Micro Unit
Next, we went to Peckham, Burgess Park and Camberwell Library to conduct directed storytelling where we had simple, open-ended conversations that allowed people to speak about money in ways that were real and grounded in everyday experience. Our aim here was to understand how emotions, decisions and financial pressures intersect in everyday life.
Directed Storytelling: Session 1
We started with an open-ended conversation, asking a simple question: “What does financial freedom mean to you, and do you think it is achievable?”
Our goal was to let people speak about money in a way that was grounded in their real, everyday lives. We wanted to see how their emotions, decisions, and financial pressures intersected.
We realized that using the term “Financial Independence” in the very first question steered the conversation too much. Our early questions focused heavily on assets, investments, and technical terms. This confused people and narrowed the range of answers we got. So based on the first three interviews, we knew we had to change our approach to encourage more natural, meaningful conversations.
Directed Storytelling: Session 2
For the second round, we chose a park setting, hoping people would be more relaxed and open to chatting. We made key changes to how we spoke to them:
Removed Jargon: We stopped using the phrase "Financial Independence." Instead, we let people define what independence meant to them and waited to see if money came up naturally.
Simplified Questions: We treated our questions as loose prompts to guide our memory rather than a formal interview script.
Money was seen as a means to look after loved ones, but also as a heavy responsibility.
Several people noted how money deepens social divides and creates power gaps.
Some accepted a lower quality of life to get by, while others overworked themselves to maintain their standards.
A recurring point was that if people had "enough" money, they would help their community—but only after their own needs were secured.
We regrouped and used affinity mapping to make sense of the eight interviews. We color-coded the data to track which participant said what, then clustered the insights into themes to find patterns.
Defining the Directions: From these insights, two clear directions emerged:
Direction 1 (Discarded): Focused on the ethos of gifting and community support. While we didn't pursue this as the main project, we kept the core values.
Direction 2 (Chosen): The "musing" on parenthood and financial adventure, which moved forward to become the entire project.
Looking back, this was an important moment. The mapping process surfaced a core insight that ultimately shaped our final project, Memory Mint:“Starting a family is its own financial adventure.” This clarified the emotional and economic reality of parenthood and gave us a clear focus. A second insight also stood out: “People are willing to help others when they have surplus.” This reinforced our understanding of community support and care, which became key design principles for us.
Reflecting on this process, we realized a disparity. The participants in these early interviews largely came from a specific lower socio-economic group. However, our later stages of testing and prototyping involved a noticeably different demographic. This shift happened unconsciously, influenced by our own circles and the limitations of how we found participants (snowball sampling). It is important to acknowledge this, as the group that gave us the key insights for the project may have been unintentionally excluded from the later design process—and potentially from the final outcome.
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