Design & Research | Master Thesis Log 07
I sat down tonight to write a very different blog post.
My plan was perfect. I was going to show you the charts from my latest interviews. I was going to explain the difference between “active” and “passive” users. I was going to act like I had everything figured out.
But if I am being completely honest with you? I don’t.
Right now, I am stuck.
They tell you that research is a straight line. You have a question, you find data, and you get an answer. But nobody tells you about the “Fog.” The Fog is where I am right now. It is that messy, confusing middle part where you have too much information and no idea where to put it.
Drowning in Data Over the past few weeks, I have collected so much. I have hours of conversations with photographers. I have folders full of notes about AI, automation, and the history of the camera.
But instead of making things clearer, the data has made everything harder.
Should I focus on the art itself?
Should I focus on the psychology of the photographer?
Should I focus on the interface design of the camera?
Every time I look at my notes, I see a million different paths I could take. It feels like standing in the middle of a busy intersection with traffic coming from every direction. I am paralyzed by the possibilities.
Losing the Joy Somewhere along the way, I think I lost the fun of this project.
When I started, I was excited. I loved the question: “Does automation kill the artist?” It felt important. But lately, the pressure to produce “results” has taken over. I found myself rushing through the research just to get to the finish line. I stopped listening to what the data was telling me because I was too busy trying to force a solution.
I was trying to design the final product before I even understood the problem.
The Power of the Pause So, this blog post is my stop sign.
I am giving myself permission to stop running. I realized that if I keep sprinting in the dark, I am just going to hit a wall. I need to stop frantically searching for the “right” direction and just let the information sink in.
I need to go back and listen to those interviews again—not to extract quotes for a presentation, but to actually hear the emotions in their voices. I need to look at the photos again. I need to remember why I cared about this topic in the first place.
I don’t know exactly what my next step is. I don’t know if the final result will be a new camera mode, a manifesto, or a physical prototype. And to be honest, that uncertainty is really scary. It feels like I am failing.
But maybe feeling lost is just proof that I am actually exploring something new. If I knew the answer already, it wouldn’t be research, right?
For now, I am going to turn off my “analyst brain” and just breathe. The answers will come, but only if I give them space to arrive.
