Week 12

Reading Reflection

I really liked the breakdown of the four different types of personas; I think in the past I’ve definitely been guilty of making “Fictional Personas” just based on my own assumptions, so it’s good to know that’s actually a recognized (if slightly flawed) method. The section on “Engaging Personas” was also cool because it emphasizes that if we don't make these characters feel real with actual stories, the team just won't care about them. I also found the “10-step process” really practical, especially the step about obtaining acceptance from the organization—it reminds me that design tools are useless if the rest of the team ignores them.

Methods to Help You Define, Synthesise And Make Sense in Your Research

The idea of “Space Saturate and Group” sounds a bit chaotic, but I can see how getting every single sticky note on the wall is necessary before you can actually spot patterns. I found the “How Might We” questions particularly helpful because I often get stuck just staring at the problem statement; turning it into a question seems like a much easier way to jumpstart the brainstorming phase without jumping straight to a boring solution. The 'User Story Madlib' template also seems like a great cheat code for summarizing complex user needs into a simple sentence everyone can understand.

Final Project Progress

We continued to research and gathered more information about focusing and Informal Learning Space. We did interviews and more industry research. We asked people who always stay in the IDM floor how they feel about working and staying focused in the space, and we also went to FIT and Pratt to see more learning spaces on their campuses.

Then, we started the prototyping process. We made personas with different needs for a study space and demonstrated ways to fulfill their needs based on the research result.

Reading Reflection

Final Project Progress

Week 13

Week 11