How do I decide on a final project topic?

CIID Final Project Week 1

So it begins. This week we kicked off the 10-week individual final projects at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. The sudden switch from group work to individual work is daunting and exciting. Here I am, the captain of my own project, steering myself into the foggy unknown.

First, I spent time this week to identify criteria to guide the shape of my final project. I am interested in:

I am also thinking about these technologies:

In some ways, the final project is a project in introspection. I wrote down some topic areas that are personally interesting and align with my learning goals. I let my mind wander and researched these three areas of interest.

All three topics are huge and hold enormous potential. After research and speaking to former CIID alumni and advisors, I found myself gravitating towards ethics and technology.

Ethics and technology is a topic that fascinates me. I love engaging in conversation around the ethic dilemmas and philosophical thought experiments. However, I quickly realized that ethics and technology is not specific enough to be a topic. I needed to dig deeper to identify appropriate design opportunities.

I began to wrestle with Dark UX Patterns. These are deliberate design techniques that designers use to influence users to make unfavourable decisions. It’s important to raise awareness around this topic since most users are not aware that they are being manipulated. However, I had to give up on this topic area because I could not find a potential design intervention outside of awareness raising.

These are some of the dichotomies that I have been thinking about this week. I don’t have an answer to these challenges yet.

Problem solving solution VS critical design solution
I struggle with the potential of what my end result. The topic area of ethics and technology tends to lend itself in the area of critical design. But I can still imagine this project as a product that addresses a real problem. However, I believe it is just as valid to design something that exposes the existing implication of emerging technology. I want to make something that acts as a mirror where we can critically reflect on the existing trends.

Human centered design process VS something else?
Thinking about a topic surrounding ethics does not lend itself to the traditional design process. In contrast to the traditional human-centered design process, I cannot approach ethics of technology through the traditional problem-solution based approached. The challenge for me is to find appropriate ways in bringing the tools from the human-centered process.

Here are some of the projects in the area of ethics and technology that inspires me.

This week has been a lot more draining than I expected. Perhaps the most difficult challenge of my final project is finding and committing to a topic. However, I have experience first hand the power of the CIID community. I have spoken to many alumni, advisors, and peers who supported me. I am grateful for their wise words and looking forward to continuous collaboration in the next 9 weeks.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, then follow my 10 weeks final project journey at CIID Final Project.

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