Learner Experience in Design Class Recap
Class 1 | 1.17.17
What we learned in class…
When we were directed play the game in the first part of class, I only considered it to be an ice breaker to help everyone get to know each other. When Stacie asked about what we learned in the process, it made me realize that we often engage in various learning experiences without acknowledgement. We don’t ordinarily think about what makes up an experience and what engages us in those experiences such as the incentives and constraints or goals involved in the process. I also got to observe how factors such as pacing, environment, and competition come into play in learning experiences, as the two activities in-class (ice breaker and Kahoot) varied in what the participators took away. As an example, the time, pacing and transparency, the two activities were different. In the ice breaker, we were given more vague sense of time (when the game started and when it ended) compared to Kahoot when we had a timer ticking down for each question. If the same rules applied to the ice breaker where each question had a time constraint we were aware of, we would have focused more on fitting in within the time over the actual content. Similarly, when Stacie told us that she had intentionally put Kahoot on manual mode so that we could stop and discuss any confusions, it gave us a different experience over just flipping through all the questions at once. I also thought the transparency of the competition was an intriguing factor in learning experiences. As opposed to the first activity, Kahoot displayed each team’s scores after every ‘session’ which increased the competition and pressure for getting high score.
I was surprised by how meticulously designed the learning method/medium is when it is being delivered to us and probably for most students. Changing just one factor of the experience could alter the whole objective and communicative purpose (or what the users take away). I think it is our job and challenge as designers to determine the appropriate container (medium, voice, environment, context etc…) as well as content to be delivered to the user for their best learning experience. It is important to recognize how the small factors (as we discovered in class today)can fine tune those experiences.
I really have no idea what PNC would present to us as a design problem, but I believe that it will be interesting to have learning and applying the principles to actual client-commission happen simultaneously.
Class 3 |1.24.17
What we did in class…
During today’s class we talked briefly about the Ambrose and Dirksen reading we did over the weekend. Personally, as a visual learner and someone who likes concepts broken down to the simplest form, I enjoyed reading Dirken more. However, during the class discussion, some peers brought up that they liked Ambrose because of her thoroughness and use of anecdotes. This is a good example of when designing teaching material, each student’s different method of learning should be kept in mind.
The application
The second part of the class was an activity in which we (in groups) had to identify the problem in a scenario where an older person tried to solve a problem for the younger audience, and failing to come up with a working solution. In our scenario (healthy food on campus with new fine-dining restaurant), we first discussed the problem very rigidly, addressing the issue with the solution being that college students are too poor to afford fine-dining, the controlled portions may be a turn-off, or that students would consider healthy food to be more than just a salad. Pretty standard answers. However, in the latter part of the activity, we were to keep these things in mind and reconsider our scenario:
- Getting rid of expectations/stereotypes we had
- Isolating the problem (go broader or narrower)
- Delimiting the problem space
- Look at the problem from different perspectives
We were surprised to find that when we went back to the problem, we were able to think outside the box. Instead of the problem being the lack of available health foods, what if the students lacked the knowledge of the various kinds of healthy meals? Or the resources to find available healthy foods? Or what if not all college kids are poor? How about distributing healthy food ingredients and options to already-existing restaurants instead of creating a new one? What would the competing restaurants think? Or the university staff?
So our solution now expanded from changing the new restaurant to a more desirable one, we thought of solutions which would involve new courses to educate children, or different resources to let students know where healthy meals could be found, or even a distribution service for healthy food that would be connected to various restaurants throughout Pittsburgh.
Until we were given the basic guidelines and questions we should be asking to widen our scope, we would have never thought of these answers. It’s really amazing how people’s way of thinking could change with just a little bit of a direction.
Class 4 | 1.26.17
Today, we expanded on last class’s exercise by using the same guidelines from last class with the PNC cases from the view point of customers, decision makers, and staff. What we found during the first stage where we identified
- The problem (from the viewpoint we are approaching from)
- The goal
- What’s in it for them?
- What do you assume they know or do that causes the problem?
- What do you want them to know?
- What do they need to do to bridge the gap?
- What are some initial ideas?
During this process, we found that it was difficult for us to come up with some of these answers because we ourselves didn’t understand finance and money management that well, and had a difficult time resonating with customers in the 30+ age group or big bank owners. While we were able to base our answers on our assumptions and talking to Stacie, it would be helpful to talk to different people in the audience age group.
However, it was helpful to focus on various viewpoints involved with this learning process. I especially found the staff viewpoint interesting, because they are the middle-man that we usually don’t think about, yet a very important step in customers being able to understand financial resources and chances of saving money. While there may be a clear chance for education from the decision makers and willingness to learn from the customers, the communication from staff may be causing the problem, for example. I think it would be interesting to find a way designers could intervene in this learning process, or even to motivate customers to find the need to learn in the first place.
Class 5 | 1.31.17
Today, we discussed our readings over the weekend along with its application. It is important for us as designers to realize what kinds of learners the audience consists of and also what kinds of skills are being taught if through a correct method. Because the students in a class may vary from novice to experts, instructors must also be conscious of their teaching methods, and how to make it fit the general audience, much like how the LXD client’s project must be catered to ‘one-size-fits-all’. We were also introduced to the four quadrants to represent different type of learners and how learners cycles around the four quadrants, differing in methods to approach getting information to them or motivating them.
