that we should fix on a broader topic atleast and we can always have some room to play within the subtopic of our chosen area of interest. Since this made sense to everyone as the next best step we voted and selected ‘Light’.

We tried brainstorming within this topic since it was really broad but ended up more confused. This led us to dive headfirst into a broader topic such as ‘the human experience of artificial and natural light’ and begin with Directed Storytelling to inspire our focus.

Feedback received was to just choose a topic and flow with it after the first week. So eventually that is what we did but spent 2 weeks looking at projects, inspirations and then we dived into the topic of ‘Light’.

WEEK 3 & 4

We formed a set of questions and began doing directed storytelling within our social circles and with other people in our proximity. The questions primarily focused on how artificial and natural light is perceived differently by the human eye and consequently the experiences surrounding such difference.

While going through the transcripts of the interviews and analysing them, we came across a couple of mentions of working in the dark or during the nighttime had considerable effects on the interviewee’s experiences of artificial and natural light.

This piqued our interest in the topic and already running into the 4th week we decided to take a chance and see where this organic development would lead us.

The very same night we decided to head out to Leicester Square- a popular destination in central London to speak to people working late hours or overnight shifts. We got some really interesting insights talking to people but most importantly what surfaced was that the difference in artificial and natural light did not affect them as much as issues with safety, rising costs and childcare.

WEEK 5

After doing our first night out speaking to people about their experiences, we realised we needed to work on a few things:

• Re-edit the interview questions that we had formed since they were focused on the experience of artificial and natural light instead of questiosn pertaining to the experience of working at night.
• We had to email the industries that did night shift work and within that see which industry responded. From our first night out we learnt that we needed to get scheduled interviews with anyone working at night since there was a line of command and we needed to get prior permission.
• We needed to also observe and assess the environment of central london itself and alongwith that it’s history.

This got us started with reading some books and getting a glimpse into what London looked like and what kickstarted the central london nightlife back in the day.

We also planned another night out to conduct psychogeography and AEIOU in areas that stay open till late or operate overnight. This included stops such as Tiger Tiger (nightclub), Liecester Square, Soho Square Gardens, Carnaby street and Oxford Circus.

Conducting this exercise helped us get an in depth understanding of what the London nightlife looks like and how it changes character from 8pm to 2am. The transition of the crowd, activites and energy was interesting to observe and document.

WEEK 6

We then redrafted a set of questions pertaining to night shift workers and began with asking any people in our social circle who had done night shifts while we waited for replies from the industries we had contacted. Because we realised that we needed to get a headstart on some interviews while waiting for email responses.

The books we had been reading around night life in London, night workers, light perception started offering some really interesting insights and we began connecting a few of the dots between this secondary research and our insights from AEIOU and psychogeography. Directed storytelling had also offered us insights but mostly regarding how to make improvements for the next round of storytelling. We wanted to speak with sufficient number of people before we analysed the information we were getting from the directed storytelling.

WEEK 7

We got some good news finally one of the hotels we had emailed for a collaboration responded to our request positively. We got on a call with the manager to pitch our project and he agreed to help us given we stick to their terms and conditions.

Since humans aren’t nocturnal beings and we realised that night work could not have always existed. Inspired by the books we were reading, we decided to dive a little more into how night work came about in the world. While discussing amongst ourselves we realsied that night work would have been very difficult and almost negligible without the invention of lamps and light bulbs.

This led us to the invention of the light bulb and the era of industrialisation. Taking a trip to the science museum to read up more about this, and also observe the different types of bulbs and lamps proved insightful.

WEEK 8

This week we had a scheduled session with a few night time employees at Lancaster Hotel, Paddington in the last hour of their shift from 6-7 am. To prepare for this we had to wake up early at 4:30, dress up and leave by 5 to reach the hotel by 6. Public transport this early in the morning was difficult to find and we had to plan our journey using night buses which run on a lower frequency. We had already begun to experience challenges like excessive drowsiness, dark and deserted environments when traveling early in the morning.

Amongst us in the bus were seated people that looked ready to begin their days and they looked attentive and awake. As compared to us, who were struggling to stay awake. On the way we observed many grocery stores being stocked up, footpaths being cleaned and delivery trucks being unloaded.

We conducted directed storytelling and a small activity of love and breakup letters with the each of the employees depending on the time they were available for. Almost half of them were not comfortable writing the letters, they preferred talking.

Hearing the interviews for the first time, gave us many insights. This is before analysing any of the transcripts. For this reason, we just wanted to do an initial Crazy 4’s amongst us to see what directions all of us were thinking in. Also because this would give us more time to develop on and reflect on ideas both consciously and subconsciously in our own time.

WEEK 9 & 10

By this week when we had still not received any responses from the industry partners that we had emailed, and since we needed to focus on a particular industry within night time work. We decided to go ahead with the hotel industry since we had already gotten a positive response from one of the partners. Apart from this we also realised that since a hotel industry is a safe environment with a considerable amount of security provided to the employees working, it will allow us to focus on the aspects of night shift work apart from safety and security.

