Conversational Futures Workshop

The workshop design is based on a human-centered approach to the millennial pension crisis. The research problem investigated whether behavioral change intervention through conversation and dialogue could improve millennial stakeholders’ stance on and experience of their personal finances. Upon exposure to spaces within existing literature for further enquiry including goal compartmentalization, instant gratification and millennial values, the research undertaken to get to the final workshop included a series of focus groups. With the initial research identifying the importance in discussion and structured conversation, highlighting the need for millennial awareness of the subjectivity of goals and future vision disparities, a facilitated workshop was designed to introduce the narrative of future thinking and personal saving abstracts. The workshop is aimed at millennial stakeholders of financial institutions who would benefit from this incentive-driven exercise. 

INSIGHT

Did your project evolve in unexpected ways?

Yes. Upon delving into many different sub-topics from the outset, which ultimately made it much harder to focus inwards, I landed in a completely different space from my initial vision.

How did this project impact you as a designer moving forward?

I most certainly know how to simplify complex problems now, thanks to this monster of a project! I have learnt to stay focussed and stop going off in different directions, no matter how much another angle of the problem may interest me.

What were the key methods that you used for this work?

Feedback from external sources (my tutors) was absolutely necessary throughout the entire process to get a different perspective on what I was focussing in on in such a tunnel-vision manner.