Communities and change
As part of my MA in User Experience Design, I co-designed an Augmented Reality (AR) experience platform prototype.
This blog post is part of the reflective piece I wrote to accompany it.
With a few days to go before the official start of Co-creative design and development practice, the next module on my MA, a new Discord channel opened up. Set up by one of the module lecturers, it soon became an excited flurry of animated stickers and GIFs as the channel filled with people wanting to introduce themselves and welcome others. It was exciting and a little daunting at the same time, leading me to reflect on how I have used online communities as part of my learning experience so far.
Online communities
In some ways, online and offline communities are very similar. Both “provide their members with opportunities for information sharing and learning, for companionship and social support, and for entertainment” (Kraut and Resnick 2012: 2). However, they can be very different in their ability to connect people with others who share niche interests, such as web comics. This can extend to learning contexts too, as online communities such as Discord channels have enabled me to “develop connections and to communicate with others irrespective of time and geographical barriers” (Purvis et al. 2020).
Having developed those connections within my own, small cohort Discord channel, I have mixed feelings about joining a much larger group now. I’m not sure what the group dynamic will be or whether I’ll feel comfortable enough to participate and contribute to conversations. Although according to Myers-Briggs, I am an extroverted person, that doesn’t always translate as confidence in new situations with new people.
When starting my first professional job after finishing my undergraduate degree, I was often given feedback about being very quiet and shy. And while most of the time, I was quiet because I wanted to listen and learn from the more experienced people around me, a lack of confidence was a contributing factor as well.
Since the Discord channel for new module opened at the same time for everyone, we were all new. I’m also older now than I was in my first job and more confident. I don’t mind being more open about moments when I feel awkward or shy and this often helps me overcome the awkwardness and shyness!
Experiencing change
Starting a new module and moving from a small group of people who started the course at the same time as me to one which is much bigger and includes people who are at different stages of their Masters journey is a small but not insignificant change. There is a lot of information out there about how people manage and respond to change.
A change curve
One well-known model is the Kübler-Ross Change Curve. Developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a “Swiss psychiatrist who worked extensively with the bereaved and dying” (Wilson 2014: 325), it features five stages that describe how people respond to change:
Denial and isolation
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
(Kübler-Ross 1973)
These stages don’t necessarily need to be experienced in order; they are not intended to be perceived as a process. People can also stagnate, revisit or skip any of the stages.
Since Elisabeth developed this model in 1973, is has been adapted and applied to a number of different situations. I’ve encountered many variations of it throughout my elearning career because of its popularly in leadership training courses.
At first, I didn’t think this model could be applied to the changes I am experiencing at the moment. Starting a new module and meeting lots of new people is a positive change I’m looking forward to. The Kübler-Ross Change Curve focuses on unwanted changes.
But maybe, perhaps there are some aspects of this I feel less positive about. I did write at the beginning of this post that I felt daunted by the prospect of meeting lots of new people. Why is that?
I started this course feeling like a bit of a fraud or imposter, just being here on a UX design course. By the end of the first module, I had just started to feel comfortable and that I belonged. I’d made friends with people in my cohort. I wasn’t ready for change.
But that’s life. Change won’t wait for me to be ready. At least I knew this change was happening. And while it’s important to reflect on where any feelings of discomfort come from, it’s also good to remember that new is exciting too.
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HA, Huong. 2014. Change Management for Sustainability. New York: Business Expert Press
KRAUT, Robert, E. and Paul RESNICK. 2012. Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
KÜBLER-ROSS, Elisabeth. 1973. On Death and Dying. London: Routledge.
MINDTOOLS. 2007. ‘Kotter's 8-Step Change Model’. Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_82.htm [Accessed 3 July 2022].
MINDTOOLS. n.d. ‘5 Whys’. Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_5W.htm [Accessed 3 July 2022].
PURVIS, Alison, J., Helen M. RODGER and Sue BECKINGHAM. 2020. ‘Experiences and perspectives of social media in learning and teaching in higher education’. International Journal of Educational Research Open. (1). Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666374020300182 [Accessed 3 July 2022].
WILSON, Carol. 2014. Performance Coaching: A Complete Guide to Best Practice Coaching and Training. 2nd edn. London: Kogan Page Ltd.
WRIGHT, Christopher. 2017. Fundamentals of Assurance for Lean Projects. Ely: IT Governance Publishing.
Thank you for reading.
If you liked this, you might enjoy reading the full Untold Retold case study in my portfolio or exploring the blog posts below.
