Stimulating Research

A picture of foot reflexology, aren’t feet interesting?

Today we had a lecture on “cultural probes” as a research method. Basically little activities to engage with people to try and get some kind of valuable research for a project. At first I was skeptical as my probes last year gave little value but after taking to Jayne Wallace (the lecturer) and Pete Thomas (one of my tutors) I’ve come up with what I hope will be fun, useful activities. My probes are geared to emotion & sensations you can get from bare feet or the movement of your feet. The only problem I’m finding is finding people from my exploration groups to contact and speak to. However I did just post a bunch of ads on Gumtree so if you’re reading this having seen my ad & followed the link, PLEASE HELP! I am going to make my probes electronically accessible so no one has to give out home addresses if they don’t want to as probes are physical objects. I am also going down to visit the Dundee road runners this Thursday and try and recruit some of their members. I’ve contacted the uni dance society and continuing to search the internet for forums and discussion groups on shoes. I’m quite enjoying this project. I’ve added “Work extremely hard” to my personal “to do” list.

wish me luck!

Intro

This is my online diary & dumping ground for my 4th year project for my BSc in Innovative Product Design. We have been given free reign to decide what our project topic is and the direction we want to take it. Initially I was excited, but then deciding on a topic I am passionate about, that would make an excellent project and that would keep me occupied for the year was hard and my topic is still vague.

"Bare Feet" is a title under construction (and will probably change when I next speak to my tutor) and basically a broad and hopefully witty way of saying I am looking at feet and all related areas. The main related areas I want to investigate are: Movement, Culture & Personal.

Movement

I want to look at the different ways we move our feet to get around and enjoy our selves. I’m going to speak to Dancers (professional & the rest of us), Runners and other sports people and walkers. I want to look at the physical and emotional sides of movement.

Culture

Here I am going to explore the past & present fascination with footwear. I have done quite a bit of reading on this already and the connotations and symbolism of footwear are extraordinary! I will hopefully speak to some bespoke shoe makers (including shoe customisation- especially trainers), shoe historians and shoe fan clubs.

Personal

In this area I specifically want to explore the emotional effects shoes and movement on our lives and feelings. I will incorporate this area into the other two but will also be exploring it in a purely emotional level. I hope to speak to shoe fanatics & people with shoe fetishes to see what it about shoes that turns them on? Why do you feel amazing in a certain pair of shoes? Why do you feel like you can’t stop dancing even if your feet are sore?

All this well and dandy the project is split up into 4 areas: Find; Play; Make; Talk. Find is our research stage, Play our prototyping stage, Make the making of the final piece and talk a 20 minute presentation of our work. Ahh scary things.