How do the digital experiences we design and inhabit connect—or disconnect—from the values we care about?

Through reflection, interview, and collaborative mapping, we’ll trace relationships between what we are about, the data and content we generate, and the interfaces that mediate them. As a first set of activities, the outcomes become the foundation for your interface design project: a system that generates meaningful content from data for a community of interest.

Step 1: Identify Core Value

What do you value?

Define a community of interest you belong to or care about. Consider both your professional and personal identities as part of its characteristic, so this class can discover shared ground in humanity, design, and technology.

Pair up with a peer and talk about yourself to identify your core value and community:

• What are you interested in? What troubles you?
• How do you organize your time, tasks, and energy—especially when it’s limited?
• What role does this course play in your life?
• What do you value for the future?
• What are you afraid of losing or compromising?
• If you could change one thing in your community or field, what would it be?

Note: You are not necessarily designing for yourself, but rather defining a value you care about and its related community.

Step 2: Find Resonant Moment

Select one moment that resonates with this value.

Identify a specific experience—recent or memorable—that embodies this value for you. Bring a photograph or drawing of this moment to class.

Be prepared to share rich details about it: What happened? Where was it? Who or what was involved? What made it meaningful? How did it feel? Why? and more

You will turn a 5-second moment into a 10-minute story through an interview.

• Slowing down of speech.
• Points to the area around the body where a feeling is perceived. Pay attention to bodily gestures.
• Use of expressions such as ‘it feels like. . . ’, ’it is like’ or ‘it is similar to. . . ’. Use metaphors to describe complex sensations and emerging concepts.
• Notice repeated or uncommon wording/vocabulary.

Note: The conversation will be mostly unstructured narration. Transcribe it, then organize it as a vignette (300 - 500 words).

Example: Photographing Mushroom

Step 3: Document Disconnection

Intentionally avoid using a mobile device, social media platform, or familiar digital service for one full day.

As you go through the day without this technology:

• Observe: What do you do instead? What activities or interactions emerge?
• Document: Note any discomfort, urges, contentment, or unexpected feelings as they arise. Define your parameters to record (e.g., time, location, triggers).
• Reflect: After the day ends, rank the intensity or urgency of each moment you documented. Did removing this technology help you feel more connected to or act more consistently with the value you care about? Why or why not?
• Summarize: Review your notes and reflection in writing. Create a drawing, diagram, table, or chart to make sense of the experience. Prepare for a 10 minute conversation with a peer in class, as in the step 2.

Step 4: Visual Synthesis

Communicate your findings using any visual forms (e.g., drawing, diagram, collage or typographic composition).

Weave together visually (tabloid size):

• Your core value
• The resonant moment
• Observations from your digital removal experience
• Insights about the relationship between technology, behavior, and values
• Consider potential relations or tensions around the value: Who shares it? Who challenges it? Where does it align or conflict with existing systems, technologies, or practices?

Note: The previous activities are not inherently connected. Your task is to make meaning through visual synthesis. What conceptual, experiential, and sensorial qualities does this value evoke for you?

You may approach this in multiple ways:

• Make connections through visual composition and juxtaposition
• Focus on one activity as the primary visual expression while integrating others as supporting elements (or discarding what doesn’t serve the work)
• Create new imagery entirely centered on your value.

Your value may evolve through this process. Let the making guide you.

Step 5: Ideate

Determine the message and content to generate.

(following your data ecosystem mapping)

• What is your community of interest relevant to the core value? (This can evolve or become more specific from the beginning.)
• What do you want to generate through your interface to help your community create, share, and pursue this value?
• What data will you use to generate content? What are your data sources?
• How will this value be expressed through the interface?
• What are potential intended and unintended consequences, and what guardrails or constraints will be needed?

Practical Tips

• Be playful. Mapping in this activity represents mental models, dreams, and fears—there’s no wrong way. Develop your own visual logic your map should communicate to others.
• Be active. Engage each step fully and weave connections as insights emerge. These are experiments for discovery, not tests with answers. Meaning comes from your reflection and creativity—so stay curious and keep making connections.