1. Life. Satisfied.
An experiment in co-creation
Majid Dadgar
Sandeep Makam
Emily Strouse
William Taylor
D786 | Winter 2010

2. Selection from Original Project Proposal:
This research team was formed with the intent of providing all of the participants the
opportunity to develop and gain experience in an area of professional research outside of
their normal experience. Specifically, experience in the areas including design-led research
and participant co-creators are of particular interest. In order to facilitate this desire, a
project was devised that bridges the interests of the group members and provides both a
personally and professionally stimulating point of interest for each contributor.
The project’s direct objective is to gather two small groups of individuals, likely students at
The Ohio State University, that are similar in almost all ways except that half of the group
will have a condition that deems them medically “Disabled” and the other half will be
considered, for the sake of clarity, Normal, or Able. The concept is to then provide a
comparative look at the two groups and see if there is a significant difference in the way
each group derives satisfaction out of everyday life. Utilizing research tools that depend
heavily on the output of participants is key to our understanding of the subjects.

3. Stakeholders
•“Abled” vs. Disabled
Original Plan
•Comparative study
•ODS Email – “Report Spam”
•Flyers – Untouched
Issues •Social Media – Low traffic
•What is life satisfaction?
Final/Revised •5 co-creators
Plan

4. Processes & Methods
Social Media
Tell us what you are doing that makes you satisfied?
 Twitter - @life_satisfied and #life_satisfied
 Facebook
 Email

5. Processes & Methods
 Survey – Warm up period, “Breaking the ice”
 15 responses
 People asked to choose among 8 dictionary definitions
of satisfaction
 Workbook – More detailed introspection
 Instances of satisfaction in the past, present & future
 Answered by all our final set of co-creators

6. Survey - Definitions
Ecclesiastical - an act of doing penance or making reparation for
venial sin.
Payment or discharge, as of a debt or obligation.
The opportunity to redress or right a wrong, as by a duel.
Reparation or compensation, as for a wrong or injury.
The cause or means of being satisfied.
An act of satisfying; fulfillment; gratification.
Confident acceptance of something as satisfactory, dependable,
true, etc.
The state of being satisfied; contentment.
0 3 6 9 12 15

7. Processes & Methods
Make Tools

8. Bullseye & Make Tools
 5 co-creators, 2 of which were colleagues
 Plan
 Introductions and Warm up – brain Teasers
 Bullseye exercise (Words/Pictures)
 Explanation and discussion
 Paper airplane contest (2D to 3D)
 Velcro session (Freedom to interpret)
 Explanation and discussion

9. Bullseye
 2 teams, 2 sheets of images, 1 sheet of words and
other miscellaneous supplies
 Highest level of satisfaction in the centre
 Team building exercise
 Participants did not know each other beforehand
 They discussed minimally about choosing particular
images or words
 Built up to the next team exercise

10. Bullseye

11. Bullseye
 Sleeping & Coffee – in the absolute center. Twice.
 Common themes
 Freedom, Friends, Food, Music and Productivity
 Conflicts
 Religion vs. Art
 Healthy vs. Unhealthy
 Awake vs. Asleep

12. Airplanes!

13. Velcro Session
“Think about the Bulls Eye that you made with
your team mates and think about what could/would make
your life more satisfying?
It could be an object, a gadget, something
abstract like a sculpture or even a genie’s lamp.”

14. • The group
members
immediately began
to envision an all-
purpose mobile
satisfaction remote
control.
• This group was all
female.

15. • Having finished
with time to
spare this group
was asked to
consider another
object.
• In this instance
they chose to
create a remote
control from
some possible
future.

16. communication device
• The other group (all
male) developed a set
of more tangible super
gadgets.
• These included a
laptop for successfully
communicating ideas,
animation and music as
well as a “true”
universal remote and
finally a customizable
digital wall at home.

17. Make Tools Session

18. Conclusions
What did we finally learn?

19. Gathering co-creators
 Emails
 Bulk or list-serv – Few to No responses
 Personalised – Response plus action
 Flyers with tear-away info
 Untouched
 Some tabs removed ahead of time by team to simulate
interest
 Craigslist
 Questionable responses (with pics!)

20. Gathering co-creators
 Contacting Experts
 Proved to be dead-ends as they were too busy
 Social Media
 Twitter – slow to begin , but progressively useful
 Facebook – colleagues and acquaintances mostly but
other parties made a showing
 Email – Chiefly due to privacy concerns sharing over
social media
 Colleagues simultaneously needed participants for
their studies

21. Activities – Social Media
Twitter/Facebook/Email
 Daily life, Present
 “Receiving a new movie from Netflix”
 Simple pleasures
 “Running down High street w/ my iPod in warm weather”
 Specific to General
 “Freshly baked home made whole grain wheat bread
sandwiches” – we call it adjective bread.
 “Defining goals and being able to achieve them”

22. Social Media Visualization

23. Activities – Bullseye
 Allowed for more abstraction & open interpretation
 Addresses various needs
 Art, Religion, Food, Sex
 Team effort, hence some ideas get magnified
 Even with only 2 teams, many similarities emerged
 Coffee, Sleeping, Freedom, Productivity, Food

24. Activities – Velcro
 Highest abstraction
 Concerns focused on future
 Touched themes of creativity, emotional healing,
conveying ones ideas, pleasure
 Nevertheless, did not ignore/forget the more basic
themes of food, “coffee” and security

25. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

26. Satisfaction is the experience
of circumstantial and
subjectively positive change.
What is Satisfaction?

31. Thank you!
Questions and Comments welcome!
Emily Strouse
Majid Dadgar
Sandeep Makam
William Taylor

32. Thank you!
Questions and Comments welcome!
Emily Strouse
Majid Dadgar
Sandeep Makam
William Taylor