Design Research Dissertation

23.4.2024 - 11.8.2024 (Week 1 - Week 16)
Elysa Wee Qi En / 0355060 / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Design Research Dissertation

INSTRUCTIONS

Fig. 1. Module Information Booklet

A: FINAL Dissertation

For this module, the main project was to write a dissertation based on the research we conducted in a previous module, Design Research Methodology. Since in that module we already created the problem statement, research questions & objectives and already conducted the data-collection, all we really needed to do this semester was expand on our research further and reference more articles and studies.

Fig. 2. Final Dissertation (9/8/2024)

B: Visual Design and Flipbook

After finishing our dissertation, we had to create a visual design and layout for it and turn it into a flipbook. Since my dissertation is about Genshin Impact, I decided to take some inspiration from the game to create my visual design. 

I had two options: 
1) To make the theme about Genshin as a whole 
2) To reference the Akademia in the game and create a design around that as the theme 

I started by gathering some screenshots and visual references from the Akademia in-game. Then I sketched some of the design elements. 

Fig. 3.1. Idea sketches [1] (16/7/2024)

However, I thought this second option was too niche and difficult to understand for those who weren't familiar with the game, and my tutor also advised against it. That left me with option one.

I created some ideas in Canva. The second idea is straightforward, looking similar to the loading screen of the game. The first idea was a recreation of the Adventurer Handbook in the game, an item that all players receive and functioning as a menu screen for some features of the game. 

Fig. 3.2. The Adventurer Handbook from Genshin Impact (9/8/2024)

Fig. 3.3. Canva ideation

After some discussion, my tutor gave me the advice to create something similar to a magic tome or book, like those from fantasy series. I liked this idea, and sketched some ideas out. 

Fig. 3.4. Idea sketches [2] (24/7/2024)

Idea 4 was created after some feedback from my tutor regarding the first three ideas. I decided to expand upon it in Adobe Illustrator. It would function as the cover of my book, while the Adventurer Handbook layout would be on the inside. 

Fig. 3.5. Creating the waves (24/7/2024)

I used the pen tool to draw out the waves, then I coloured them to match the elemental symbols from Genshin Impact. At first they were in three solid colours (red, blue and green), but then I changed them to have gradients that allowed for 6 of the 7 elements to be incorporated somehow (Pyro --> Electro, Hydro --> Cryo, Anemo --> Dendro). The yellow of Geo ended up being excluded from the waves, but it didn't matter much since the borders are all yellow anyway. 

Fig. 3.6. Creating the borders (30/7/2024)

I used the pen tool to draw out the borders, then used the brush tool and drew inside the shapes to give them highlights and make them look reflective. Stars are a common theme in Genshin Impact, so I decided to include them in the design as well. As you can see, here I changed the tabs to have rounded corners instead of pointed edges. This was my original idea before I made them have pointed edges as well. I decided that these not only matched the Handbook in the game, but also looked better in the design. 

Fig. 3.7. Creating the title and normal pages (30/7 - 5/8/2024)

I then created the back cover and the pages of the book. I used an off-white colour since I wanted it to have that fantasy or olden feel, and I made sure the tabs looked like they were between the pages rather than outside the book by keeping them above the brown cover but below the pages. 

Around here was when I had to resize my book to fit within A5 pages. They were originally created to be a little wider than A4 size in order to fit the tabs in the book, so to not make the book look too skinny in A5 size, I moved the tabs to the bottom.

For the title pages, I put the respective tab on top of the page to make it look like it's attached/ stuck onto that page. Originally, the title pages had a coloured border (as seen on the left), however the Handbook in the game has a design similar to that of the design on the right. After some opinions from friends, I kept the second design and removed the coloured border. 

Fig. 3.8. Editing the tabs of the title pages (5/8/2024)

The order of the colours right now is purple --> red --> blue --> yellow --> green. These are the same colours as the tabs of the Handbook in the game, however when moving them to the bottom I had accidentally put the green at the end when it's meant to be at the start. I fix this later on. 

After this, I moved to InDesign to layout the text more effectively. 

I mostly used justified alignment for the text, occasionally adjusting based on what the spacing between the words looked like when justified. 

As for the tables, since I had two in my dissertation, I had to figure out a way to make them fit in the book. I decided to make the entire table stretch out across both pages. In order to make sure the text didn't fill in the center of the book between the pages, I added an extra column in the middle that was colourless and without top or bottom borders to make it look invisible.

Fig. 3.9. Adding an 'invisible' column (8/8/2024)

As for the title pages, one of my friends gave me the idea to theme it around the elements. I figured this made sense and worked, since the colours could already be associated with the elements. 

Fig. 3.10. 'Introduction' title (7/8/2024)

A fun fact is that after correcting the colours of the tabs to be in the right order, some of the elements (and what they symbolised) ended up matching their topics quite well. 

Introduction: Dendro = to symbolise growth 
Literature Review: Geo = like solid facts
Research Methodology: Hydro = something not rigid, like a liquid
Further Research: Anemo = like wind, can blow far and further

I also added the elemental symbols on the bottom right of the right pages to add some visual interest. They, along with the ones by the chapter titles, have lowered opacity so they don't decrease readability.

