My name is Donne Engelbertink and I’m a second year Communication and Multimedia Design student in Amsterdam. Since almost two weeks I’ve been working as an intern at the MediaLAB Amsterdam. At MediaLAB I’m ‘researching research’. The idea behind this research is to gain an understanding of how the MediaLAB students approach the research techniques that they have been provided with. Do they use them, and if so, how do they apply them? Do they apply methods they found elsewhere and why/how? The end goal is to develop a ‘road map’ for successful and appropriate research methods and tools for MediaLAB students to use.
Last week I have been collecting information about the tools the students are using and whether or not they were of help in the process of coming up with a concept. Now I’m making an inventory of different methods for doing research, concept developing, designing, developing and implementing. These five steps are the steps the students are taking to get to an idea and implement it for the company they’re working for.
I’m researching how the methods are already presented to their users/readers and what kinds of methods are being used within the book or website. My goal as an intern at MediaLAB is to find a way to have the large amount of methods well organized and easily accessible for the students that are working here.