Day in the life of a Colombian leg amputee

Project Context

In 2008, Proportion Foundation initiated a research project to explore the potential for a social business to provide leg prostheses to people with an amputee in Colombia. I was part of a team of design students asked to explore the challenge and develop solutions.

How did you apply the tool?

We applied the Day in the Life tool as part of the field research at the start of the project. The tool was used during in-person individual interviews with people whose leg was amputated. Some interviews were scheduled, other interviews were intercept interviews in public spaces. We wanted to better understand the impact of the disability had on their daily life.

We used the Day in the Life tool to make visual notes while the participant was talking about their day. We used an empty A4 paper and just drew a line.

Did you make any custom changes to the tool? Why?

Instead of post-its or just words, we used small drawings to represent the activities of the day. This helped to show it back to the participant and ask follow-up questions to fill in any gaps.

What worked well?

Visualizing steps, to make sure that we understood the activities well.
Show the map to the participant to let them give feedback if we got something wrong and encourage additional story telling from their side.

What did you learn?

You need at least 2 researchers to do this: one person to draw / write the key steps on the day in the life map and another person to note down more detailed notes of what is being said.

Attachments