Week 12/Friday

16.10.15

Final Presentations
Ex-change

Today we presented our finals to the class

What was your biggest learning you took from this paper?
I think the interviews i did at the beginning of assignment 2 were a big thing for me. I had never done them before and it was amazing to see just how much direction you can get from 10 minutes of someones time. I l also found the techniques for synthethising the information down into user centered design challenges (slip exercise, POV statements, HMW questions) to be a really valuable way of working. 


What aspect of your project are you most happy with?
I think my visual strategy is visually engaging, interesting and relevant to my target audience. I'm also proud of the way my app turned out with the visual style applied. This aesthetic is a little uncommon in the land of UI and i feel that it gives it a point of difference both as an app and as a portfolio piece. 


What would you do differently?
What let my project down ultimately i think was getting on to my visual style to late. I will say though it wasn't for lack of trying. I spent a a few weeks working on posters that i ended up scraping for flyers with a different message intended. This lost me some time and failed to advance the project.

Week 12/Thursday

15.10.15

Last Feedback and Minor Changes
Ex-change/Ideate/Mock-up

Today was studio time, spent getting some last minute feedback and tweaking some of the finer details.

Reflection:
as i write this im prepared to hand in if push comes to shove. Im making minor tweaks to the layout of my dossier. My designs have come along way since last week however a few screens still need some development and colour added to them. 

Week 11/Friday

09.10.15

More Feedback and Development
Ex-change/Ideate/Mock-up

Today was more feedback from students and tutors

Reflection:
I'm still having trouble to get some consistency going between my touch points and their visual style. That's priority number one. I think ill have to change the style of my brochures slightly to something im more familiar with, that way i can work it into an app format. 

Week 11/Thursday

08.10.15

Feedback and Development
Ex-change/Ideate/Mock-up

Today was a few rounds of giving and getting feedback for our projects from other students and trying to refine and get ready for hand in. 

Reflection:
Because im having trouble trying to relate my visual style across my app and my flyers so i tried to dictate my feedback as best i could. there were a few issues aesthetically with my app, notably its text heavy an a few areas where it doesn't need to be. after reducing the text for info-graphics and icons ill be able to use these across the flyers as well to have some consistency.  Mostly little bits and pieces to address but i am struggling with my flyers visually at the moment. 

Week 10/Friday

02.10.15

Design Challenge & Feedback
Ideate/Mock-up

Today was Mostly Studio time with a small presentation about whats required for the final hand in. 

Reflection:
Not much has changed for the direction of the project after todays session, however im feeling confident with my visual style of hand drawn imagery to fit the campus style visuals. All i need to do now is apply the style across my touch points. 

Week 10/Thursday

01.10.15

Design Challenge & Feedback
Define/Empathy/Exchange/Mock-up

Today was interim presentations followed by peer to peer feedback.

Reflection:
Feedback from the presentation told me that the app is working as a conceptual level but the way i present it needs to be worked on, specifically breaking it down into the main actions that it completes and selecting relevant screens to communicate this. 

The flyer that acts as advertising for the app while providing a simple psychical version of the app was received well, i need to make it clear that there are 3 different version to engage with 3 different barriers. 

Most of all i need to develop a visual style and begin to apply it across my touch points. 

Week 9/Friday

25.09.15

Feedback from 4th years
Define/Ideate/Empathy/Exchange/Mock-up

The lesson was spent preparing for feedback from 4th years and fleshing out some of the POV statements and Big Ideas. 

Reflection:
The feedback was useful because she gave me a direction to take instead of doing posters. She proposed i could make a physical version of the app in some way (flyer, brochure). This is definitely good suggestion as it will provide a service and advertise the apps functionality and value without using interruption advertising.

Im thinking of exploring this in the form of a brochure or flyer but in order for this to work i will need to flesh out the '3 barriers' that my app addresses.  

Week 9 / Thursday

24.09.15

Design Challenge & Feedback
Define/Ideate/Empathy/Exchange/Mock-up

We had a talk from Thinkplace about design thinking and innovation, we then participated in a 30 minute design challenge before receiving individual feedback from teachers. 

Reflection:
Thinkplaces key points were talking the need to really go to the places, or the people involved and listen to what they have say, building empathy is key to getting down to the real problems to create a real social change. 

The 30 minute exercise was a really good way of putting all the things Thinkplace said into action, even if only in a basic sense. I found myself wearing my "black hat" a lot of the time and constantly came up with barriers around resources to make ideas happen and i don't feel that i know enough of the logistics around some of the services available in New Zealand to be able to accurately brainstorm solutions for this type of problem. 

