Applying information architecture in design thinking : ideating solutions to the wicked problem of addiction
- Authors: Hobbs, Jason Richard
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Industrial design , Design and technology , Information technology , Information organization
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/485650 , uj:44150
- Description: Abstract: This research project explores the use of Information Architecture (IA) in Design Thinking for the purposes of ideating solutions to wicked problems. A constructivist account of IA is advanced in this study offering new perspectives, distinct to those offered by the mainstream IA employed in digital design, heralding from Library and Information Science. This reframing of IA creates a new space to explore what value may be found lying dormant in the relationship between IA and DT, and Design in general. The Research Through Design (RTD) methodology serves to support the constructive nature of this inquiry. In RTD, the researcher operates both in the role of designer and researcher, executing and critically reflecting upon a design project. For this study, a design project was conducted to address the complex social problem of addiction as it manifests in Johannesburg, South Africa. A new form of IA, Conceptual IA (CIA), is notionally developed to observe and discuss IA when enacted in Ideation following the DT process-method. The findings and conclusions offered emerge from qualitative analysis of observations and reflection upon the design project’s enactment. Within its scope, the study reveals that IA, as reframed, can be understood as operating tacitly within design (and the world) as that which contains and transmits socio-ontological meaning, decoded, recoded and encoded in design. Explicit use of IA methods, tools and techniques greatly enhanced synthetic cognition across the whole of the DT process-method enacted. Furthermore, CIA conducted in Ideation provided the concept for a social systems solution central to a strategy design which synthetically resolved the challenges presented by the wicked problem of addiction. IA and design developed to realise the concept, as blueprints, describe how use of the system in the world triggers a transformation and transcendence of this concept: in use, the IA of the concept being embedded within the structural form of the designed object, comes to be a new socio-ontological phenomena. In this way, a (speculative) theoretical account is given for how an instrumental / ontological mediation of social reality may occur, at scale, by IA employed in Design. , M.A. (Design)
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Applying transmedia storytelling to develop a brand narrative for a South African hip hop musician
- Authors: Madiga, Maribe
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Design and technology , Internet personalities , Branding (Marketing)
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/485667 , uj:44152
- Description: Abstract: Influencer marketing is the fastest-growing marketing strategy in the digital era. This marketing strategy is premised on the organic and longstanding tradition of sharing product and service information among acquaintances through word of mouth. As the value and persuasiveness of influencer marketing is gaining popularity, the relationship between brands, influencers and their followers/influencees has become a point of interest for researchers. Through qualitative enquiry and using Ohanian’s (1990) source credibility model, this study investigates the credibility factors influencing online users’ choice to engage influencers and the subsequent effect of these perceptions on engagement dynamics. Ten South African women who self-identify as followers of beauty and make-up influencers on Instagram were interviewed and their responses thematically analysed. This study found that influencers’ personality traits, influencees’ feelings of closeness to influencer(s) and the quality of influencer(s)’s creative output are the three main motivations for engagement. In search of the effect of perceived credibility on influencees’ engagement with influencers, parasocial engagements were found to be the major engagement behavior, manifesting in influencees’; sense of entitlement towards influencers’, feelings of intimacy and conditional attachments. These findings more or less reflect trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness as proposed by the source credibility model and reveal similarity as proposed by contemporary research, to be a well-supported credibility requirement for the assessment of influencer credibility. To extend the understanding of similarity in the study of influencer credibility, a case is developed for the use of ‘kinship’ to extend and contextualize similarity for the South African context. , M.A. (Design)
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Applying user-experience design to support Johannesburg high school educators teaching design thinking
- Authors: Steinhöbel, Erika Sophia
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Industrial design , Design and technology , Architecture and technology , Creative teaching
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/447971 , uj:39285
- Description: Abstract: This research paper describes and reflects on the effectiveness of integrating Research through Design as both a methodology and Design Thinking in order to co-design a digital product with and for high school educators. In reference to this concern, the aim of this study is to explore how digital technology can be designed by applying User-experience Design (UXD) to support the teaching activities of educators teaching DT, so that they may become more confident and knowledgeable facilitators. The end result of this process was for an interactive digital platform aimed at introducing DT to SA teachers of art, design and technology. A Research through Design methodology is applied in this study within the specific contexts of a co-design project involving high school teachers in Johannesburg, South Africa. The study undertakes a human-centred design philosophy whereby users’ problems and experiences are seen as contextual and complex, therefore requiring that the researcher to have consideration and understanding before these problems can be resolved. The design process applied in this study therefore focused on gaining an understanding of the teachers’ experiences in order to design effective and empathetic technological solutions that will be meaningful and useful to the teachers... , M.A. (Multimedia)
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