We were also curious to know under which quadrant everyone fell in, so wee took the test Stacie gave us, and it was interesting to see so many people fall under quadrant 4 “what if”?. I fell under quadrant 2, which was pretty accurate, considering the fact that I usually have a hard time starting the project because I am trying to understand it in depth and analyze thoroughly to understand the essence of the topic discussed. This often gives me a hard time finishing a project in time or exploring many prototypes.
Because different quadrant learners put emphasis in different ways to be convinced in learning, educators must pay attention to delivering the right buy-in or purpose, information, process, and possible directions for the future. Similarly within the classroom, the client project would require us to enrich the different learner type customers with various kinds of information and processes. In addition, it would be important to have different quadrant types of people in teams so that they could fill in on each others’ pros&cons in the dynamics of the project.
In the later part of the class, we discussed in teams how to apply the quadrants to the client project about helping the customers learn about the importance of financing and resources offered by the client.
Class 6 | 2.2.17
Switching gears to the actual client problem, we looked at the two prompts given to us, and decided to discuss the second prompt, since we have already been looking at the first one for the past few weeks. We were put into small groups to generate some ideas based on the 4 quadrants of what factors will be needed to convince the customers.
The second prompt dealt with receiving feedback and personal information from customers that the client could build off of to improve their services. We actually found that this prompt offered us a wider point of view and more opportunities to explore, as it was more vague, and could even include the first prompt (Helping customers see long-term goals as well as short-term) as part of the solution. We came up with some good items for each quadrant, which the customers would want in order to commit to the client. Here are some of the highlights:
Quadrant 1: Why?
- Could offer more consistent service (putting assets in one bank)
- Grow as a valuable customer to bank
- More personalized, customized service to fit each customer
- Better understanding between two parties
Quadrant 2: What?
- How customers’ info is being used (transparency)
- What are customers getting in return?
- Will customer information be safe?
- Is the institution legitimate? Trusted?
- How much control do customers have?
- Is it convenient service for customers to use?
Quadrant 3: How?
- How are customer feedback used to help institution, other customers, society, etc…?
- Examples of successful cases, stories from actual people
- Social proof and public as well as popular trust
- Give short term incentives
Quadrant 4: What if?
- Institution fails, the presence of safety net
- Do customers have choices
- It were to help not only customer but my future generations?
- What is the point of customer getting educated
- What are the incentives for far future
And also, we thought that since the client’s institution has roots in the local city and its people, it would be a good appeal to the city to emphasize this fact. There could be various ways to implement this such as…
- Building recognition and becoming familiar with potential customers (familiarity inhibits liking). This could include methods such as funding/sponsoring local fun events such as fairs, family events at parks, or even worker appreciation event etc… and showing brand
- Emotional connection by relating things that matter to customers and building stories around non-financial but more pathos aspect
- Role playing. What if customers were to be in the position of banks? Help them understand that business matters is not all banks are looking for
- Participate in local lectures, public events, speakings etc… Don’t approach customers to sell but to educate for the general well-being of citizens’ financial literacy
However, we ran into some difficulties determining what kinds of services would be offered to the vastly differing types of customers. Every customer wants different levels of participation, help, decision-making, intervention, etc… but it is important that we can create a one-size-fits-all service to benefit the majority of customers. We will have to look closely at the personas offered by the client presentation to investigate further.
And more shall be explored with the next few weeks….
Class 7 |2.7.17
Today, we talked about the readings over the weekend on memory and motivation. To apply this to our client project, we looked at both prompts as a class to find what kinds of things would motivate the customers to engage with the bank. Since our group is focusing on prompt 2: How to receive feedback and information from customers and where can we intervene?
In addition, we explored the questions that may need to be asked in order to raise customer motivation and give them what they want to solve the identified problems. Since the customers identify their feedback not being given value as the potential problem, we want to give them the expectancy that when they give information to the bank, it will be used to improve some aspect of their services. Some problems and research directions we came up with are include:
Problems
- Lack of personalized banking
- Not very clear on why info should be given to bank
- Lack of trust
- Lack of control
- Expectations of service not being met
Research
- How to reveal transparency?
- Value of providing info
- Teach about financial literacy
- Opportunities for customization
- Where can we offer options?
- What sets client apart from other institutions?
- How can customers express/articulate expectations?
We also did a mind-mapping exercise to translate our understanding of the problemspace into visual form. First, we drew out how we saw CMU’s relation to Pittsburgh, and I immediately went to the map of Pittsburgh and CMU’s location, as I usually see on Google Maps. I think my frequent use of bus maps on Google Maps influenced my view of this concept, because I always relate Pittsburgh and CMU with the relative location of city and school. Next, we mapped out the Pittsburgh International Airport, which I also based on my experiences of being there only once in a limited part of the airport while hungry. Hence, my mind map was a scene in memory when I was looking for a restaurant in a certain part of the airport. Lastly, we drew out the structure of CMU design school. This, too, was based on my experiences being an undergraduate, and I interpreted ti as the courses taken by undergrads and E, C, P tracks that we are divided in.
We learned that each individual’s vision of a place, principle, structure, or any abstract concept differs. It will be a challenge to find an appropriate visualization to map the problem space of the prompt, as one visual interpretation may be better than another in communicating clear information to customers. In addition, since mind maps are heavily based on individual experiences, we will have to find a way to clearly explain/visualize a concept or experience to the customers in a way that is understandable to people from different experiences and backgrounds as well as knowledge.
