Do Good Project Week 3 : Primary Research & Defining Problem Statement

In Week 3, I start to do primary research such as user interviews and surveys in order to develop a better understanding of Malaysians' resilience towards the occurrences of life such as stress, frustration, burnout, etc. Besides, the survey was also conducted to find out the problem statement and insights in order to create an installation that meets their needs. I have created a list of questions for both interviewees and counselors. 

Primary Research -Interview & Surveys

Objective of Interviews:

• Identify the exact mental burden faced by Malaysians
• Understand the behavior of Malaysians in overcoming their emotions
• Understand the emotional competencies of Malaysians
• Identify the practices of gratitude among Malaysians

Research Procedures:

• Identify the learning direction
• List down interview questions in google form for psychological counselors & target audience
• Contact NGOs & 2 interviewees to make a virtual appointment
• Proceed to user interview to understand their needs & experience in overcoming their emotions
• Follow up with the interviewees to collect information that I’ve missed out during the interview session
• Send the survey forms to strangers in order to collect different insights
• Determine the problem statement and gather insights

Demographics:

Virtual Interview: 

• 2 Interviewees that experience stress from studies/ work
• 1 Counselor from NGOs (BeLive in Psychology) that cover therapies for both commonly faced issues in daily life and psychopathological conditions.

Survey: 

• 12 respondents
• Strangers aged between 18-40 years old
• Occupation ranged from student to working adults such as office workers, designers, physiotherapists, mental health coaches, developers, etc.
• Cover all races including Malay, Chinese, and Indians

Interview Questions: 

User Interview- Google Form

Counselor & User Interview

I contacted one of the NGOs, 'BeLive in Psychology' to meet with the counselor who is Mr. Jackie Yong. I've asked him questions regarding the advice that he would give for his clients that encounter stress and understand more on therapies such as primal therapy, hitting objects, talk therapy, etc. I also asked him about the practice of journaling and gratitude whether helps in expressing one's emotions.

From what I've consulted, every people have their own way of handling their emotions through different therapy. This is because everyone suits different kinds of therapies. Based on his experience, he does not recommend me to use scream therapy as some of the people will get even frustrated after they scream. He usually recommends his clients use swimming noodles to hit stuff in order to express their emotions. Other than that, he would suggest practicing mindfulness as it helps to calm someone and is beneficial to mental well-being.

Interview Screenshots

Ada

Audrey

Mr. Jackie 

User Response

Insight

• 85.7% of respondents encounter frustrations in life. 

• 71.4% of respondents (10/14) encounter stress, 57.1% of respondents (8/14) encounter burnout and anxiety while others encounter depression, anger, and facial dysmorphia.

• 57.14 % of the respondents (8/14)mentioned the cause of bad emotions comes from work. Most of them have self-high expectations and comparisons with others. When they couldn't seek approval from others at work, they will start to feel stress and leads to anxiety. While 42.86% of the respondents (6/14) have paid too much attention to other people's opinions about themselves such as their achievements, body shaming, and facial shaming which cause them to have low self-esteem. 

• Most of the respondents (10/14) will isolate themselves when they start to be emotional. While 4 out of 14 respondents will hide and cry to express themselves

• 7 out of 16 respondents overcome their emotions by doing something they are passionate about such as watching comedian shows, hanging out with friends, eating good food, painting, scribbling, and journaling. Some of the respondents will share their emotions with their trusted ones, however, sometimes they feel shy to do so.

• Medium to release stress: 
• Music -4/16
• Sharing-2/16
• Writing & Journaling -4/16
• Painting- 3/16
• Meditation - 1/16

• 100% of the respondents think expressing emotions is important as it will pile up and worsen the condition.
• 3 out of 16 respondents prefer to scream/draw/ scribble to express their emotions in space. 
• 2 out of 16 prefer to throw and break things around while others are just having their own imagination in the space.

• 50% of the respondents (7/14) feel relief after doing self-reflection, 35.7% of the respondents (5/14) prefer to meditate and scribble. 28.6% (4/14) prefer journaling and screaming.

• 64.29% of respondents (9/14) mentioned that they are not capable in handling their emotions.

• The motivation that drives most of the respondents under this stressful environment is their life goals and their passion for their careers.

• Appreciation, praise, encouragements, and compliments are actions that will motivate their day.