So we decided to go out for another night to research and try our luck by going to the doorsteps of any hotels we could come across in central london. Starting our walk at Leicester Square, we asked hotels in and around the area if they would be willing to be part of our project. Radisson Blu hotel at Leicester Square agreed to work with us on the project and we had come prepared to do Directed Storytelling with the workers and love letter and breakup letter.

After Radisson Blu, we went around asking some other hotels but a lot of them would turn us away due to their own reasons- such being busy that night, not interested or felt comfortable engaging with us. Despite the turn downs, we reached a branch of ‘Z’ hotel near Soho that agreed to do Directed Storytelling and the letter exercise with us and be part of our project.

By the end of this research trip, it was almost 4 am and all of us were quite tired, just looking to get home and get some rest. We then made sure to pair ourselves in a way that no one was getting home alone in the end and went together in a cab.

WEEK 11 & 12

After the summer was over, we had to analyse all our primary and secondary research. We began going through all the transcripts and written material to transform it into insights. Eventually we were able to group these insights under certain themes that started to emerge.

At this stage, it helped to start making small webs to see how the insights from different methods and secondary research wa starting to connect and feed into one another. This began to give us a comprehensive picture of what our research was highlighting.

During this time, we began searching for other external partners that would like to aid, guide or partner with us on the project since now we had a clearer idea about the direction we were heading even if we did not have a clear idea about what our outcome would be. We grouped potential partners according to what they coudl bring to the project and wrote seperate emails personalised to each of their expertise. Some of the organisations that we reached out to were MAKE, Night time association and Wellcome Collection.

After really long, we received feedback from our tutors since college reopened after the summer. The feedback received was to make our insights and analysis, a little more put together and succinct to share during presentations and even later for our portfolios. For this, we were advised to make some infographics and the other piece of advice was just to start ideating and prototyping as soon as possible, since it would take time to make our final outcome as well.

WEEK 13

After redoing our analysis a little bit, we decided to move on with the ideation. As a group we were envisioning a two-faced outcome that addresses the public on one hand and the night workers on the other. The reason for this choice was that while we wanted to design an appropriate intervention that would aid the night workers in their day-to-day life but also we had learnt so much through our research that we wanted to share the experiences and complexities of night shift work with members of the public.

Keeping this in mind, we began doing Crazy 4’s for both ideas and alongside also finding ways to connect them to one another.

There were some ideas we liked as group and wanted to make quick low-fidelity prototypes to test them. So we made prototypes for a co-design workshop with prompts, a sleep tracker and planner, and an advice booklet. We went on another night trip around the hotels to try and test these prototypes but for some reason, all the hotels were very busy on this night. And even if they were not too busy, they refused entry to us.

Since this was just a few days after the Israel-Palestine war began, we guessed that there were safety and security concerns around Central London. We tested it with just one hotel but it was enough for us to understand that the prototypes were not working because we were trying to design solutions for people that were not looking for solutions.

Because uptil now, we had come out at night and spoken to hotels but our experience had been quite different. We faced rejection from almost 30 hotels on this night and then we finally decided to head home after a long, disappointing night.

The experience of our night time testing- left the group feeling discouraged and demotivated. We spiralled a little bit, questioning everything we had been doing uptil this point. We needed to look with a fresh pair of eyes to understand if what we were doing was making sense or not.

The feedback received was that it’s good we went and tried and it’s okay if hotels turned us down. Other variables in the world don’t work according to our design process and needs. Our tutors asked us to take this as an opportunity to get feedback from our peers and look at things from a fresh perspective.

WEEK 14 & 15

This prompted us to speak to a tutor that we had not gotten in touch with till now and wanted to hear his perspective on our project process and the ideas we had for the outcome. We also had to reconsider the path we were taking because of time constraints and a lack of direction in the project.

Having a tutorial with Dr. John Fass really helped us push ourselves because he encouraged us to get making. Instead of a crazy 4’s we decided to group brainstorm under the sub-themes we were interested in such as diet, exercise, sleep and social life.

Along with this we also put down ideas for the environment of the experience we wanted to create. Taking the ideas that were standing out to us- we began to make low-fidelity prototypes. We tested out these ideas quickly within college to understand if they were conveying the meaning we wanted them to convey.

During this time, I spent a lot of time trying to find a space in London for us to exhibit our experience and open it to the public. I negotiated with multiple landlords for the pricing and space availability and booked some viewings for us as well.

The spaces we visited did not work out for us due to location constraints or financial ones. Mostly, I found it very difficult to negotiate with the landlords and a lot of them would not respond if they did not like the offer.

The feedback received was to continue building on the fidelity and concepts for the prototypes based on the insights from our testing. Trial and error with proper analysis of our testing would lead us to the next step and we should trust the design process and give this phase of the design process some time. We were also advised to not get too attached to any one prototype or concept so that if there is need to discard any of the things, then we are able to do so. With regards to looking for a space, our tutor Wan suggested that we recreate a reception space within someone’s home, so that we do not have to bear the costs of renting a space in London. We were also advised by our tutor, Dr. John Fass, to film the objects in the actual hotel receptions that we had been to for research. He suggested that this would give it real world context and save us time in building a real-world looking reception area.

