Introduction
Why Are We Angry?
The Final Major Project module was different from the other modules in one very important way — it was self directed. Even more importantly, in my personal opinion, we could set our own design briefs and projects. While autonomy was something everyone was very excited about, I found myself rudderless after a while, sailing on a sea of discarded project topics and jumbled readings.
I spent the summer focusing on my first research topic — the user experience of night time workers and how the lack of sleep affected their lives.
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However, I was presented with two difficulties: 1. There is already a lot of work being done on the topic by medical professionals and 2. There is also a lot of historical research already done that minimised my primary research opportunities. I decided to switch my topic to anger, particularly anger in interpersonal relationships. The idea cued into my brain when I had an argument with a friend, and found our relationship had become decidedly frigid. Anger was, and still is, an important aspect in my social relationships and my personal narrative also influenced the change in my research topic.
Meanwhile, October had crept up, and I had to formulate a strong research question. I decided to choose “How does anger permeate in interpersonal relationships?” as my field of inquiry. We also had to select a reading from our MA UX course to base our design process, and I chose Donella Meadows’ Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System.
The research question was approved by my tutors, and having done so, I was able to proceed to my second step in the design process: research methodology and findings. It was imperative that my project needn’t “live” anywhere, since anger is considered to be a basic part of the human condition.
My initial concept for the project was to deliver an experience — behavioural or physical — that conveyed a sense of anger. I wanted the users to understand what it felt like to be exposed to unrestrained anger. My research led me to other pathways for my project, but my initial tone set the stage for how I set about realising my prototypes, and eventually my final project, as well.
