Assignments – Persuasion

Project 2 –You as a persuader

Assignment set: March 25, 2020

Assignment due: April 29, 2020 (by end of the day), published on http://persuasion.imaginari.es

This is a group assignment.

Description

Persuasion is an important skill for designers to have. As we observe the built environment, and the products and services we use everyday, we immediately notice how designers are constantly shaping and influencing ideas and behaviours. If we think about persuasion in design as involving both cognition (how people think, what they know) and context (what the physical environment, and social situation, are like), designers face a large space of opportunity for action, by being able to play with these two axes in various ways to determine new, perhaps preferable, courses of action. After having been immersed in exploring how you observed and understood ways in which you were being persuaded (or how you were intended to be persuaded), the second assignment looks into having you set up a project in which you can use the tactics discovered and explored in the class to try and persuade others.

We want you to:

Setup in groups of 2 to 4 people. The parameter to determine how big or small may be given by your interests and availability to collaborate. Please consider how time-zones may affect your work and organise in ways that are feasible. If any student finds they may have issues to do this project as a group and would need to do it individually, get in touch with the teachers to sort this out as soon as possible.
Within your groups, choose a topic or area related to daily habits to use as the focus of intervention. The area could involve practices or behaviour related to: health, wellbeing, hygiene, fitness, eating, entertainment, working, focus, etc. If you’d like to particularly focus on aspects related to the global pandemic, you may, as it touches upon every aspect of our lives, but it’s not necessary. You may choose to focus on the new lifestyle arrangements that emerge from it indirectly.
Observe and inquire about your own lifestyle and that of others living with you to find a particular habit or action which interests you to develop this project on. They group may decide to work on changing behaviors or prompting actions within the members of the same group, to their families or upon members of other groups. For example, you could look at how to improve or increase the frequency of your housemate’s exercising routine. Or you might think about how to increase each other’s motivation, or focus.
Develop an intervention that can be performed keeping social distancing norms. This means you will have to find ways to set your project without having to meet in person with others beyond your household. This means working only within this limit or if focusing on others, make the most of the digital technology available or get creative with other ways of distant interaction.
Keep a (personal) journal to document the process and rationale during the research and development of this project. Make sure to take notes of all insights, findings and decisions made, including the types of tactics that you’ll be trying out.
Carry out the intervention and document both the setup and reactions. Make sure to set up a strategy to test what the impact of the intervention is on others.
Submit a blog post on the Persuasion website to introduce the project (one post per group). You may add photos, videos, or external links as needed. Make sure to include a written reflection (500 words or less) together with the evidence of the work.
We will also ask all students to submit an individual essay showing evidence of the journal and including all reflections and lessons deriving from this project, from a personal perspective.

Format

We’re asking you to create WordPress posts for this assignment. Each group will submit one post only. The post will need to include all group member names but any student can upload them with the accounts you already have.

On Design Week, groups will have the chance to present they projects and fain further feedback. Keep in mind to decide how you’ll present this over Zoom.

Each student will also need to submit an essay covering a personal reflection and evidence of the journal (include photos). This essay should be uploaded in PDF format to our Box shared folder (Submissions).

You can embed images, video, galleries, and other formats in WordPress posts. If you’ve produced something that can’t be embedded, please add a link to it in your post. We will provide you with a tutorial on how to use WordPress, and logins for the site.

Learning objectives

Making sense of persuasive opportunities in daily routines.
Translating these into a plan to generate change in ideas, habits or practices.
An ability to devise a project or intervention to put persuasive tactics into action, that is, set up a project trying to design for (behavior) change.
Develop an awareness of contemporary persuasive approaches and tactics to be used within design.
Exercise the ability to plan, develop and evaluate an intervention in a collaborative way, and within a series of logistical constraints.

Design of the intervention(s)

How well does the project/intervention adopt tactics to influence ideas, actions or behavior?

How effective is it in creating change? How and what do we learn about that?

500-word group reflection, and individual essays

How well does it complement / explain / reflect on the project developed? Do we learn anything new from the reflection? How clearly does it communicate what you have developed and learned?

Demonstration of analysis

How well does the work…

demonstrate an ability to see identify areas of intervention
analyze actions, practices or habits to determine where to target changes to
communicate the research process and the ways in which insights were gathered to plan and develop interventions.
clearly argue the rationale behind the strategies and tactics adopted to influence others
describe the outcomes and the design decisions consisting of the intervention(s)
Communicate and reflect upon the extent of the impact and/or success that the intervention had in generating change.

Skills

How much does the work make use of, exemplify, or further develop design skills the students have? (e.g. a focus on products, communications, or environments, or use of a particular technique such as video or model-making)

Project 1 – How You Are Persuaded

Building a library of persuasive elements, objects and techniques

Assignment set: February 5, 2020

Assignment due: March 4, 2020 (by end of the day), published on http://persuasion.imaginari.es

This is an individual assignment.

Description

Persuasive influences are all around us; they appear to us in many forms, both material and immaterial, and give shape and meaning to our daily experiences. In order to better understand persuasion and develop an attunement to it (both how to react to it and how to use it to your favour), it is important for you to begin to see the various strategies and tactics that are at play in our everyday lives, both visible and invisible,. The first assignment aims to get at the various forms of persuasion that affect us directly by encouraging students to compose a self-reflective collection of persuasive elements, which you could think of as a Library of Persuasion.

We want you to:

Pay attention (over a few days) to physical and digital elements in your life which you experience as trying to influence your behavior and/or ideas. This could include advertising, the built environment, personal interactions, objects, devices, messages, etc.
Find a particular theme, or setting, or context which stands out to you. For example, you could look at how your decisions around food are influenced. Or, you could look at how a particular persuasive technique seems to recur across different areas of your life.
Document examples of these elements and techniques, and put together a collection which explains and illustrates ‘how you are persuaded’ (or not).
This could be a photo-essay or gallery, a map or infographic, a video, a journal or written piece, or even a physical artifact—or a combination.
This should be paired with a written reflection (500 words or less), if your piece is not already an essay.

Format

We’re asking you to create WordPress posts for this assignment. You might not have used it before—and might much prefer working in Medium—but it’s worth getting practice using WordPress, as it’s so common as a content management system for corporate (and personal) sites (35.6% of all websites are built using WordPress) and you will almost inevitably end up using it again at some point in your career. So we thought it would be worth giving you an assignment that used it.

Learning objectives

Making sense of persuasion approaches being used in real life.
Translating those approaches into a curated collection of examples
A better understanding of the interrelationship between choice, context and channels of communication
An awareness of contemporary persuasion concepts and terminology
An ability to critically think and analyze forms of persuasion in your daily life

Assessment criteria

This assignment is worth 30% of your final grade, and will be the main determinant of your mid-term grade.

Collection of examples

How well does it examine / unpack / translate / visualize the persuasive elements chosen? Do we get new insights from it?

500-word reflection

How well does it complement / explain / reflect on the collection? Do we learn anything new from the reflection? How clearly does it communicate what you have learned?

Demonstration of analysis

How well does the work…

demonstrate an ability to see persuasive elements in practice
analyze your daily choices within that context
clearly communicate the influences which shape your daily decision making
describe the outcomes of the persuasion on your decision-making?
clearly identify tactics and concepts that we have been covering during the course

Skills

How much does the work make use of, exemplify, or further develop design skills the student has? (e.g. a focus on products, communications, or environments, or use of a particular technique such as video or model-making)