Disclaimer: This is my personal journal and includes rough notes from my PhD journey. Some thoughts may be incomplete or not thoroughly researched. Please do not consider any content in my monthly notes to be definitive or final. If you have insights on any subjects I discuss or would like to start a conversation on a topic, please get in touch!
Every year, we intend to start The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers at 21:13:19 on December 31st so that we enter the new year with Théoden declaring, "So it begins." And every year, we forget. Instead, we console ourselves by watching the meme on our phones at midnight. This year, we spent New Year's Eve playing Talisman, which I enjoyed more than expected. I generally prefer reading a good book over board games, but since Alan stayed with us for New Year's, I wanted to do something he should really be doing with his friends.
Book Review for the Design Research Society
In December, I volunteered to review the book Design is Power: The Dark Side written by Francesco Galli for the Design Research Society. I finished reading it on January 1st, wrote my notes, and completed the review by January 2nd. By January 6th, I received feedback—much faster than expected. In industry, people often overlook details, so the level of attention was surprising, but the feedback was constructive, and after revisions, I submitted the final version by January 10th. The review is now live on the DRS Book Review page. This was my first book review, and I’m proud of having completed it independently.
Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) Application and Participant Recruitment
Despite completing my ethics revisions in December, I forgot to click submit and spent weeks waiting unnecessarily. Thankfully, the HREC team prompted me in early January, and my ethics approval came through on January 6th. It turns out I’m not the only one—several researchers have missed the small notification that blocks submission.
With approval secured, I started my participant recruitment on LinkedIn, Instagram, Bluesky, and X. So far, I’ve completed one trial interview and two full interviews, with four more scheduled for 2025, including one in November! As expected, recruitment through social media is slow. My supervisors were sceptical, and another researcher warned me it hadn’t worked for them. Still, I’ll persist. I know the algorithms aren’t on my side, so I’ll need to increase my posting frequency. I also plan to attend design industry events to recruit participants and distribute my tarot-inspired business cards, an idea sparked by my lead supervisor, who created a Design Wishes Tarot website over Christmas. I found an existing ethics-themed tarot deck online and aim to create my own, incorporating QR codes linking to the microsite I also created this month. It's WiP, but enough to give people enough information about the empirical study.
I also explored some historical campaigns that could be deemed controversial today and considered how they might inform my recruitment strategy. One suggestion from my supervisor was to record myself asking provocative questions on the microsite. The thought of filming myself makes me cringe, but I’ll do it if I can come up with a good idea—perhaps my interviews will provide inspiration.
While we’re on the word ‚cringe’, I stumbled on the 2025 banished words list, and it is a thing of beauty. I definitely agree with IYKYK (please, let's stop using acronyms and initialisms!), utilise (stop all corporate jargon while you’re at it!) and game changer (another horrid corporate bullshit word). But 100%?!?!? That’s my fav emoji! 💯
January Check-ins
The Monthly Supervision meeting went well. We had a productive discussion about participant recruitment for my study and identified areas that need further exploration. Firstly, I need to deepen my understanding of the private and public sectors, their differences, and their history. Additionally, I need to focus on how design fits within these sectors. I also need to decide which disciplines to include in my research. Currently, I’m trying to cover everything because everything seems interesting—I call it shiny object syndrome. However, I can't write about everything, so I need to make a decision. My main interests lie in Anthropology, Biology and Neuroscience, but I’m also interested in Sociology and, to some extent, Behavioural Science and Psychology. Naturally, Politics will play a role, given my comparison of the public and private sectors, as well as organisational management in design practice.
I came across a classification system for disciplines by psychologist Anthony Biglan, published in 1973 (The Characteristics of Subject Matter in Different Academic Areas). His system categorises disciplines along three dimensions: (1) pure/applied or primarily theoretical (e.g. mathematics), (2) hard/soft, and (3) life/non-life. I also found an update to this system by Adrian Simpson (2015), but I don’t think I need to delve that deeply into it.
Every fortnight, I have a "Triple Buddy" catch-up with two fellow STEM PhD students. We had to cancel the first one this month due to scheduling issues, but I had the second one with just one buddy. We discussed why we decided to pursue PhDs. It’s fascinating to hear the different reasons people choose to dedicate 4-8 years of their lives to this journey. Some stories are inspiring, while others are more down-to-earth—and there’s space for both. My own story is very practical, which you can read in my Indiana Jones blog post. People often ask how to get into a PhD programme, and I always tell them there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. I’ve wanted to do a PhD since my undergraduate days, but due to family issues, I was only able to complete my MA in 2010. When Alan went to university in 2021, I saw it as my opportunity to return to academia, so I applied to the Open University and was accepted. My main motivation is that I want to contribute to knowledge and society through research that can help others. But everyone has a different story—some are driven by personal loss or illness in the family, while others seek the title of "Dr" because it’s required for their career path.
