Master's thesis.
My thesis pursues the development of a tool that empowers designers, as well as non-designers, to undertake social problems using humor as a rhetorical approach. Visit my thesis blog at feministgangsta.com.
Quick links
If busy, no prob, here are the key links. Else, scroll on down.
View Web app prototype (please open on a mobile device!)
Download Humor Heuristics (PDF)
Ignite Pittsburgh presentation
Why humor & design
I began to do freelance design work for and with comedy publications, comedians, and improv theaters in Austin,TX. Once I had established myself as a "comedy designer," I bookmarked the following thought: calling something as broad and pervasive in society as humor my design niche may be accurate, but it ain't right. Humor should be understood well enough in design to have a role in any concept, not be a niche in itself.
When it was time to consider a thesis topic at Carnegie Mellon, I immediately looked into design + humor and found almost nothing. Comparatively, the sources found made inconsistent points, and none recognized humor's significance in debate. I realized then the opportunity to research how humor as rhetoric can have an empowering function in design.
Humor should be understood well enough in design to have a role in any concept, not be a niche in itself.
Research key points
The following are some key thoughts from my research:
"If design is 'changing existing situations to preferred ones' and humor is as once believed in ancient Greece as the 'changing state of mind,' then all we must do is make situations out of minds."
"The hope in conducting humor research in design is to significantly add to the area of design for social change using strong emotional approaches."
"You can teach someone sentence structure, but you can't teach them to formulate prolific sentences. The same goes for the creation of humor with the structure as a starting point. "
"Humor is a self-reflexive cognitive task that can act as a tool for a user to explore the self and begin to self-actualize. "
If design is 'changing existing situations to preferred ones' and humor is as once believed in ancient Greece as the 'changing state of mind,' then all we must do is make situations out of minds.
Process
Because little has been published about the intersection of design and humor research fields, my personal research started with a rather large and thorough literature review and lots of survey distribution. My first goal was to develop a set of heuristics from existing theory overlaps in linguistics, rhetoric, design, and humor research.
Click here to download the Humor Heuristics (PDF) I developed.
I organized "unfocus groups" consisting of four designers each. Groups were given the same prompt about a serious issue, a few statistics about the issue, a few facts about the target audience, the Humor Heuristics, and humor strategies. All individuals in both groups successfully created humorous artifacts--But my biggest discovery was that people were concerned about "being funny." In other words, they needed to feel confident enough to even try to use humor.
I did contextual inquiry and conducted interviews at the Rally to Restore Sanity, in which I discovered political and social mobilization for many often had a negative and controversial connotation. I decided to target on fatigue for political and social mobilization as a case-study design problem to fully test my heuristics.
My research findings showed that people were more likely to get involved in any kind of public display of mobilization if their peers were involved, if access was easy, and if the chance of controversy or tension was guaranteed to be at a minimum.
Through further countless observations, I recognized a pattern for humorous interactions. Designers would create prompts that act as platforms, and users and audience members would use these platforms to empower each other and themselves. The designer role is not of the humorist, but of the creator of an environment for the world to be the humorist.
Mobile Web application
My research inferred a need for a tool to enable people to positively mobilize in a virtual and/or physical environment. Based on this need, I created a Web application that is content-based but still maintains a network around positive mobilization through the process of humorous design artifacts. The app guides the user implicitly through the Humor Heuristics with fun tasks and examples.
See it by visiting www.humormob.org on your mobile browser.
SXSW Interactive
Click here to read the description of my SXSW Interactive 2011 panel, Comedic Communication.
SXSW received over 2500 panel proposal submissions for Interactive this year, and my panel was one of the lucky 250 to be chosen. Additionally I was honored to host the panel in "Ballroom A" of the Austin Convention Center, which meant a turnout of over 400 people and a great discussion about humor, Interaction Design, and experience.