Self Reflection

Each team member should write a short reflection blog post <500 words that follows this approach (at least roughly):

• I thought this 
• I did this 
• I learned this 
• I would do this if we had more time

Originally, I thought our project concept was relatively unique because it had a physical component to it, and was something that I personally would really love to have. I thought that it was honestly difficult to adapt and flesh out our product as we went because it seemed to only have a few features and served a very niche use case and purpose, and I felt as though we plateaued very easily with how sophisticated and elaborate our project could be, especially since there wasn’t a significant technical component to the product itself, other than the AI/ML optimization for the creative designs and personalized theme templates. This sentiment became especially apparent as the quarter went on because many of the other projects were also primarily technical interfaces and applications and felt more like startups and standalone companies, whereas our project and product felt like something that a larger/established company within either the photo or the photo album field could easily incorporate as a feature for their existing products, like Apple and Apple Photos, or companies like Shutterfly, if they had a companion app that did what we did. 

Throughout the project, I took lead on many of the prototype implementations; I put together and organized execution of 2 experience prototypes, as well as came up with the ideas for the other 3. I created the style tile and branding for the Look and Feel prototype, as well as set up the initial flow and working clickable prototype in Figma for our happy path use case (notification -> enter app -> upload photo -> submit photo). I also coded up the technical aspect of the implementation prototype: the functionality for schedule notifications that would be sent to a users’ phone for the daily photo prompt pings that would allow the users to enter the app, which was the main functionality we wanted to test (and were advised by the TA’s to implement). I also contributed heavily to all of the presentations and designs for the presentations.

I learned that there’s so much more that goes into making a new product or even a startup than I originally anticipated. There’s always a disconnect between things that you think, as the creator, going into creating the product, and things that you realize the customer actually wants and needs from the product. I learned more about different revenue models and considerations that must be made and it was really interesting to see how other peoples’ projects developed and adapted over the quarter. I liked doing hypothetical considerations such as scoping out OKR’s and coming up with future projections and predicting how our product would grow in the future, even though it was difficult to do so given some of the initial thoughts and sentiments I felt, discussed above. 

If we had more time, I would’ve taken a deeper dive into the technical implementation – I think I have skewed more heavily towards engineering, and I would’ve embraced the opportunity to better work on my front-end development abilities in React Native, such as coding up some more functionality and interaction in the screens and following designs from Figma to an actual implementation.