Each PhD journey is personal, and it can also be frustrating and isolating. There’s little support because it’s assumed that, by this stage, you should be self-sufficient—something that often causes people to drop out. Finding my study buddy, Rachel, early on in my PhD has made a huge difference. We support each other, bounce ideas off one another, learn from each other, and collaborate on projects. We already have several ongoing initiatives. All four of our study-buddy catch-ups have happened, and we look forward to them so much that we do our best to keep them in the diary and adjust as needed. One major achievement we celebrated was the publication of our article for The Psychologist. It took us 14 months to get it published! 😄
January Events
Overwhelmed to Organised in 2025: A Planning Workshop for Academics
I registered for this workshop but didn’t attend due to the 9 PM Saturday time slot. I enjoy co-writing sessions but function best in the morning. I might look for similar sessions in my time zone. Rachel and I used to do co-writing sessions, though they often turned into discussions. When we stayed focused, we were productive—I even bought a Ticktime Pomodoro timer to help us concentrate.
Methods Masterclass
This session focused on reporting and justifying interview sample sizes in organisational research. According to the literature, 15–60 participants are typical for qualitative interviews, with 50 being preferable when working across multiple organisations. While quality and research focus matter more than numbers, this gave me a benchmark. I initially proposed 40 interviews, so I wasn’t far off.
Mark N. K. Saunders, one of the co-authors of the paper, discussed the importance of sample size justification, which is often omitted but crucial. He also explained data saturation—the point where additional data no longer provides new insights (Guest et al., 2006; Saunders et al., 2018). The rule of thumb is to conduct three more interviews after reaching saturation to ensure robustness.
Positionality and Reflexivity Seminar
Earlier this month, I attended a seminar as part of the Thinking Expansively Seminar Series (TESS) titled A Question of Reflexivity: Experiences of African Researchers. The discussion provided valuable insights into the role of reflexivity in writing and research, particularly in defining one's positionality. While the topic was not directly related to my field, it reinforces the importance of reflexivity in my own research. My positionality is complex, as I am a designer studying other designers. This creates the potential for bias, making reflexivity essential in ensuring I remain aware of my assumptions. Being embedded in the design field introduces the risk of the curse of knowledge cognitive bias—assuming shared understanding of concepts, theories, and jargon that may not be accessible to those outside the field. As Birch et al. note, “knowledge can also be a curse, especially when it comes to perspective-taking: Once we have acquired a particular item of knowledge, that knowledge tends to bias, or contaminate, our ability to reason about a more naïve perspective.” Adopting a reflexive research approach requires continuous critical scrutiny of research methods, data, and the interactions between researcher, participants, and context (Guillemin, 2004). By integrating reflexivity into my process, I aim to enhance the quality of my research by acknowledging biases and engaging with its inherent complexities.
Open University Senate Participation
I attended the OU Senate as part of Senate 6, which I volunteered for last year. I spent the day on campus, met a PhD colleague for coffee, and discussed her research. She’s in her final year and shared her experiences and chapters with me, which was incredibly helpful. I also collected my certificate for the Taiwan Hackathon, where our team were finalists.
Other Updates
As a January-born child, I celebrated my birthday this month. Nick took me to a restaurant I have wanted to visit since it opened: The Farmer’s Dog, an old pub now owned by Jeremy Clarkson. As a long-time fan of Top Gear, The Grand Tour, and Clarkson’s Farm, the choice was an easy one.
Each year, a good friend and I take a weekend trip to celebrate each other’s birthdays. For mine, she planned a full itinerary in London. Among other activities, we visited the Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, where I discovered silverpoint—a drawing technique I now want to try. Later, we enjoyed an excellent meal at Six by Nico, followed by Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre, which was great.
Books Read in January
I finished five books this month. The first was Design is Power: The Dark Side by Francesco Galli, which I read as part of the book review and thoroughly enjoyed. I will likely reference it in my thesis. I revisit the Harry Potter series every couple of years, if not more often, and this time, I re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Richard Osman, author of The Thursday Murder Club series, is quickly becoming one of my favourite writers, so I picked up We Solve Murders, the first in his new series. While I still prefer The Thursday Murder Club, I enjoyed it and grew attached to both the main and supporting characters. The next book I tackled was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, which was an excellent choice. I started listening to it on Audible while running or crocheting but became so engrossed that I ended up reading and listening simultaneously.

Crochet Project
While we're on the topic of crochet: I completed Mei the Cobra, a Toft dye subscription project Alan gifted me. She turned out beautifully, just in time for the Chinese New Year. I might take her to the London celebrations, though Nick suggested wearing red for good luck—I don’t own red clothes, but a crochet cobra should count! I also finished Fitzroy the Pink Land Iguana and a tambour embroidery heart that my mum has already reserved.
Update on goals:
Ran/walked: 110.5 km
wrote at least 100 words a day: 29/31 days
Read at least 20 pages a day: 31/31 days
Healthy eating and drinking: 25/31 days
Didn’t buy anything: 22/31 days
Migraines: 20/31 days - not very good 😕
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