Exploring inner

balance of young
professional women

Rich Insights (group work)2011.09-2012.02

Context mapping
The project aims at gaining insights about how young
female professionals experience their inner balance. The
researchers aim to defne elements that cause balance or
unbalance and fnd out how these elements work on ladies.
Besides, the team also needs to propose strategies that help
ladies to achieve their ideal level of balance. In addition,
opportunities for Philips to produce balanced lifestyle are
recommended in the end.
Exploring inner balance of young professional women
Focusing Recruiting
participants
Sensitizing Generative
session
Transcription Analysis Infographics
The project is divided into seven main steps as the fgure illustrates: focusing, recruiting participants, sensitizing, generative session, transcription,
analysis and infographics.
Focusing
In the project beginning, the team discusses and defnes the objective of this project
(framework), the way to sensitize the participants (sensitizing), and the goals of the
session (creative session). In the session, the facilitator guides the participants to
discuss from the elements infuencing their inner balance to their values about balanced
life, and the sensitizing aims to prepare the participants for the session.
Recruiting participants
The team invites eight young ladies to participate in our
research. All of them are from 25 to 35 and have full
time jobs.
Exploring inner balance of young professional women
Sensitizing
Before the session, participants are given the sensitizing packages to
warm up and it takes one week. They are asked to spend 10 to 20 minutes
per day to fnish the exercises on the booklet. These exercises are all
related to the main research topic, from easy to into-depth.
Inside the package there are seven objects as the downside fgure
illustrates.
Introduction
Personal information
Daily exercise
D
a
ily
q
u
o
te
The sensitizing booklet is
the most essential part in
this package. The team aims
to make it attractive so that
participants are engaged in
the exercise. The fgures show
some examples of booklet
pages.
Exploring inner balance of young professional women
The session lasts approximately three hours. It starts from sharing the quotes of
inner balance on the booklet. Then the collage assignments are carried out, and the
participants are asked to present factors that affect their inner balance as well as
strategies they use to achieve inner balance. In the presentation, ladies are encour aged
to discuss the reasons behind each factor and strategy. At the end of the session, they
share tips of keeping inner bal ance to others.
Generative session
Transcription
The creative session is video tapped and transcribed. When the team
works on the transcriptions, they highlight interesting quotes, which they
regard that can contribute to the results.
Analysis
In the analysis step, the team aims at categorizing the common factors
which infuence ladies emotions, linking adjusting strategy with ladies
personalities and targeting potential opportunities for Philips. Based on the
transcriptions, the team writes down interpreta tion for interesting quotes.
Next to that they category all interpretations cards into themes.
Exploring inner balance of young professional women
Infographics
In the data analysis, the differences and similarities between the eight
participants are studied. Their characteristics are extracted, compared
and grouped. Next to that the team creates three personas to present
three distinct personalities: Doer, Thinker and Dreamer. The factors
which affect inner balance and strategies that are taken to deal with
unbalance problems are related to the three personas.
It is worth mentioned that the characteristics of personas are extracted
from several participants, thus a lady can also have a combination of
personas. For example, someone acts like a Doer in 90 percent time
and in other time she acts as a Dreamer.
Personas
Exploring inner balance of young professional women
Although strategies from each persona for achieving inner balance differ a
lot, they can still be classifed into fve main groups: escaping, rewarding,
self refection, support and distraction.
Strategies
The strategies are put in a two-dimensioned graph, in which the team
links up three personas with strategies which they prefer.
The fgure states the
factors infuencing young
ladies inner bal ance and
theyre classifed into three
categories based on where
they come from. Some
factors cause only positive
or negative emotions,
however, more factors cause
both emotions, depending
on the personalities of ladies
and scenarios at that time.
Factors