drafted a document that outlines scope of research for the instrument-design team.
drafted: 261013; arjun.
the goal for the instrument-design team at the nordoff-robbins center for music therapy is to:
- design hyper-personalized instruments for clients to express themselves sonically in sessions (thereby aiding the therapeutic process).
- generalize a framework for future adaptive-design projects at the center, by using (a) as real-world examples.
to do so, we need to:
- look at other adaptive-design work done in the realm of music-therapy.
- look at alternate sonic-controllers, and identify what they can afford that a normal instrument cannot.
- conduct primary-research with clients & therapists of the center.
primary-research involves the following:
- speaking, in-person or via zoom, with therapists 1-on-1, to understand their needs.
- speaking with clients — in person; in presence of a therapist — to understand their needs.
- observing therapy-session (archival) footage at the nordoff-robbins center (provided we have consent from the client), to identify behaviors & possible affordances that we could leverage in the design of the instrument.
- testing prototypes with clients — in person; in presence of a therapist — to be able to refine the design to meet therapeutic goals.
small note about conversational-research:
each conversation has many blocks, and we’re trying to ascertain a certain thing in the block. conversational-research is, of-course, qualitative & open-ended, and researchers are encouraged to probe deeper inside each block if they hear an interesting response that they think might bring them an interesting finding.
we need access to a shared whiteboard where we can collate all the notes. dovetail is also an interesting platform; but miro / mural / figjam work just as well.
with therapists / october:
trying to ascertain: typical therapeutic process journey; single-session journey; challenges.
what does the music-therapy process look like over a year for a client? (we’re trying to understand important milestones; how they define starting points; and how they define end-points).
specifically: what milestones do you look at, if any?
what does a typical session look like? (get a map).
what are the most challenging moments in a session? (get them to open up about stories: about this client or another one). what about that instance was challenging & how did they solve it? what wasn’t ideal about the way they solved it then? if they don’t open up, ask them about the most challenging moment in their last session, and begin from there.
do they have any instances of when a client found it hard to use a particular instrument? why, what (we’re looking for stories).
what is the easiest instrument that they’ve found clients to use? why? (again, we’re looking for stories).
what do they think is the best instrument for their sessions, and why does that work? (we’re looking for what they look for in a sonic-expression, so that we can amplify that in our instrument).
how do they know that a session is going well or poorly? what are these indicators, and how do they ascertain them? (we’re looking for things that we want the instrument to clearly tell them)
what helps them connect with a client? what are some tactics they’ve used in the past; what works; what doesn’t?
during observation for archived footage:
look at possible affordances based on behavior:
what does a client do most of? (audio cues; movement; et-cetera)
what does a client not do that you expect someone in a session to do? (we’re looking what we want to stray away from)
with clients / october:
we want to find out what kind of stories do people want to tell with these instruments. what are the important factors; what must an instrument enable; et-cetera.