1 Feb. - 7 Feb. 2021

This past week felt like a huge milestone – I officially see myself moving from research to ideation. It is so satisfying to start brainstorming and putting all the ideas wrapped up in my head down on paper. I created the best foundation in my research and feel ready to start sketching + connect ideas.

To better understand my user before brainstorming, I created 3 separate personas. They describe different areas of traumatic experiences and introductions to Dala.

During some of my more recent secondary research, I found amazing graphics explaining the framework of trauma integration. These graphics became a map of sorts for all of the research I had gathered the past 6 months. I was able to take this framework and divide what I had read and heard in interviews / surveys into specific categories. Once there, it was easy to see how each step of the process was connected (i.e. grounding must be down before any type of processing) and how everything I had learned was essential to integration in its own way.

With that being said, my solution can't focus on all techniques and practices. It is only meant to be a piece of the puzzle and should never replace professional work + therapy. But, the categories were helpful in brainstorming for select regions; uncovering solutions through narrowing the premise.

After all of this, I was able to come up with five outlines for potential solutions. This was presented to small groups where I was given great feedback on direction and scope.

With all of my comments from this past week, I plan on going back to the drawing board and integrating key points that I heard from peers. For next week, my goal is to have a fully-flushed out concept – then visualizing begins, yahoo!