Curious Guide to Decisions: Creating reflective decision-making toolkits
Critical Design
With Goldsmiths University of London
Self-initiated project
2014
This project was my final self initiated work for my MA in Design: Critical Practice at Goldsmiths, University of London. I designed a series of decision-making toolkits to be used for engagement purposes. I was interested in the idea of decision-making streaming from my concerns around decisions in our lives that we face every day. I later got a chance to show the project at the London Design Festival, where I engaged members of the public with those toolkits.
How do choose what we want (to do)?
Decision-making is an essential feature of our everyday existence, shaping the immediate situation around a particular decision and resonating with the future of an individual in their wider social spheres and environments. The project's title, 'A Curious Guide to Decisions', came into being through various methods, developed through a research process that thematically looked at the different factors in decision-making processes and how these change our decision outcomes.
This project is intended to be interpreted in various ways. One is the critical aspect of our reliance on certain systems when we make decisions. The other is to let people use decision-making tools to think about it. Alternatively, they could also be a set of therapeutic tools that help people make decisions based on different aspects of thinking about it.
Tool 1. Everyday Decision-making chart
I developed a decision graph based on my analysis of everyday decisions I made in one day to explore the complexities of the daily decision-making activities, which we take little notice of. I made a series of different icons to categorise decision factors such as cognitive, non-human, and random choices.
I made some materials where visitors could analyse a decision against a scale of time and difficulty. It got people to think about their own choices in their everyday life before they tried other tools.
Tool 2. Logical Tarot Cards
Business often relies on problem-solving methodologies and systems to make the right choices for their progression. By merging the worlds of logical problem-solving diagrams with the tarot card, this tool brings about a performative and playful aspect to working through logical systems.
I also designed an engagement activity that involved people working through their decisions through diagrammatic means. I asked people to shuffle the deck of logical 24 tarot cards that I made and pick three. These three were placed under acetate sheeting where people could go through and break down a choice visually. It brings aspects of business problem-solving diagrams into the realm of the everyday.
“What happens when we adopt such a business approach to our lives? Will this make us better decision makers if we rely on system that seems to work for the business world? Or are these logical systems no better than superstitious ones when it comes to making a choice?”
Tool 3. Heart Torch
This makes visible the system of deciding by the heart, questioning through a slightly ludicrous device it asks what would happen in your day if you just relied on matters of the heart? I made it functional so people can use it to picture themselves in these situations.
The heart torch is an interactive torch that flashes to the beat of your heart through a pulse sensor hooked up to an Arduino board. A green light would turn on when elevations of the heartbeat are felt, relating to excitement over a particular choice. I asked people to write down a series of choices through some blank target papers. I then got them to point the torch at these choices to see if they agreed or disagreed with their heart's choice.
“What happens if we just rely on the heart to make decisions about everything? What would a business meeting be like, or how would a courtroom appear if everyone made choices with their heart torch?”
Tool 4. Geometric Dice
These dice allow people to write onto the slides their choices. The dice can highlight the tensions seen in escaping the mundane and expected choices to the random provocations in everyday life.
I got people to select a die from the toolkit depending on the number of choices they wanted to make or the dice shape. They could write or draw a series of choices and then roll the die onto the mat.
“Will it be a good thing or bad thing to live through a string of random choices? Will it make life easier for us to not be burdened by pressures of deciding? Or will it just lead to erratic behaviour and chaos?”
Exhibition Display at Shoreditch Town Hall Basement Gallery, as part of the London Design Festival