Stage 3: Master’s Project (Self-Directed)

For Design Innovation: “Does the Deficit-Based Approach always find a solution when faced with complex and wicked problems? ” “As an international student who only lives in the UK for half a year and do only three months project, What I can do for the real world?”

For Collaborative Creativity: “Can co-creation jump out of the framework of workshops and long-term trust building to achieve spontaneous bottom-up innovation? If so, what is the role of the designer in it?”

“Facing methodologies and methods, learning them, practicing them, and transcend them”, in this project, I designed a new methodology by combining “Grassroots innovation” and “Weak Ties Creativity” . Grassroots Innovation means internal spontaneous bottom-up innovation within groups. Weak ties creativity means external weak ties innovation between groups. I combine them and give it a new name:  “Connecting Grassroots Wisdom” and try to practice it in the wicked context of British railways.

British railways have a long and complex history including nationalization and privatization, Richard Beeching plan, Great British Railway strategy, etc. It is now facing an unstable external environment, including COVID-19, 2021–present cost-of-living crisis, frequent changes in the government, etc. It is facing direct conflicts of interest of stakeholders including workers, managers, passengers, etc, especially 2022–2023 railway strikes. The implementation of the internal strategies of the various railways was difficult. People seem to lose trust and confidernce about  railways.

As a designer, what I can do is to find a stable strategies and methods for driving development by internal forces, Build Empathy between different stakeholders, Find people who care about railways and pass on their caring to regain hope and trust, and increase internal and external cooperation efficiency.

“Who are caring about Railway? What they can do for railway development to alleviate wicked problems?”
Among the Stakeholders of the Railway system, people with multiple identities are often overlooked. They regard a certain part of the railway as a hobby, including the railway community, railway photographers, model enthusiasts, line planners, train simulation enthusiasts, etc. Some of them have become mature grassroots organizations and movements, some are active on social media, and some participate in offline activities. I regard them as “Railway Grassroots Groups”.

I roughly divide grassroots groups into three archtypes, mature grassroots organizations, immature virtual grassroots groups, and ungrouped individuals. Although their hobbies, abilities, and groups are different. But they all care about railways, have enthusiasm and knowledge for railways.

Among the mature grassroots groups, Community Rail Partnerships (CRP) has established collaborations between railway companies, local communities, and government councilors. They have a regular meeting every month to discuss cooperative projects such as station murals, barrier-free facilities etc. There are 9 CRPs in the Scottish region. However, many mature grassroots movements and virtual grassroots groups are still isolated, they have enthusiasm and knowledge but they did not know each others and only in hobbies rather than practice to real world.

In face-to-face Co-design, I regard myself as an Activist rather than a researcher. We learn from each other, introduce different grassroots groups we don’t know before, discuss how we can cooperate with other grassroots groups, and share our vision of the present, near future, and future communities of railways. I use ppt, google, and white paper as engagement tools to introduce different grassroots groups, show how what they did by their hobbies and break the knowledge barriers. In the Co-design of the virtual community, I just sent 2 posts in 5 Facebook Groups to discuss the price of Caledonian Sleepers. These two posts received heated discussions and spontaneously discussed the past, present, and future of Caledonian Sleeper from different perspectives of stakeholders. We don’t build any trust and hold workshops before but we have put our collective intelligence and passion to practice in the real world and use hobby as ties to build our sense of belonging, empathy, kinship. I was also invited to CRP meeting from different stakeholders to discuss the collaboration with different grassroots groups. Although it is new for Building Railway as a Subculture, we started to try it.

In grassroots innovation, I redefine the role of the designer in the project: “Glue”. This Glue guide different grassroots to practice their knowledge and passion within groups, and also guide others to become a glue between groups. And I have summarized a set of methods on how to achieve different types of grassroots innovation and manifesto to how to engage with different grassroots.

This is a self-reflection and critical project of the logic of user-centered design, role of researcher, traditional way of interviewing, flashy engagement tools & workshops and money as the single tie. Facing a wicked problem, a project designed for the real world need consider the potential and more stable way over in Internal system and funding. My exploration and innovation can also come from daily findings and reflections, or even hobbies. Design thinking can be applied everywhere rather than just a project and work.

In this project, you can see the continuation of my other projects before, including the spiritual connection to the by-products world (By-products world), how the project realizes connection as a non-human (Weaving futures), How virtual ethnography is applied to project (CRM), how people get rid of the information cocoon (Pop Culture), each project has been inherited with knowledge transfer as “Ties”.