CS247B was a growing experience (just like for our app’s flowers!). Prior to this class, I didn’t have any experience with sketch notes, intervention studies or design justice. But over the course of the quarter, I soon became more familiar and appreciative of these concepts and so much more beyond course topics.
What did I love? What did I dislike?
I loved the ice breakers during class where I got a chance to meet and learn from new people. The fact that this brought the most joy to me during the quarter underlined my love of user interviews and research. In terms of dislike, I often struggled with the long class time in the morning. This part of my class experience taught me that I have a long way to go in time management in the morning, and that snacks and frequent breaks can help me rejuvenate my focus and energy.
What worked and didn’t work for you about the approach we followed?
I appreciated the case study approach in class; this deep dive into specific examples and discussing them in class allowed for more compelling discussion and a thorough explanation.
On the other hand, I don’t see myself consistently using the system maps in a rigorous manner – though I appreciated the aim of these representations, I thought that oftentimes they should be allowed to be interpreted in various ways.
What tools and methods do you think you’ll use again? What surprises did you experience?
I really loved and appreciated the sketching lesson from our guest speaker. As someone who’s always loved visual art, I was really drawn to her way of thinking and her embrace of mistakes. I definitely hope and plan to keep her lessons and career approach in mind as I move forward in school and beyond. As well, though it was non-lesson related, her general demeanor was really pleasantly surprising. She demanded the attention of the room while remaining approachable through cracking jokes and showing her personality. Grateful that she was brought in as a guest speaker.
Ethical Considerations:
Another portion of the class I really appreciated were the readings and discussions on nudging and manipulation. Given these frameworks, I found that our methods of incentivization were ethical, given that users always had an escape route (eg. choose less notifications, disconnecting their social media, deleting the app etc.).
Project related reflection (eg. What is still unresolved about the project for you? What underlying issues (personal, interpersonal, societal) surfaced as a result of this experience?)
At the start of this year, and this course, I was really driven by our project topic. The issue of maintaining long distance friendships has been top of mind for me for the past year, and has only become more urgent as I approach my last quarter with many of my college friends. Prior to finalizing our project idea, I know we tried as a team to think far beyond traditional methods of incentivization. Apps that use avatars for motivation were far too common in my mind – though through our user research, brainstorming and discussions in class I was surprised to find that we ended up selecting this method as the most promising to explore. Our decision reminded me that just because something is familiar, doesn’t mean it can’t be effective. My own resistance at the start also reminded me of the importance of keeping an open mind.
Another key lesson I gained from the project was a reminder of the importance of joy! During our intervention study, we tested our idea by having participants name a real flower, and send updates from their flower each day. Seeing how much fun people had naming their flower and interacting with it brought so much joy to the class assignment! Beyond the hilarious names people would give their flowers, they also shared lots of heartwarming messages about what they’d discuss with their long distance friends. Seeing that our study might have had even a small positive impact on someone’s relationship for the better brought a lot of meaning to the study and our project. Oftentimes in classes, especially in HCI project classes with so many deliverables, I can feel myself forget the meaning and value of the project, but this experience really reminded me of the power designers can actually have on changing people’s behaviour in the real world.
