Term assignment
Exploring UX research methodology through project about nostalgia and hoarding
Date and duration
2024 – 4 Weeks
Client
Student assignment
– Kristiania Fagskole
Team members
Sole member
Software
Notion, Figjam, Google docs
A student project to explore a chosen, new domain and develop it through UX methodology.
User interviews
Interview guides
Affinity mapping
Personas
Project planning
UX Report
Empathize – or how to collect information about a self-chosen domain
In an earlier assignment this semester, I naturally gravitated towards the factor of “Nostalgia” intertwined with web design. I find this to be a fascinating phenomenon in general and feel that I’ve met many people throughout my life for whom nostalgia has been a major source of joy. At the same time, for many, it can evolve into something tied to clutter and the habit of holding on to too many things.
I want to explore whether nostalgia can be a factor that leads people to hold on to items, resulting in clutter that might negatively impact their mental well-being in daily life.
My aim is to investigate whether a digital solution could help individuals keep track of and preserve important memories, while also letting go of items they don’t truly need to keep.
A potential bonus effect could be an increase in recycling and the reintegration of materials like metals and paper into the resource cycle. Additionally, it might encourage people to think more critically about acquiring items that don’t bring real value – ultimately helping preserve vital resources.
Keywords: Nostalgia, hoarding, minimalism, recycling, mental health, cultural heritage, generational memories.
Methodology
I have chosen to explore and gather information around the domain of nostalgia, belongings, inheritance, and handling of estates, as well as clutter/hoarding. Two semi-structured interviews will be conducted using an interview guide and a self-written consent form.
I have also used a FigJam board to collect sources and carry out various parts of the process, and a Figma-document to produce elements such as a self-composed consent form and personas.
Based on the chosen domain, I am most interested in focusing generally on people who define themselves as more nostalgic than average – and who feel that this contributes to having more belongings in their homes than they would like.
Interviews
The interview guide is structured around a standard format of 1. Introduction, 2. Main Section, and 3. Conclusion.
I begin with relaxed questions that generally explore what nostalgia means to the participant, how nostalgic they perceive themselves to be, and whether this has changed over time. This provides me with a basic confirmation or disconfirmation of whether the participant is actually relevant to the target group, as well as a baseline for their "what," "where," and "when" within the domain. The main section is divided into the categories: Personal Focus, Inheritance/Emotional Focus, and Technology Focus.
To ensure that the interview participant understands their rights regarding what information will be collected, how it will be documented, how long recordings will be stored, and their right to withdraw from the project at any time (and how to do so), a tailored consent form is created to meet these needs. This ensures that I am fully aware of the content of the form, that the language can be made more engaging than a generic, legal-sounding document, and that we can include precisely the elements relevant to our project.
Affinity Mapping
After conducting two interviews, I had clear audio recordings of my participants. To work effectively with the collected information, I used VG’s app “Jojo” to generate transcribed versions of the interviews. From experience, I know that there are parts of the text where it fails to accurately capture what is said. However, since I review the text relatively quickly after the interview, extract key points as I go, and have the audio recordings as a backup if needed, I consider it a valuable tool to maintain momentum in the process.
Using the transcribed text as a starting point, I began identifying points that addressed important themes based on the interview guide and the various areas I needed information about – for example, whether they consider themselves nostalgic, why they feel nostalgic, if nostalgia actually causes issues with owning too many belongings, their experiences with letting go of items, keeping things, receiving possessions in connection with estates, their experience with technology, and their feelings about security in that context.
After completing the full collection of notes, I aimed to perform affinity mapping for each participant, grouping information that seemed to belong together. This approach helped me identify patterns in the insights, which could validate the problem statement, lay the foundation for a strong persona, and provide guidance on features and potential user stories.
Cropped view of the Figjam board with the Affinity mapping (Norwegian content)
Personas
I believe that the best way in this case to define personas is to use the results from the affinity mapping stage, combining the findings from the two interviews and assessing their common factors and what I perceive as key criteria based on all insights gathered so far.
Assets are for now only in norwegian, please let me know if you are curious to know more about this in english.
Problem statement
How can I, through a web-based solution designed for mobile or desktop use, help users to create an online memory archive for objects they need to let go of, and how can this solution address their desire to offer these belongings to people who might value them most, such as friends or family members?
This project could also make it easier for users to reduce the number of possessions in their homes while also encouraging reuse within the community as an added bonus.
This problem statement emerged organically after an extended period of data collection through interviews and processing the data using affinity mapping. It was further refined through the development of personas and identification of relevant scenarios, based on anecdotes and experiences shared by the interview participants.
Current conclusion
This is where the projects end for now, as this was the full extent of the assignment given.
I became so intrigued by a potential solution for this that, if I had an extra week, I would have aimed to move into the information architecture stage – or better yet, started prototyping low-fidelity examples to further test the validity of my problem statement and brainstorm additional ideas and solutions. I’m also curious about how it would develop visually. Should it take the form of a large cultural memory bank, or would users prefer a more human-centered approach with softer edges? How would the solution handle login, local, and external storage? Should it be mobile-only, or would a desktop version be necessary for better oversight of one’s archive? How would an item be made “available” to friends and family? Email threads? SMS? Would users already need to be members? There are so many fascinating questions arising from this concept, making it an exciting project to potentially explore further in the future.
Disclaimer: Ai has been used to translate more than half of the text on this project page from a norwegian report into english