Design Exploration - Idea generation

A lot of the reflections and documentation that I have been doing for this course so far have been recorded in a physical written diary, so some of the content from that diary will be displayed here in pictures. I think I tend to work better when I write things down, so to generate ideas for the design exploration pitch and poster I decided to do most of my brainstorming there. The ideas that were written down here built from the initial exploration I did on Trove. They were also influenced by a group brainstorm session I had with a number of other students in the DECO7180 course.

Overview of some of the ideas generated for the poster/pitch:

• Some kind of data visualisation generator - allow users to create visualisations of particular data sets.
• Create your own Trove Spotlight (akin to the Women's Weekly spotlight in the last post) - allow users to customise specific search results and then display them in their own website outside of Trove.
• Scrapbook/End Note for Trove - a collection of customised notes, pictures and articles 
• Printed Tote bags using data from Trove - choose a photo, map or letter from Trove and design a print that can be sent to a tote bag shop. Alternatively, 3D printed jewellery whose designs are based on designs found in the Trove pictures, photos and objects section.
• Story/timeline creation using Trove photos.
• Creating some kind of spotlight on Australian politics using Trove content.
• "Letters of Note" - letters from today that are addressed and written in response to old letters in the Trove database.
• Annotating old stories, locations etc with users' own personal experiences and stories. 
• Movements in fashion
• Cartoons from old newspapers
• Trove as a resource for fashion students interested in different textiles, fabrics and dressmaking patterns. A DIY section of the site that allows users to share how they use these patterns.

These ideas were eventually whittled down to the following as potential ideas to pitch for the poster.

• DIY Trove - turning Trove into a resource for crafters, especially those interested in dressmaking and fashion. Look for textiles, patterns and inspiration from Trove.
• Trove Memes - a tool that allows users to create and share their own memes based on photos from the Trove database.
• Trove Recipes - a recipe database that provides recipes tied to different time periods and thematic groups. Presented to users alongside broader issues and themes (e.g. Recipes from WW2 alongside a history of rationing in WW2, Bush Tukka and Aboriginal/"White Fella" relations, Vegetarian recipes and the global environment)

Design Exploration - Initial Exploration of Trove

Initial exploration for the project began with just going onto Trove and exploring the types of content that the database provided. I also signed up as a member of the site to gain full access to all the features that the website allowed. The one sentence that I had to structure my exploration was: generate ideas that make Trove data interesting.

Using Trove's Advanced Search yielded more ways to segment search results, including by publication and by year.

Although I spent some time looking through all of the sections of the Trove site, I thought that the content that was being returned from the Digitised newspapers section and the Pictures, photos, objects of the site where yielding the most interesting results. Searching within Pictures, photos, objects bought back content like posters, photographs and charts for example. 

With the digitised newspapers I was reminded of microform records of old newspapers. During my undergraduate degree I had often read comics from old newspapers as well as newspaper articles from WWI and WW2 when I had free time, and remember them being incredibly fascinating as a form of content. Going through the digitised newspaper content on Trove reminded me of browsing newspapers in this way.

 

Trove also had a separate website specially dedicated to coloured covers from the Australian Women's Weekly that I thought was an interesting way to present otherwise quite boring content. The interface provided the opportunity for users to search through the covers by topics like the Royal family, knitting patterns, fashion and pets.