Diary Of A Design Researcher

“Am I really the right fit for this project?” she asks herself all throughout the kickoff meeting. A 25-year-old is onboarded onto a project that would be her first healthcare project and second project in the social impact sector ever. She scribbles notes in her gridded notebook, hurriedly writing healthcare terms under “google after this meeting”. “Maybe we should try to take the polio campaign route,” says one of her colleagues as she explains the case study further. The social impact rookie nods her head pretending she knows all of the references everybody is talking about.

That social impact rookie is me from a couple of months ago.

In August 2022, 3 months after I joined TinkerLabs a notification popped up on my laptop welcoming me to a new project. The project centred around the anti-lymphatic Filariasis drug which users refuse to consume. LF (Lymphatic Filariasis) is a neglected tropical disease which has been eradicated from most countries, but India alone accounts for 43% of the global infected population. In spite of 89% of households being handed over the drug by Drug Administrators (DA), drug consumption remains at 38%. For the elimination of LF, 65% consumption is required by households that are at risk. Our job was to bridge the gap between receipt and consumption of the drug. For this, we identified the barriers, and challenges to adherence of the drugs. As researchers, we were able to understand why users were not performing a certain action and behaving the way they were behaving. For this, we travelled to Odisha and Jharkhand.

During our field visits, I found myself excited to observe, take notes of my findings, and explore cities I had never been to. There were moments I felt humbled, moments I laughed very hard and moments I felt disoriented since I was the social impact rookie. When I returned from field and began to make sense of all the insights we had gathered, I discovered this strange feeling of strandedness and dissonance. I felt lost, which led to a string of under-confident actions making multiple thoughts run through my head.

I have so many stories, rich data and brand new learnings that I have gathered, why do I feel lost?

Why am I not fully getting the hang of this, I went to the best design school in the country?!!

This isn’t even my first design research project, shouldn’t I know everything already?

When I sat down to reflect on this strange range of emotions, it all boiled down to a couple of things:

1. “I’m so lost”: I was not registering a lot of information about LF or the healthcare industry in general.
2. “I’m so unsure”: When conducting research, I was unsure if what I have researched is insightful enough, or good enough to help us understand the user’s irrationalities
3. “I think im being passive?”: I found myself not participating in certain parts of the project
4. “I’m not asking for help”: It was difficult for me to reach out to anybody and ask for a second opinion or help
5. “I know my ideas aren’t bad, but I’m not being able to sell them or put them forward confidently”: It’s out of my comfort zone to be candid with my ideas

Irrationality to diagnoses

One of the hardest parts for me during the LF project was forming diagnoses of the users and understand why they weren’t consuming the drug. Reflecting on my own subconscious biases and how they were at play was a close second. There were unconscious mantras or habits that I had been carrying out during most tasks of my life and the project that were making me behave a certain way and hampering my growth

As I write this blog I’m a more aware version of myself, a version that understands thoroughly what made me behave the way I did because of my biases:

“I’m so lost” , “Why am I being passive?”

• I’m not registering a lot of information about LF or the healthcare industry in general. (Cognitive overload)
• I’m not sure where to even get started and that often leads to inaction — (What the hell effect)
• I’m doing this for the first time, I might make mistakes which will delay the team (Omission bias)

“Im so unsure”

• When conducting research, I was unsure if what I have researched is insightful enough, or good enough to help us understand the user’s irrationalities. What if what I say is wrong and then regret it (Regret Aversion)

“I’m not asking for help”

• Everyone around me will think I’m weak if I ask them how this is done (Status and Self Image)
• I don’t want to come across as vulnerable (Self-Signalling Bias)

“I know my ideas aren’t bad, but I’m not being able to sell them or put them forward confidently”

• After sharing my thoughts and ideas what If I emerge unsuccessful and people around me judge my ideas? (Regret Aversion)

Reflections & Mitigation

This was my first social impact project. There definitely was some amount of underconfidence in my system going into the project specially because I had only briefly worked at TinkerLabs at the time.

During the diagnosis phase of the design process for this project, my team and I immersed ourselves in the users’ shoes to understand friction points which helped us diagnose irrationalities and understand why users refused to consume the drug. Now, there’s some amount of conscious reflection I am trying to do on how far I have come as a design researcher and what I want to do to be better. I recognize that I have subconsciously been following the design process of investigating unique irrationalities in my own life too. I have been diagnosing myself during diagnoses. And what do we as designers do after we have diagnosed irrationalities or invisible problems in our users? We create experiences or interventions that enable them to grow or make their lives better. After having reflected on my growth throughout this process here’s what’s next:

Cognitive overload:

When there’s too much new information that I have to register, I break it down. I try to focus on one task at a time. I have found that the promise of concentrating on one task at a time is like a little love note to my brain.

Omission bias:

Whenever the fear of omitting an action sinks in, I start to weigh out the cost of inaction. Is not acting or doing a certain task going to hamper my growth? Acknowledging that there is a chance of failure and that it’s normal helped me deal with this subconscious bias.

Status and Self Image & Self-Signalling Bias:

I stepped into the shoes of someone who provides feedback during a project. What I realized was that it feels somewhat honouring that I was asked for my expert opinion. When we ask someone for help, we’re honouring that person’s expertise, experience, and wisdom. What I realized a little later was that many people actually thrive on it and that’s what helped me reach out for help.

Regret Aversion:

Every time I avoid carrying out a task fearing the outcome what helped me was accepting the possibilties of the outcome and understanding that it’s okay to make mistakes. This mindset helped me open up a lot more during discussions, take more initiative and helped me make a joke any time I may have asked a stupid question.

Humans are uniquely irrational in their own ways. Sometimes these unique irrationalities are not obvious but when we identify them, they seem so obvious. When I started this blog, I was trying to jot down my experiences on field. By the time I give a final read to what can be called a public journal at this point, I think I have almost nailed the art of diagnoses. I feel more comfortable and confident in my approach to the project and I find myself smiling just a little bit :)