Welcome to Ames
The crew of Team C-137 landed safely in Ames Research Center this week. As we adapt to our new bearings, we’ve spent this week setting up shop and retooled our presentation for our client.
The presentation went well! We enjoyed the Q&A session, where we had an audience that spoke our language and could discuss the finer points of WAD authorship and the various methods of verification. Yes, this might sound nerdy, but it felt like we found our tribe. (Finally, people that understand our research subject!)
What was just as exciting was our co-design session. Due to the longer-than-expected Q&A session (which no one complained about), we modified our design session to focus mainly on dot voting and discussion around a breadth of past storyboard ideas.
This really helped us shape our direction. For example, the NASA team really liked versioning history; they’ve noticed that users tended to prefer starting on templates. Interestingly, AR technology was not popular- a few members felt that the current technology was a solution looking for a problem, and its form factor impeded insightful user feedback (an example: past tester feedback thought the Hololens was too heavy; a trait that was important, but did not inform the design of the technology for the task)
This really helped us shape our direction. For example, the NASA team really liked versioning history; they’ve noticed that users tended to prefer starting on templates. Interestingly, AR technology was not popular- a few members felt that the current technology was a solution looking for a problem, and its form factor impeded insightful user feedback (an example: past tester feedback thought the Hololens was too heavy; a trait that was important, but did not inform the design of the technology for the task)
As we wrap up this week, our team spent our Friday attending the official NASA quarterly review meeting, as well as holding our own meetings. As we’re coming back together for the summer, we used this natural break in the process to reflect on our Spring performance, checked in to our desires and goals, and discussed what worked and what didn’t.
Tomorrow, we will continue finalizing our talks and update the team contract based on what we’ve discussed. We will also begin planning ahead, looking at both the 2-month goal and the 2-week goal.
Here’s to the next two months! We’re excited and we’re ready to go.