The feedback i received from tutors and peers told me that my app itself is getting closer, with only minor tweaks here and there. The main focus now is on the before stage of the users journey. I'm in the process of creating a visual language and rhetoric for some posters and other print media. The mock-ups i produced over the week are on the right track and ill continue to develop the rhetoric and start to push it into the design of a website and my apps aesthetic. 

Week 8/Friday

1.09.15

User Testing & Prototyping
Define/Ideate/Empathy/Exchange/Mock-up

We went over our POV statements and synthesized our BIG Idea 

Reflection:
I have spent a lot of time focusing on the app and not the experience as a whole. after some feedback and reflection i know i need to consider my audiences motivation for using my app, the BEFORE experience will be a key aspect and i need to figure out a visual language and touch points to engage my audience. 

Week 8/Thursday

17.09.15

User Testing & Prototyping
Define/Ideate/Empathy/Exchange/Mock-up
Our lecture today was about empathy and its importance in design. Class was spent prototyping, testing and Iterating. 

Reflection:
The user testing was a good source of feedback and helped solidify some of the basic concepts and game me direction on where to go with the others. i think my focus now should be on the before stage of the process, how to do people hear about my app? what convinces them to use it? 

Exchange

10.09.15

Exchange 
Ideate/Empathy/Exchange 


Reflection:
This exchange was more valuable than the last one, especially since the group actually showed up. I received similar feedback for my storyboard, which is promising because it means that the idea is solid even to people who are not familiar with vcd projects. I asked them what they would want out of it if they were to be using it and they gave a couple of specific things that would be valuable to them and good things for me to consider moving forward. 

Week 7/Friday

11.09.15

Rapid Prototyping
Define/Ideate/Empathy/Exchange/Mock-up

We started with a talk about prototyping, its benefits and versatility to our process as designers. We Then had several iterations of rapid prototyping and user testing of our initial ideas to get the ball rolling and test hunches. 

Reflection:
The rapid prototyping turned out to be pretty valuable and really helped solidify my idea, that is that people would use it and find it helpful. My first prototype didn't get a good response, the group using it didn't fully understand the idea in itself and gave me the advice to "design the experience, not the interface". 

So i did just that and made a story board of a few students using app in the context. This iteration received a far greater response. I gave no information about my project before i let them read my storyboard and they repeated my idea back to me perfectly. They proceeded to give me a few ideas and variations about the project that i can consider and test out over the week. 

Week 7/Thursday

10.09.15

Remember the 5 Ways
Define/Ideate/Empathy

We started with a lecture on design provocations, specifically some real world examples of projects similar to ours. In studio we presented our ideas that we came up with over the break, and then filtered them through the five ways of well-being to help evaluate them. 

Reflection:
During the presentation i realized that everybody is at very different stages and seems to have different expectations on what the exact requirements for this paper are, makes for a lot of second guessing and feedback that comes from a place your project might not be at. I feel like a lot of my feedback was pushing to broaden the range of issues i should be tackling, instead of focusing on the issues i identified through interviews, which feels like a wrong move to me. 

Putting our ideas into the 'five ways' was a good way of breaking it up to see the areas i was covering and those i was not. It really helped to frame and remind me of what things i should be focused on when thinking about my ideas. At this stage im feeling a bit confused about where im supposed to be at with my idea. 

Studybreak

07.09.15

Research & Empathy 
Define/Ideate/Empathy

Over the study break i completed another round of interviews with improved questions and ability to pick up on and follow through on certain topics that came up.  following this i repeated the SLIP exercise with post it notes and used the results to generate POV statements and HMW questions before idea generation. 

Reflection:
Doing a second round of interviews after learning from my first round was a big help for me because i was able to focus my questions more to achieve better answers and discussion. I was also prepared for certain answers and pushed further when they came up. Ultimately i ended up with a far greater range of results and more fleshed out answers. 

The new research made the SLIP and HMW exercises far more valuable to me. i was able to generate 3 POV statements that cover the 3 biggest issues i identified and used those to generate my HMW questions. Both of these really helped me flesh out and identify specific angles of approach and specific ideas and issues related to them.  

Week 6/Friday

21.08.15

HMW Questions & Iteration 
Define/Ideate/Mock-up

Unfortunately i missed the first hour of this class but i did get there in time for some rapid iteration and 'how might we' approach to idea generation. 

Reflection:
The 'how might we' questions are a useful tool because it helps you attack the problem from a specific angle, or with a larger goal in mind. That being said, since my research at this was lacking i felt i couldn't make the most of these ideation exercises and ill will reattempt them over the break.   

