Starting from where I left off last week, I picked three general areas that can be further explored for my research topic, which are: UX and website design, technology education, and NFT arts.
For week 3, after having a 1-on-1 with professor Henaff, I identified some potential issues with my current plan and have a better idea of what to do next. First, I was pointed out the term “accessibility” I used to describe my interest in the technology education area is commonly referred to as special infrastructures and designs for people with certain disabilities. Where I used the term incorrectly to describe the access to technology education. So further down into my research, I will pay more attention to the term used to avoid confusion. Second, after presenting my narrowed-down research topic of “How can I improve the current NFT trading website to integrate educational section, so that more people can benefit and participate in the NFT community?” I was pointed out I jumped to the solution phase too fast. At the current stage, we should keep exploring relative topics that can eventually help us settle down with the research topic, but not providing the solution right away. Professor Henaff gave me some inspiration on how I can dig deeper based on what I currently have. For example, I can do research on who are the people that benefit from fintech the most, and how can NFT arts change that? She also suggested that I can narrow down my topics based on location, such as looking at how the life of local New York City artists changed before and after they participate in NFT arts creation.
After the chat, I started doing secondary research on the suggested topics, and I really found some interesting articles and news. For example, the news published by Fortune in August 2021 “Democratizing the luxury economy: How NFTs empower artists and creators” talked about a transgender teen’s crypto art series fetches $2.16 million at Christie’s Auction House. (https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-life-and-style/transgender-teens-crypto-art-series-fetches-216-million-christies-rcna1324), which is inspiring because it proved that people from the social minority groups can utilize NFT arts and the blockchain technology behind it to empower themselves. So for the next steps, I want to keep researching similar news about people who are empowered through NFT arts and trying to find how they did it, and what are the essential factors that made it possible.