After I finished laying out all the text, images etc., I exported it as a PDF and used https://fliphtml5.com/ to turn it into a flipbook. 

Flipbook online: https://online.fliphtml5.com/ahvzs/vccs/

Fig. 4. Dissertation Visual Design/ Flipbook (PDF) (9/8/2024)

C: KREATE Article

Our final part of this large project was to write our dissertation in the format for a KREATE Article. The article isn't meant to be long, so not all the information was included, just the most important parts. A template was provided with word counts for each section, font and font size requirements and such, so all I had to do was follow that and rephrase some paragraphs to fit the word count or be more digestable.

Fig. 5. KREATE Article (7/8/2024)

FEEDBACK

Week 2 
General Feedback:
- Introduction: what your research is about
- Rationale: why the study exists, what purpose it serves, what significance/ contribution it has
- Research theme and problem can be copied from the slides, just need rephrasing
- Important thing about dissertation is having a proper flow, so try to have an outline with the right subheadings and titles

Week 3
Specific Feedback:
- Introduction: tell a story about sound in video games. Explain it to someone who has never played video games or have taken sound effects for granted. Introduce what Genshin is, explain what the gameplay is like, can cite reviews or reactions to Genshin and its immersion (music, atmosphere etc.), explain why Genshin has such a following (perhaps because of the audio?). 
- Rationale: extension of the introduction. Not talking about the problem. Acts like a subheading. Can touch on why I picked Genshin in the first place as the subject of my study (a phenomenon? Maybe cite something), get a strong reason. 
- Theme and topic: A bit repetitive? 
- Research problem: Good. Focuses on a previous study. Can move the Genshin introduction to the top, with a 'Genshin Impact' subheading. Might need a bridge to the last paragraph, adjust the flow better and make it clearer. Need to highlight the problem more, right now is more giving a question.
- Problem statement: Needs to be framed clearly. Should not be in point form. Make it more focused. Because Genshin, unlike a lot of open world RPGs has more than one playable character, so how is this significant? Is the sound a personification of that character? Is there a connection between aesthetics? Maybe make a small chart. What I have currently might be more on the introduction or rationale. For problem statement, try to follow up on the problem in the Research Problem. Look at the RQs and work backwards. Focus on the key areas of the RQs. Write it in one or two paragraphs. 
- RQs: Might need to rephrase RO3 a bit. Make it one question without changing the direction. RQ2 also a bit similar to RQ1 so might need to rephrase too. Maybe make RQ2 more related to avatar identification and empathic immersion. Align problem, questions etc with the survey questions and connecting them, they shouldn't really be different. 
- ROs: The observations from the objectives are used to answer the RQs. 

Week 4
General Feedback:
- Literature review: Literature review is to make sure you know the topic. Validates your assumptions. 
- Try to discover or find something that isn't widely discussed
- Create a table with keypoints as the X heading, Y heading should be the articles. Basically find the similar points talked about in the articles and put it in a table. If not much data in one can say so. 
Specific Feedback: 
- Use less conversational language
- Instead of categorising data as correct or incorrect, use other terms. Can create your own, or use something like related and unrelated. 
- Research problem: Can get rid of the unhighlighted line in between the highlighted
- Problem statement: Just make it one paragraph. RQs should be extracted from the problem statement, so work backwards
- Write a keywords/definition of terms section under introduction as 1.0.2
- The goal of the study to do with Sound As Character, how the visually impaired don't need to see the character to understand and know them

Week 5 
General Feedback: 
- Literature review should be systematic
- Compare the five articles, first in words, then using a table

Week 12
Specific Feedback:
- Music wave idea is fascinating
- Waveform from idea 3 is unique, eccentric, irregular - exploit and incorporate that
- Don't overemphasize the borders as the waves are the main focus
- But idea 4 overall looking good

REFLECTIONS

Experience
This module was actually quite fun for me. I enjoy doing research about subjects that interest me. There were struggles regarding time management and workload, and due to the niche nature of my research it was kinda difficult to find articles or studies to reference, but in the end I made it through and I think I can consider myself proud of what I've created. I think that my research may actually amount to something, and I managed to make some further discoveries about Genshin Impact's sound design, which I am happy about. I think I'm happy about the content that I've put out.

Observations
It's interesting how people decided to design their visual layouts based on the themes of their research. In fact, it's interesting how there are quite a lot of different research topics in general. People took something that interested them that relates to their specialisation and created a dissertation around it. Also, there weren't many articles about sound effects in video games that I could find. Though there were quite a few videos on YouTube about the subject. However this does make sense, since YouTube is where you'd find video games nowadays.

Findings
Genshin Impact is one of my favourite games, and the sound design really is thorough in terms of the character sounds. Not just for their skills and bursts which are more noticeable, but even the sounds that play when the characters walk, run, jump -- their models and such are taken into account and it's impressive because of how much work it takes to do this for so many characters, but also shows the care that goes into each character. Apparently Arlecchino may have a different walking animation than the other characters that also use the tall female model, which I think is cool.