WEEK 16

We began to learn from the feedback on previous prototypes and started to up the fidelity of each of them. A valuable feedback from John was to focus on ‘materialising the challenges faced by the night shift workers in the hotel industry’, especially in the context of ‘risk mitigation’. As we developed our idea further- the risk mitigation began to be stripped away and now our main focus is to critique the challenges through physical artefacts.

Eventually we decided to request college for a space since we are students and that should be the responsbility of the college to provide us with a space to properly exhibit in a space if we want to. Dr. Alaistair Steele, our course leader was super supportive and helpful for this request made by us and at many points negotiated with the concerned authorities on our behalf.

Our ideas also evolved a lot during this time, Anushka Motiani and I, took it upon ourselves to refine our narrative and close any loopholes that the designs had, in terms of concept, criticality and speculation. Discussing at length the meaning of each of the prototypes and how they sit in the space, while also bodystorming the interaction with each critical object and experience. Bodystorming actually helped us understand a lot about how a person outside of our group, with minimal context about the project would view the object and what would they take away from it. Mainly answering the integral question of: Is it saying what we want it to say?

The feedback received was to start creating high fidelity prototypes at this stage because there is not much time left for the final submission. They understood why we were evaluating the strength of the project and rethinking our ideas but they suggested we make tweaks to the things we already have instead of making completely new things.

“Make the existing prototypes fit into the narrative in a way that it communicates what you are trying to say.”- Greg Swan, our tutor

WEEK 17

The medium fidelity prototypes that we were satisfied with had to be now built with the highest fidelity materials accessible to us as students on a budget. We tried our best to create finished looks for all the prototypes with the minimum cost of materials. It was all about building and building in this week.

We faced hurdles with regards to booking spaces around college and keeping our finished prototypes in a space because they were big things and only smaller storage facilities were provided by college. We also encountered trouble sourcing some materials but with impeccable coordination and picking up each other’s load when needed, we managed to find solutions and ways around all challenges posed at us.

Finally, Al, our course leader was also able to get us a space in the information centre which we went together to survey and view before planning the final setup.

The feedback received was to discard the items that were not part of the ‘hotel environment’. The pills for example would not be a common product you would interact with in a hotel, or another suggestion given was to package it in a way that it looks and feels like it’s part of the hotel branding.
We were also advised to have some element of feedback or interaction with our audience to enable them to leave their thoughts or learnings from this experience.

WEEK 18

We finally had to set up our experience in the information centre provided to us by the college. We had 2 days but since we wanted to act on the feedback given to us by the tutors, we did not set up on monday but instead spent the day refining our prototypes and making the changes possible. Mostly the feedback that we were trying to implement was to make everything look like it was part of one world. The hotel world.

So the pills changed to serum dispensers and the cloches changed to a menu card and plate with no-appetite written.

The day of the setup was quite intense as well since we had to set up everything- shoot a short film and we had to also test our prototypes with participants. Also because being part of the environment and set-up the prototypes sat in the context completely without the participants having to wonder where the experience sits.

We were able to squeeze in sometime for a few people to come into the space and do the whole experience. Even though we were short on time, we chose to prioritise this because without an immersive setting, it was difficult for people to interact with our prototypes since they seemed out of context. This was a good opportunity to test and get some feedback, so I am glad we did this.

The shooting of our short film, was mismanaged and not planned properly. We wrote the script in under 30 minutes, told everyone there roles and shot the film with very less retakes in another 90 minutes. One of our friends from the MA Film course had agreed to help us shoot it and although he was ready with all the equipment and planning from his end. We lacked on our end and because of that- the film was shot in a very hurried manner despite the best efforts from Vignesh, our film friend. He also took the responsibility of editing the film while all of us focused on finishing our essays for the final submission. We all could not be more grateful to him for all his help in this project.

My chosen topic for the essay was ‘Exploring Critical Design methodology in reshaping working conditions for Night Shifts: An exploration of the Hotel Industry’. Over the course of my Master’s I have found it difficult to tie the practical bits of my work to academic theory and so I wanted to choose a topic that was very intertwined with my FMP, giving me a better chance at achieving this.

Despite my best efforts, at trying to achieve this and have a well-structured essay, I was unable to meet the standards I wished to live upto. Sometimes although, I hold myself to very strict standards and I was also going through some difficulties on a personal front. Half of my essay seemed to flow but the second half still needed work. Reflecting on what was not working in my essay, it was a lack of thought and clarity. Sometimes I turn to using heavy terms and complicated language because there is an attempt to sound intellectual. My time management was also not on point since I left really less time for referencing and I could not put it together in time. Nevertheless, I wanted to submit it on time and I will keep working on my writing skills and improving and learning from my mistakes.

The feedback received was overall good but not great. The film did not have a strong storyline and the details did not come through although the set design was greatly appreciated and so was the acting.
The project was appreciated by peers and tutors for the research but it was not communicated very well at each stage of the project. The one element in our setup that did help us communicate the rich personal stories were the hotel keychains we had designed.