In order to identify design opportunities, I revisited the Autoethnography I conducted. I noticed a gap between my past self, who documented experiences, and my present self, who analyzed those experiences from a more objective standpoint. During a tutorial, Al mentioned contemplating advice from his father: "If your future self could give you advice, what would he say?" This idea embodies learning from the past, with the aim of handling similar situations better in the future.
Given that many people learn from negative emotions and challenges, I organized a workshop combining directed storytelling. The workshop consisted of three steps:
Illustrate a recent event that caused significant emotional fluctuations but has now settled.
Consider what advice your present self would give to your past self in that situation.
Create a tool based on the advice to help yourself.
As crafting a tangible item from scratch can be challenging, I sought to simplify this step. Since LEGO blocks are often used as creative tools for expressing ideas and abstract concepts, I provided participants with LEGO blocks to construct a reminder to place on their desks.
Despite some initial uncertainty about how to use LEGO blocks, participants gradually developed ideas during the exploration and building process. I found that the participants demonstrated remarkable creativity, constructing scenes, objects, or symbols representing abstract concepts.
I observed that the events participants faced could be categorized based on the degree of control over the situation. Some events were nearly entirely within their control, such as arguments with partners. Others involved partial control, like misunderstandings with friends due to academic commitments, where individuals could take actions to improve the situation. Some events were entirely uncontrollable, such as a stolen phone or a delayed GP appointment. Categorizing events by control level can provide clarity on what actions individuals can take and how to alleviate negative emotions when faced with challenges.
I organized all participants' creations based on the degree of control over the situations, as shown below.
This workshop received positive feedback, with participants expressing enjoyment in the LEGO building process and noting that it prompted deeper reflection. Some mentioned a newfound awareness of how to deal with negative emotions, indicating they might pay more attention and apply the suggestions in the future.
Following this workshop, I decided to create a toolkit to help people document their lives, reflect, and cope with negative emotions.