A key moment where my understanding of the project changed was probably again the prototyping week.  It’s when the research phase was over and it was time we developed our ideas.  This week I really learned what the industry would be like.  Not everyone’s work is good work, and your client will tell you so if you’re not up to scratch with their expectations and you won’t get paid.  

  From this project, I have learnt a lot about group work.  Working together to come up with ideas, and when you individuals have an idea that you want to use, you have to convince your other group mates that you want to use it and why it is the best option.  This is not always an easy task when you have 4 strong-minded designers in one group.  

  What I would most like to be assessed on, with either be professionalism, or group collaboration.  Working out which groups worked well, which groups hit deadlines, if the workload was evenly spread etc.  Because I think this is the most important part of this project and a huge part of the industry.

  The aspect of this project I most enjoyed was the experience of working with groups.  I think this is valuable experience for working in the design industry.  Having deadlines to meet each week with a team, working out the balance of work between everyone etc.  

  This also became on of the most difficult aspects of the project because you can’t just work when you want to and when it suits you.  I had to make time out of my week to meet up with the group and consult.  What I also found interesting was that four different people had four different views on the project, so compromise was also a huge thing.  

  Thinking back if I could change one thing that we did in our project, it would be the week we had prototyping.  This was a really important time to get valuable feedback from clients.  I don’t think we were 100% ready, and it took us one consult to set up and make a timetable, but from there it was good and very valuable.  

  Throughout the project I sometimes wished that I had the IPAD application task, just because of personal taste and enjoying aspects of technology, but that’s design, you don’t choose where your work comes from.  And I learned a lot about things I wouldn’t have if I didn’t undertake this brief for HUME.

As you approach the final presentation of your project, visualising it as if it were a real piece out in the real world, think about how you might measure the effect of the work (such as good and bad implications). And also the effectiveness of the design, how might you measure how well the design works for your audience?
Given this reflection – you still have time to make some refinements to your idea for the final “pitch”!

For our finished video to be successful, we need to keep it really basic and simple, get the facts across, we can’t be really cryptic because a large portion of our target market do not speak english as their first language.  I think key things like dates and times will be important.  

  For our finished video we have scripted it of one of our scenarios, so we plan to show what life is like now for our character and how the experience will benefit her and better her life.  For this to work, we need to work out how we will depict the story?  I think if we get too clever the story will be lost.  

  I think how we will measure if our advertisement is successful is by testing it on a person from each age group from the hume community, and ask if they understand the add, and see if they took the key information from it that we were trying to communicate.  

 One of our idea’s was to act the whole scene with our fingers and finger puppets, however I think the idea has already been done with the walk to school add, so will people imminently think of that after seeing it and the message be lost? A positive of this idea is that it will be really easy to film and to put scenery together.

I think for our project, being for the people of broad Meadows, you would run it in the their community, because they are the people we are designing for.  I think we should run our prototype testing in a controlled environment, with a variety of age groups.

WHO?: The people of broad meadows, three males and females from each generation, all with different interests and backgrounds.  because we have designed this festival for a broad target market therefore we need to test a broad target market.  

WHERE?:  I think a good place to run this testing, would be in a controlled environment, in the Broad Meadows library/community centre.  I have chosen this location because for testing to be successful I think everyone needs to be in a safe, sound, natural environment.  

WHEN?:  Exactly a year before the event, so the people we are testing has a bit of an idea what the weather will be like, and what they will feel like that kind of year.  

HOW:?  I would run this testing exactly the same way we did in class, I think we had our testing set up quite well with a diagram of the show grounds, what time it was, what the timetable was and what was playing, after, I would consult with who I  just tested, and get feedback, then I could change my idea if I needed to. 

The changes we had to make to our prototypes for it to be effective, was to include a timetable, which was what time you arrived, how you have arrived, what is currently on and what will be on later that night.  I also think we needed to be more specific with the food and market stalls that could be on offer.

So…

From testing your prototype today, what were the surprises, the “headslappers”, the “shocks”?  What happened that you were not expecting?  From today also, what was the worst thing you encountered?  Was was the best things that happened?

  Include your key learnings, and also outline the recommendations from any external reviewer (Dianne, Jeremy, Yoko or Marius)

  At the start of our prototyping session, we had a vague idea but we were not sure on how the whole scenario would work, and how we would gather and extract information from it.  Our first prototype was Dianne, who was really good because she come in, and said straight away what she wasn’t sure of.  The main thing was what time was the person there, and what was the timetable for the event?  

  From here, we quickly drafted up a timeline of what was happening, what time the person was arriving, and how long until all the movies started.  Once we had this, we were receiving some very beneficial information and to lot to think of from Yoko.  She raised a couple of crucial issues:

.If the festival were running during the summer months, it wouldn’t be dark until  about 8.30, therefore, we can’t start a movie until this time because the public won’t be able to see it.  We contemplated replacing the first movie with live entertainment?  Which can get the audience more active and involved.  

. There is a percentage of people who won’t speak english, therefore, wont understand the movie, we may have to refer back to our research, and see what the second highest spoken language is in broad meadows, and subtitle the movie.  We also contemplated running a foreign movie.  

  Other than this, our feedback was very positive, most people thought this was a really good idea and could work well, we just had to create a clear image of the festival for prototypes, and then we gained some vital feedback, was absolutely a step worth taking.

You should write your own scenario to post in your blog. Each take a persona from your project and make them the star of your scenario. Use a persona you did not write. 