Week 6/Thurday

20.08.15

POV & IDEO 
Define/Ideate/Mock-up

We had a talk from Meena from about IDEO and approaches to design thinking and research. Up in class we gathered our research we did for homework to discuss and find trends or interesting manifestations. We practiced our POV statements before the end of class.


Reflection:
Using post-it notes to define trends in our research was very useful, it provided a clear look at the distinct groups/categories that things could be attributed to. Unfortunately i was the only one out of four people doing the same topic who actually did any research so everyone got to advance their understanding of the topic despite doing no work for it - an aspect of group contributions that never fails to come up. 

I feel this exercise would have been more beneficial had my interviews been of better quality, my questions didn't get a discussion going and my answers were a little under developed and failed to tell me anything i didn't already know. Something to try again during the break. 

Agian the POV statements would have been more beneficial if my interviews had gone better. Nonetheless the exercise itself does help to simplify and clarify a specific cause and direction. 

Week 5/Friday

14.08.15

Ideo Methods 
Define/Ideate/Mock-up

We had a presentation on the IDEO cards and how they can benefit our design process and later in the class we did a 15 minute rapid prototyping exercise to test it out.
We were a few short minutes to come with a method of researching our topic before Tim gave a small ethics talk and we started our first draft of our ethics forms so we get stuck into research this week.

Reflection:
I like the Idea of the IDEO cards but sometimes just picking a method and going for it doesn't always produce ideas. I dont feel like 10 minutes was enough time to properly plan an entire research method for my topic so getting us to complete ethics forms before the end of class was almost redundant, that being said i finished some interview questions at home for homework.

Week 5/Thursday

13.08.15

Design Thinking provocations 
Define/Ideate/Mock-up

We had presentations from Tim, Tulia and Donald about various design provocations and ways of thinking and approaching things. Following that Mark talked to us about ethics at Massey.

Studio was largely a feedback session. We began with a 'Strength-weakness- opportunity' exercise and finished by discussing with peers and tutors. 

Reflection:
The 'Strength-weakness- opportunity' exercise helped quite a lot because we got multiple students feedback in a simple form, and for the most part they were consistent which gave us a good direction to head in. The feedback was largely type focused but a few were pointing out what image styles were and weren't working.   

Week 4/Friday

07.08.15

Refinement & Further Feedback
Define/Ideate/Mock-up

We had a small presentation from Tim about where we were at a year and a half ago, trying to inspire us and give us confidence. He is clearly picking up on the fact that we are struggling and quickly getting snowed under.   

The rest of the class was spent gathering feedback from peers and tutors and discussing the direction of the project for the final week. 

Reflection:
The feedback we received this class was far more helpful than yesterday, giving specific feedback about layout, font and imagery. We have settled on a style of imagery and have a plan for the composition and context of imagery for each page. We are slowly nailing down a style of grid and type - after receiving good feedback about today's iteration. We need to take photos and work our own images into the project, finish laying out the type and we should be in a good place. 

Week 4/EXCHANGE

07.08.15

Exchange
Ex-change/Empathy

We had a small presentation from Tim about where we were at a year and a half ago, trying to inspire us and give us confidence. He is clearly picking up on the fact that we are struggling and quickly getting snowed under.   

The rest of the class was spent gathering feedback from peers and tutors and discussing the direction of the project for the final week. 

Reflection:
The feedback we received this class was far more helpful than yesterday, giving specific feedback about layout, font and imagery. We have settled on a style of imagery and have a plan for the composition and context of imagery for each page. We are slowly nailing down a style of grid and type - after receiving good feedback about today's iteration. We need to take photos and work our own images into the project, finish laying out the type and we should be in a good place. 

Week 4/Thursday

06.08.15

Peer Feedback 
Define/Ideate/Mock-up

We first had a presentation by Chris Jackson from DNA, he spoke about the state of design and its ability to be defined or 'packaged'. The rest of the class was spent passing around our mock-ups, giving and getting feedback.    

Reflection:
I found the presentation to be interesting but not altogether 'news'. I'm well aware that design is not a clear cut systematic process that can be packaged up nice and neatly, for me the different methods and ways of 'design thinking' are just generalizations or guidelines, and that ultimately the project will dictate the process. I think his main point was that design is subjective and changing at all points of the process. 

The Feedback we received from our peers in class had both extremes of helpful and not. Ultimately a lot of it told me what i already knew, or brought up the 'subjective nature' of design. Feedback or not im aware that our images and style need to be worked through, we still have several mock ups images and different styles, we are finding it quite difficult to nail down anything specific that works.   

Week 3/Friday

31.07.15

Thinking & Development
Define/Ideate/Mock-up

The entirety of the class was spent developing, discussing and iterating on our 8 page mock ups from the day before.   

