PROJECT GOAL:
In my Systems class at CMU, one of our projects was to select, analyze, and map out a local Pittsburgh community as a system: a system of interactions, cultures, goals, and stakeholders. My team chose to analyze Avalon Exchange, a high-end thrift store chain with a location in Pittsburgh. Avalon is popular with college students and locals alike, and it has established its own culture of high quality yet affordable thrifting that is a reflection of the surrounding community.
As a thrift store, Avalon Exchange presents a distinct cyclic process of clothing reuse, and our goal was to breakdown and visualize this complex system in one large map.
MAPPING CONVERSATION: PAUL PANGARO:
As a guest lecturer, Paul Pangaro, professor at CMU in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, came to our class to talk about cybernetics and how it related to conversation.
To begin our analysis of our community, we needed to understand how a typical conversation would play out within Avalon: what the goals of each participant/stakeholder are, what means they take to achieve these goals, and how this establishes a hierarchy of relationships.
We came up with four different scenarios where different conversations would emerge and chose the most engaging one: Two people grab a shirt at the exact same time during Avalon’s Dollar Sale and must decide who gets to buy it.
We then defined the level of relationship between the two participants, what the power dynamic was, who the stakeholders were and what the stakes were, and what the dependencies of the conversation were. Then, we mapped out two different drafts of this conversation as matrices using butcher paper and sticky notes:
Our first draft: Conversation is between the two customers, and is shown as three main loops. Order of conversation is numbered.
Our second draft: Three conversations exist between each customer and a shopkeeper (employee of Avalon), then all together. This draft has an outcome. Order of conversation is numbered.
MAP DRAFTS:
After understanding the role Avalon plays in its community on a small-scale level, we then began to think on a larger scale. Who are the external stakeholders? What values do they share with the internal stakeholders? What type of hierarchies exist between the two?
To answer these questions, we began drafting our final map:
ITERATION 1
From our rough drafts, we realized that there existed a cyclical relationship at the core of Avalon Exchange. Consumers/customers sell their old (high-end) clothes to Avalon, and Avalon then provides those clothes back to the community. We decided to put manufacturers at the top of the triangle (the yellow triangle came from the Avalon Exchange logo) to indicate that ultimately all of the clothes that are being cycled come from the manufacturers. We also decided to include a narrative alongside the map, to help trace out the flow and ground the components.
Rough sketch of our first map iteration.
Final version of our first map iteration.
FEEDBACK
We presented this map to our class and received positive feedback on our colors and our narrative. However, many people were confused with our use of the triangle, as it did not indicate Avalon as the focus of the map, and it implied that manufacturers had some sort of power/control over the other components.
We also needed to rethink the relationship between the thrifting community and the Avalon/consumer cycle. Is this really only a one-way relationship?
Finally, we needed to reformat the Consumers circles. Our current format of circles within circles implied "sets"; is there something extra that the Avalon Community has, but the People do not?
FINAL MAP:
Final version of our map: printed as a 24" x 36" poster.