For my persona I have chosen to use the point of view of Maria, an old lady, who lives in commission housing at Broad meadows.  

   A description of a persons interaction with as ‘system’ (our festival)

  I went to the festival with my daughter and her kids, we stayed for the first movie, which was a family movie.  There were a lot of other families around also.  Their was a vast variety of food from different backgrounds.  I met another older woman at a food stall, we began to chat and have decided to meet occasionally at a coffee shop through the week, she also invited me to join her stall for the next event.  

  It was great that the event was held in the summer months, if it was in the winter it would be too cold, and keep myself and a lot of people my age away from the event. 

  I found that this was a great family event, being able to attend with three generations of my family and all enjoy it, was a valuable thing.  

  After the first movie, a feature film was played, however it was starting to get a bit late for both myself and the younger children, so we got an ice-cream from a stall and went home.  As we were leaving a lot of the teenagers started to come.  It was also starting to get dark.  

  Even though the event was outdoor, it was good and family friendly that there was no smoking, and no alcohol, it created a really friendly environment.  

  Another positive I found from the event that it had the youth involved working at the event, getting them as a part of the community and to get them working together and demonstrating teamwork.  It also gave them a bit of extra pocket money.    It was great that there was a wide range of food, so there was really something for all ages, pizza, burgers and chips for the younger children, more traditional foods and pasta’s for the adults.  

  The only part where I struggled was that I would have had a lot of problems sitting on the ground, so I had to have my daughter bring a chair for me.  

An enjoyable experience, looking forward to the next one.

PROFILE #1 JAMAL, broad meadows youth, aged 16

  My family immigrated to this area from Africa 5 years ago.  My mother, younger sister and myself got though, my father is still in Africa.  Our main source of income is from Centre link, and we live in commission housing.  I’m in year 10, and attend a public school at broad meadows, many of the children at my school already drink and smoke, the girls swear, most of the boys fight.  You have to put on a front at school to show your tough or the other boys will see weakness and pick on you.  I am heavily interested in music, films, television, and graffiti.  Like most children my age I enjoy fast food such as McDonald, KFC etc.My plans after school is to get a full time job doing whatever I can to help support my family. 

PROFILE #2 MARIA broadmeadows senior age 82

  My husband and I immigrated to this area from Lebanon after the war in pursue of work in the factories in the booming industries of broad meadows.  We have had three children, and they each have had children, so we have a large extended family in the area.  My husband died seven years ago and since then I have been living with my eldest daughter and her family.    I don’t really like living in this area with all the violence etc, but it’s too late for me to move now.  I need to be able to get to places by walking or public transport.  I am a big fan of cooking, because I can’t pay my family much, I try to cook whenever possible.

Imagine you are the end user/target audience. With your given project theme in mind, imagine what daily life is like for them. Think about the issue you are addressing and imagine what this is like for the end user. Write a short story from their point of view. From this you should develop a set of questions to ask a member of your user group.

And an additional for Tania’s Groups B&D – do a mind map of research strategy (see week 3 slides – last slide) you must do your own map to them share with your team – post this diagram on your blog – also bring this wednesday. You can then divide up tasks.

  My mother came into my room to wake me up to get ready for school, I got up and staggered towards the shower, the water didn’t run very hot, but I didn’t really mind because it was quite hot and stuffy in the house anyway.  

  I’m 16, I’m in year ten at school, and I live in broad meadows.

My grandparents immigrated to this area from Lebanon in the pursue of work.  Ever since then my family have been here…

  My father works in the city, at a factory, so he leaves quite early in the morning and is home late at night, the pay is minimal but he does what he has to, my mother stays at home to look after me and my brother.

  I walk out the front door to get the bus to school, Mum can’t drive me because we can only afford one car, I look down the street and it’s just rows and rows of houses that look the same, all containing families just the same as mine.  

I generally dread the bus stop everyday, because I get off at the train station.  The train station, nearly every kid from every school in the area all there at once, the older boys swear and fight to impress the girls, and the girls yell and scream at the top of their voice, so everybody within a ten km radius notices them.  Many students smoke, all though its obvious many of them are not old enough to.  

  I put up with this everyday because school is my only way out, I need to work hard then maybe one day I will be out of this area and able to make something of myself…

The four points that will be valuable to my research process are:

.USER CENTERD DESIGN (UCD) 

This type of design focuses on the users needs and goals, the user guides the design and the designer has to translate the user goals.

. ACTIVITY CENTERED DESIGN

Focuses on the tasks and activities that needs to be accomplished.  The users preformed the activities.  And the designer creates the tools for actions. 

.SYSTEMS DESIGN

Focuses on the components of the system.  The user sets the goals of the system, the designer makes sure all parts of the system are in place.

.GENIUS DESIGN 

The skills of the designer makes the product, the user is there for a source of validation, and the designer is the source of the inspiration. 

  I think all four of these steps make sense, however I think you can’t rely on the one method 100% of the time, I think the method you use should depend on the product and the brief.  I think the method I would use the most is User centered design, (UCD) because I think constant contact with a client is needed through the design process in order to complete the brief.  Saying that one method will work 100% of the time with 100% of the people doesn’t work because that assumes everybody has the same intelligence, and will react the same way to the same scenario or concept.  

  Everybody has a different point of view on what works for them, and how things should be, and the way things will work for them, If you get a client that is too strongly opinionated, it may be best to use genius design, with the designer doing most of the work and only consulting the client for verification.