Reflection:
During this session Nick and i spent a lot of time discussing our new issue and research about antidepressants and through tutor feedback the project took on yet another slightly angle. Now that we are guiding the designer toward a solution (exercise) it makes sense that should be apart of the issue itself, and not antidepressants - which is better suited to be in the background. 

Week 3/Thursday

30.07.15

Brainstorming & Story telling 
Empathy/Define/Ideate/Mock-up

Jason gave a presentation on photography in design before we headed into class to begin discussing our full 8 page mock ups done for homework. This was done by presenting and discussing to fellow class members before participating in a cross class exercise.  

Reflection:
During these presentations Nick & I realized our interpretation of the client page was wrong which needed addressing. after some discussion with teachers and students Nick and I have adjusted our pitch to include a solution - (physical activity). This helps to provide a way for the designer to take this brief and helps us focus our desired action and audience needs. We also began to integrate research we had about the adverse effects and problems relating to antidepressants. Alot of this research was put into background and barriers and we decided it was a better issue than lack of motivation. The new issue for the project came the overuse/reliance on drugs despite depression globally getting worse. 

Week 2/Friday

24.07.15

Listening & sharing
Empathy/Define/Ideate

The class was focused on presenting our 8 pages to other groups several times while reiterating the information to make sure the info was clear and concise. 

Reflection:
Nick and i did our pages separately so initially we spent a bit of time comparing our different takes on the subject and picking the best path through the topic. We presented our idea to three different groups and the feedback told us that although we had a lot of research, it was still quite broad and our pitch was still focused broadly on depression as an issue apposed to the symptom we had chosen. What this meant for homework was more in-depth & specific research about depression and the symptom, more specifically - background information eg. Why this particular audience? what causes this symptom? how does this directly affect our audience?

Week 2/EXCHANGE

24.07.15

Exchange
Empathy/Ex-change
   

Reflection:
This was the first meeting i had with my exchange group. I found it really interesting to hear about how the majors were going about well being. I felt that we were all at about the same stage of our briefs - the research stage. Everybody was still wading there way through their ideas and trying things out which it made it a good time to discuss them. We did have a fair bit of cross talk, giving advice to each other and so forth. I myself didn't receive any alternate direction or things to think about but my ideas were received well. 

Week 2/Thursday

23.07.15

Empathy & Design Thinking 
Empathy/Ideate

Whilst in the pit we had presentations about the design expedition and Empathy followed by some more explanation about the semester, including examples of a visual brief and we were introduced to the exchange part of this paper. 
Back in class we broke into groups to share our research from the past week discuss our ideas about where we might like to go with the project, and found clusters/groupings and paired up. 

Reflection:
Upon sharing our research we realized that we were all still mildly confused about what exactly we were looking for, our research was still quite broad and lacked the specificity toward any particular issue or audience. of course it only after this we had the 8 pages explained to us which cleared up a lot of confusion about the type of things we should have been looking for.  
I got a little confused initially and thought that i was thinking to much about a solution instead of the issue and ended up selecting an issue (depression) instead of physical activity like i had originally wanted to. 
As depression is a broad subject it was suggested to us that we should narrow it down a bit, to which end we chose the symptom of lack of energy/motivation as a point if focus. 

Week 1/Friday

17.07.15

Life hack Workshop w/ Gina 
Empathy/Ideate

Gina ran a workshop to further our understanding of well being in relation to ourselves. We positioned ourselves in a liner fashion according to how well we thought we knew well being, how good we thought our own well being was and how confident we were feeling about the project. 
Following this we broke into groups and brainstormed different turning points in life, user groups and general topics. 

Reflection:
The 3 questions aspect of the workshop did not improve my understanding of well being or the project. in fact after placing myself with the best well being out of the class i found that i was unable to define exactly why i feel this way. 
The group exercise was valuable, i met some new people in the class i hadn't spoken to before and as a group we produced a large number of ideas, both specific and broad to aid our thinking as we move forward with the project. 

Week 1/Thursday

16.07.15

Intro + Life Hack presentation 

Empathy

We met in the pit for an intro into the brief and received a presentation from Life Hack on the importance of well being, what the term means and what it means for our project. We then broke into our streams had a chat about different situations in life and how they affected us. 

Reflection:
Although i had a general idea what well being was before attending this class the presentation from life hack really helped put a finger on it. Sam gave us some very good ways to think about and approach the concept of well being. 
Brainstorming different situations and times in our life seemed a bit strange but it did help us think the issue that was behind some of the reactions we have during situations, and/or some of the ways they can be prevented or countered.