Final week. Reflection.

In the last week of our project we were finalizing our Chatbot prototype as well as working on the slide deck for the final presentation.

We had a meeting where we talked about how we will organize our presentation and we divided topics that everyone will talk about. At first, we though that we will start by showing solution and then explain the process, but then we realized that it may be a bit confusing, so we decided to start by introduction and research, then moving to design process and finally showing the solution, talking about future steps and reflections. Maria was working on preparing intro and research findings, I was working on design process, personas, user journey and competitive analysis, Eva was working on user flow, Shaun on executing a chatbot prototype, Ruiyang on Figma prototype and conclusions. I think it was a good idea to divide tasks like this, so that each of us is focusing on particular parts.

We did a test run last week and timed each other and it was working out pretty good. We still needed to add the prototype to the slide deck and make sure it works during our presentation. I also thought it would be great if everyone had their scripts ready and practiced on their own to make sure we are on time.

Before the presentation I redesigned some slides for the personas and asked everyone if there was any help needed and everyone said that we were ready.

Presentation

On the presentation day I wish we could run our presentation again before class, but Maria and I had other classes right before that, so we didn’t have time to do a rehearsal all together before the actual presentation. I think that could have been beneficial for us, so maybe next time it would be important to schedule a rehearsal the day before.

I think the overall impression from our presentation was pretty good, we received some good feedback on our research, user flow and the actual prototype. However, there were some questions about the reason behind the technology. Why did we come up with the solution in a form of a Chatbot? Why not something else?

I didn’t get a chance to respond to the question, so I will respond here:

The main reason behind the design solution was to make the navigation on the website better, decrease anxiety that is connected to looking for a doctor, booking an appointment, finding contacts and community for support. We thought that instead of redesigning the whole website we could just add a Chatbot and that would be a quick and easy solution that could be implemented right away.

Yes, it is not a real person responding to comments, but it would be helpful to have “someone” to ask when you are lost on the website. Especially when resources are scattered not only throughout the website itself but also throughout other websites.

Also, by adding a transgender flag as a signified and making a QR code to spread the word about the website, it should make our target audience feel more accepted and supported.

I hope that answers questions about our design decisions. I wish we could add that to the slide deck to make it clear.

Reflection from the project

The project was very interesting and challenging to work on. Interesting because none of us encountered this topic to work on before. We had to research a lot on transgender population, their stories, attitudes to healthcare. It was eye-opening and I think each of us deeply empathized with the users.

As we mentioned before, there were some challenges with finding people to interview as well as to fill out our surveys, so at times it was frustrating, but we kept going and doing more secondary research.

Also, I wish there was more time to do the usability testing to make sure the prototype solves the problem or getting some feedback on how we could reiterate our solution, but due to the time constraints it was not possible.

Overall, I think each member brought something useful to the table, team members were pretty responsive and offering help to each other. I stand by our project and believe it would be useful for our target audience.

In addition, we could collaborate with Group 3 in the future and add the chatbot to the website they are redesigning!

Reflection from the class

This was probably the most unusual class that I’ve ever taken, especially in the first weeks. I didn’t understand really what I was doing and why. And it is important to always ask why. I also felt really challenged and at the same time realized how much my thinking is “inside the box” and how much more creative other classmates were.

Then I realized I should not compare myself to others and focus on my work and make sure I see the reason behind what I am doing, I started reflecting even more on my work and trying to connect it to the real world and this of how I could apply this design process to the real-world projects. And that was eye-opening and really helpful.

Medium posts helped me develop my writing skills and I think I did pretty well on that. I learned how to document and explain design process and it will be useful for my future career.

I also liked meeting guest speakers and getting inspired to explore some fields of design I haven’t heard of yet. Plus, great idea for networking and connections.

In the last project, I was able to apply the knowledge and skills received from my UX design class to go through the design process and make sure we make an inclusive design. I would like to keep refining the project and add it to my portfolio in the future. I really appreciate that professor invited real sponsors and it felt like we working on the real-life project that could actually be implemented in the near future (no pressure :D).

Overall, I had a great experience and enjoyed this Ideation and Prototyping class! ❤