That’s a wrap!

Honestly after working on this project for five weeks and doing all kinds of work I’m not sure where to start. After conducting our research and working with community members our goal became very clear. We wanted to help make NYU Langone a place where gender-expansive members felt accepted and valued. We understand that the data is disheartening and there were many aspects to be improved but making sure people felt like they belonged at their first tangible experience was the key to helping change many other cascading issues.

What went well:

I think the strongest part of our project was the initial research. We looked at various studies, we spoke with experts in the field, and we analyzed and synthesized our findings. Through extensive research, we were able to narrow our findings and start ideating very quickly. Another strength our team had come from what I believed was an initial point of weakness. We had one less member than the other groups. At first, this seemed like an increase in workload and expectation for our small team to keep up. However, over time, I realized that this was a strength because it allowed our team to be more agile in meeting arrangements, communications and eventually distributing workload when it came time to split between digital and physical interfaces.

What we could have done better:

Two of our weakest avenues were user feedback and physical prototyping. I think that we could have squeezed in another iteration or two of the project or we could have a larger amount of user feedback. I think we were caught up in time synthesizing and ideating and didn’t move fast enough with simple prototypes that could have given us more valuable feedback from the outset. I also agree with the feedback we received after our group presentation from facilitators. Our presentation could be improved with a clear definition of the problem, slides better suited for visual appeal, and a clear focus on our solution from the start.

What surprised us:

I was honestly surprised by the feedback from some user testing regarding the info on name badges. Many outside the gender-expansive community were turned off by the idea of pronouns because it seemed superfluous but those in the community we were trying to help make it clear they valued that visibility. This left us with a decision of making the tags customization to suit everyone but doing so would further ostracize a group we were looking to involve from the beginning.

We decided as a team to stay firm to our original goal and understand that there will be discomfort in the change to build a more inclusive, equitable world and that is okay.

How we stood out:

I think the most important way we stood out as a group was to focus on the in-person connection in a physical space. In a world digitized by COVID, with Zoom and Tele-health, we focused on how important it was to build a space with others. The other proposals were all great in their own ways but represented many digitally first changes. What made our project unique was the personalization, connection, and physicality to lay the groundwork and foster a greater human connection.

What’s next?

MORE PROTOTYPING!

For real though, I would like to do some more physical prototyping and testing and work on various iterations. Due to an unfortunate accident, I was unable to put in a proper amount of work on this project and it left me wanting to do more, just for the sake of the project. If there is one thing I learned this year is that prototyping should be fun and exploratory. If you reach a point where it feels like too much work or preparation then you’ve subtly shifted from prototyping to production. Moving fast and getting feedback can be exciting, inspiring, and revealing. I’m hoping to add some prototypes over break and get feedback from the community. I believe this project has an incredible ability to scale for both medical and non-medical purposes. Hopefully, we have the chance to do that and make this project, in one way or another, a reality.

With that, this concludes my final blog post for the semester. This class fostered an incredible sense of camaraderie that I haven’t had in many university classes. I genuinely am excited to talk with other classmates about their work and growth, and those connections aren’t nurtured and supported in other classes. I will say that this is the trait that will stand out to me the most looking back on this class.

If you’re still reading this thank you for your support you’re likely in the class and it has been great getting to know you this semester, let’s stay connected!

Feel free to connect on LinkedIn (don’t forget the message! hehe)

Best,
Michael