Group Project : 9 Weeks
Qualitative Research, Storytelling, Brand + Website Development
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If resilience is this critical but unseen thing, how do we study it? Know it? Build it? How do we make an abstract thing like resilience more clear and tangible?
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WHY RESILIENCE?
COMMON INTEREST
We knew we wanted to take something from what we’ve learned in Brene’s research and create something from it but we weren’t sure what that would be. We landed on resilience after conversations around how co-opted the word is right now. How does this word show up for people in their lives?
It’s dumbfounding how appropriate the word would soon become in the last month of finishing this project.
TAKING FORM
Where does this live in the world?
We started this project with a hypothesis:
If people go through a time of adversity, then they collect artifacts that help them contextualize and reflect on their experience.
Our interest in bringing tangibility to resilience quickly formed into wanting to interview people about what resilience means to them in their life, what artifact in their life represents that experience and why. From there we wished to document each story and display these images on a website.
Interviews
We began with the goal to interview 50+ people which was quite a feat. In order to keep ourselves on track we decided each interview would be no more than 20 minutes. We quickly realized that 20 minutes is not enough time to capture someone’s resilience story, so we scaled back our quantity of interviews and instead focused on quality. This was brought to our attention by reaching out to one of our experts, Ben Zeidler from Nonfiction.
Beta Site
We had several idea of where these interviews could live but the idea of a website always took precedence. Having all the stories compiled here together would be our first introduction into the world and using analytics and feedback to record people’s thoughts and opinions to lead us to where these stories could end up next.
The Gallery
It was important that every photo was in black and white. We talked to people from all over the U.S. and learned early on we wouldn’t have creative control over how each photo would look. The b&w photos allow for visual continuity on the site and not distract from poorer quality images.
“During this time, for me resilience looked like doing things I was scared to do before, and doing them anyway. Like traveling. I didn’t want to do this alone. I was concerned with being left alone with my thoughts and honestly my self. I was in Paris for a wedding and ended up spending my last day there alone.”
-Unknown, 31
“Resilience to me is about finding a strength we didn’t know was there until we needed it.”
-Magic-Maker, 28
“If that tree can stand up winter after winter, buffeted by the strong, cold winds of the North, then I can too.” In life, one has many tests. How do you hold yourself together when your world seems to be falling apart? I believe that you must always search for ways to “turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse”. As my mother so wisely said, “Attitude is everything”. Sooner or later in life, we all face difficulties. It is important to be positive and to believe in yourself.”
-Artiste, ‘47
Learnings
In our qualitative research we began to see themes form early on. We kept track those in an excel file and revised them after all the interviews were over. Four major themes presented themselves throughout our interview process and we highlighted our learnings here.
Beta Launch Feedback
It’s important that we document how people are connecting with our site and the stories. We offered a page on the beta site that allows for user feedback. This is to ensure we can go back later when we’re decided what our next step will be with the project and evaluate the responses and take the next steps to build on our brand.
Scaling Gallery of Resilience
We can see GOR living on many different platforms. We discussed art show exhibits, coffee table books, brand collaborations, more of a social presence online for a wider audience reach, etc. We took all of our ideas and plotted out a roadmap of where we would like to see this project evolve further in the world.
What We Learned
What’s Next?
As we demonstrated with our product roadmap we do see this work living beyond a website gallery. There could be opportunities for others to submit their own stories through a built-out and more robust social media presence. I have personally envisioned this work being helpful for a brand(s) behind the scenes. It could serve as a template or a jump-off idea for activations, brand positioning or engagement. If it felt aligned and was the right fit, I could see our research being of service in those categories, instead of a consumer-facing brand/experience all on its own.