• Most of the respondents practice gratitude as this practice could help to stay more positive and the charm of being alive.

• 11 out of 14 respondents do self-reflection to filter themselves daily. Some of them jot things down to put things into perspective. It helps to identify a direction and decision in order to allow change to happen.

Comments from respondents that are inspiring:

"I would say, this Pandemic thought me how to be more mature, who are the real people and also how to put your self-respect before anything, as you need to make sure to take care of yourself better to provide better to others, don't always do things for other but nobody is there for you when you need them. Apart from that, it thought me a lesson that, if you wanna do or say something, just say it now then never, cause you're only gonna live once, so make sure you enjoy what you do and make memories of your journey on the earth. Lastly, make sure to show as many people as you can your existence before you ciao from the earth."

"Self-reflection yeah, cause you don't wanna do the same mistake again. As it's not a mistake anymore but a repetitive bad habit. So filter yourself daily, every day is a new beginning, new 24hrs, make use of that very precisely!"

"Most of the time I did is wring down the thoughts I have in a book or even social media, but what I did is not just spread the negative. After I spread I will start viewing and seeing myself as a third person. Talk to myself and encourage and said love me to myself make me feel peace"

"I use my life to impact another person's life, so I see it more than a job."

Problem Statement

Young Malaysians who aged between 18-30 years old are likely to experience frustration that comes from society such as stress, burnout, anxiety, and even depression.

Target Audience

Young Malaysians who aged between 18-30 years old that experienced bad emotions due to various occurrences of life

Project Background: Idea 1

Living in this busy life, most of the young Malaysians who aged between 18-30 years old are facing different types of occurrences of life such as stress, anxiety, burnout, and even depression. This phenomenon could be seen due to their self-high expectations and the eagerness to seek approval from others in this challenging environment. This project aims to initiate the practice of mindfulness by allowing users to let go of all of their complicated thoughts and pay attention to the present state with all of their senses. It helps users to explore their experience and expand the awareness of their own inner world – the things that drive and motivate them. This installation allows thoughts, feelings and sensations to come and go, without any judgement on the past or future.

Idea & Concept

An interactive installation that cultivates the practice of mindfulness that usher us away from this chaos so that we can properly enjoy the moment we are living in right now. The project allows people to have their own me-time and do self-reflection on their present moment. Users are able to feel the environment in space through their sensories. It helps them to ease their feelings and pay attention to themselves by ushering away all the frustrations in life. Through the experience, users are able to develop their thoughts and strikes forwards in their life.

Project Background: Idea 2

In this digital era, most of young Malaysians who aged between 18-30 years old are facing different types of psychological issues such as stress, anxiety, burnout, and even depression. This phenomenon could be seen due to various occurrences in life that lead to bad emotions. The project aims to encourage the communities to think and visualize bad emotions as a positive outcome as it is beneficial instead of a liability. Bad emotions might be bad but they might turn into something aspiring like art when you express and see it from a different perspective. 

Idea & Concept

An interactive installation that encourages the communities to think and visualize a negative mindset as a positive outcome in life. The project allows people to express their emotions/ frustrations through different colors with the help of digital technology. Each color represents a different kind of emotion which allows users to choose and scribble on the wall. At the end of the result, users will be able to visualize their emotions into a beautiful piece of artwork. It helps cultivate those bad emotions that will result in a positive outcome if we express and judge them from a different perspective.

Feedback

Our class had held collaborative learning among peers this week to criticize each other's concepts. During the critic session, I realize the framing of my problem statement is not strong enough as I didn't really dig enough into the user's pain point. I start to struggle on the execution part of the installation as the problem statement is not clear enough. Thus, I should hold another interview session based on the information gathered from the previous data in order to have a deeper understanding of my project.

However, I realize that most of the communities encounter stress due to their low-self esteem and the eagerness to seek recognition from others. They somehow care about how people judge and look at them which causes them to overthink and dive deep into their negative thoughts. Thus, the creative process has slowly evolved into the mindset of the young generation or working adults in Malaysia. I would like to know more about how they think, how they manage their mindset, how they start to isolate themselves. Thus, I pick 3 users that have problems with low-self esteem and self-high expectation and investigate more on their problems facing. I narrow the scope down and focused mainly on the 3 users.