Whose life is it? - Step 1
This exercise is called "Who's life is it", and it helps us to pay attention to details and to practice our interpretations of them. It’s about looking at pictures from a person’s life and guessing what this person could be like - solely based on these photos.
This can feel difficult or unsatisfying: maybe you think “this is too far-fetched, I don’t know this for sure!” In our daily lives, we often work with deductive reasoning, and don’t feel good about making best guesses. With this exercise, we want you to overcome this restraint. It’s okay to be unsure about your interpretation or to be unable to prove it completely. Just allow yourself to think about the context of the things you see, the motivations and reasoning behind them. In the design thinking process, you can check whether or not your assumptions were true during the testing phase. The testing phase will be part of our next online course.
Here's how it works: You get to look at four pictures from a real person's life. This person took the pictures to document a normal day in their life. You try to guess who this person is and how they live their life - or in other words, you make interpretations based on the restricted details you can see.
Based on the pictures you saw, fill in the following questions:
- What do you think this person does in his/her life (occupation)?
- What do you think this person does in his/her free time (hobbies)?
- What is valuable to them? What is important in their lives?
- What is difficult in their life? What bugs them?
- Describe this person in one sentence.
Here’s an example:
Take a good look at the pictures and try to pay attention to details. Think about the life this person could lead.
Now, move on the next step.