Introduction:
Today: With our parallel prototypes in hand for our UCSD Park, we set out to get as many user interviews before our next group meeting. When we met, we shared our user interviews with each other and drew conclusions from it about what features of the park worked for our users and what did not. Afterwards, we created a final prototype of it and are on our way to creating a presentation for our overall project and hopefully a 3D digital model of our park.
In Retrospect: This was a great opportunity for each of us to understand a little more of the design process, with everything from group dynamic to prototyping based on our user data. Through our surveys, interviews, and everything in between, we tried to capture the needs of as many users as we possibly could, in a way that was enjoyable for all and forced to none. We’re excited to present our final prototype and we’re each looking forward to what the future holds in store for us!
What we each thought:
“Now that we are in the last week of our project, building our final prototype and creating our presentation, it is amazing seeing how far we came and how much we learned the past 10 weeks. I came into this class with very little experience in user experience research and learned and experienced so much within the past few weeks, from mentors, online resources, classmates and most importantly our users. I think one of the greatest difficulties for me was developing the mindset that we are designing for the users and backing our features based on user data, rather than designing for the ‘I’ and creating an invention that we find useful. At times, we got excited over our ideas and went ahead with prototyping and moving forward before closely consulting our data. However, the times we took to reevaluate our project in the face of our data really helped us take a step back from designing for ‘I’ to analyze our user data and set our direction back on track.”
Take it easy,
Whale
“I can’t believe it’s our final week. It’s amazing to see how our design process has changed throughout the whole quarter. We’re lucky to have worked in such a small class.. something that’s rare at such a large university. We’ve learned so much from our mentors as they’ve forced us think in ways we wouldn’t have before. They pushed our limits and kept us questioning our own decisions. I was worried about where we’d be ten weeks later.. but here we are. I’m proud to have worked on this project, and I can’t wait to see how it wraps up.”
Best Regards,
Lion
“It’s a bit odd to think that this is our final week mostly because, in my opinion, our project is just getting started. Our group began with a completely different focus, and it has taken us so long to get to where we are now that it feels as if there is so much more that can be done. However, I suppose that’s the problem with design. There is no such thing as perfection, and the string of “what ifs” will throw us into the ground if we let it. We’re looking forward to sharing our final prototype with our peers and our mentors and getting feedback on our work for the quarter. Although our final prototype, we know, is not the best one, we’re confident that we followed the design process enough to be able to back up our claims. We spent a large amount of time devoted to understanding our users, and because of that our actual prototyping time was cut short. However, it was a valuable learning experience with user research, and I’m excited to move on to new projects in the future with this under my belt.”
Cheers, Ocelot
The final days have been as much of a learning experience as the first ones, and this project in general has taught me a great deal about design and user experience I had never anticipated. I learned a lot of new vocabulary, and approaching a problem from a user centered perspective was a new process to me as well. I think I learned from experience rather than theory the dangers of jumping into an idea without enough research and that every opinion on an idea may be valuable regardless of experience or skill. I think I’ve also come away with a better understanding of what it means to think critically and give constructive criticism, and I hope that everything I learned here will translate into my life and future.
All the Best,
Turtle
