Project 1 Written Reflection
Table of contents:
Reflection: Explore & Discover
Process - What Happened?
Think and feel - What were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluate - what was good and bad about the experience?
Envision - what else could you have done?
Plan - What would you do differently next time?
Reflection: Define
Process -
Reflection: Explore & Discover
Process - What Happened?
For the discovery process, we came up with potential problems within our school that needs to be fixed. Initially, it was compiled on an individual list (see my list here), but later everyone uploaded their ideas to a giant cell sheet that everyone has access to. At this point, we didn't really consider how realistic or doable those ideas were, it was more about creating a large quantity of ideas. Everyone in the class then picked a couple favourite ideas and commented it on the Google Classroom post. This was followed by a series of ideas elimination until I had two ideas left. I rated these ideas out of a scale of 5 on sections "Viability", "Significance", and "Interest", as seen in the image below.
 |
| My Final 2 ideas after the elimination process |
Then we decided to work as groups of 4 but the topic I wanted to do was too easily fixed (just use an extension cable) so I decided to talk with my team members and we decided to attempt to solve the problem of people not being able to sell and buy their used textbooks efficiently in the used books Facebook group that our school has been using for quite a while because it was feasible, significant, and of interest to us.
In order to conduct interviews to find out more about what our target group of users (PAS Students) were thinking about this issue that we identified, we generated a list of questions to ask during the interviews (which you can see here, under section "Post Questions"). These questions were used to conduct interviews and extract necessary information for us to set clear characteristics as to what exactly defines a buyer and what defines a seller, what they want, and their thoughts below the surface. Using this information, we formulated a problem statement: "PAS Students need an efficient way to buy/sell used books because they want to perform these transactions without much effort."
In order to conduct interviews to find out more about what our target group of users (PAS Students) were thinking about this issue that we identified, we generated a list of questions to ask during the interviews (which you can see here, under section "Post Questions"). These questions were used to conduct interviews and extract necessary information for us to set clear characteristics as to what exactly defines a buyer and what defines a seller, what they want, and their thoughts below the surface. Using this information, we formulated a problem statement: "PAS Students need an efficient way to buy/sell used books because they want to perform these transactions without much effort."
Think and feel - What were you thinking and feeling?
As I was coming up with potential design thinking projects in PAS for the initial brainstorm, I was thinking that I should come up with a list of complaints I have about the school, including factors that are related to the physical structure as well as people influenced aspects. Later, it was realized that some of these potential problem ideas, aka complaints, were either too niche, or were not feasible because of the way our school works. When I was evaluating all the potential solutions that the class came up as a group, I had a question in mind when I was evaluating them by feasibility. The feasibility of those projects really depended on how much time we were going to be given to do it so I wasn't sure if I should evaluate them from a realistic standpoint or from the current situation. (I later realized that we will be given until the end of Q1 to finish the project and I turned on ideas that were for feasible for the given time period.)
The next part was the groupwork part. I felt like there was alot of inconvenience because it seemed like the methods of online communication that I use differ vastly from the rest of the team. I was suggesting tools like Slack or Discord that have #channel-based separation so that different topics can be discussed and organized into different sections. However, the rest of the team was insisting on using Facebook Messenger, which is a single channel chat where you have to scroll up forever if you ever want to find something from an older conversation. It doesn't have a "search" function that lets you search your past messages using keywords. Simply said, I find it inefficient. But the team wanted to use it, so I just went with it.
The interview questions were relatively simple to come up with and we found out that during the interviews, you can simply continue asking "why" on certain topics, which will directly lead to deeper findings (in most cases). When organizing the information we collected, we had some trouble because we couldn't find the files where each of us typed our interview notes. I think this might have been solved if we created a team drive firsthand so that we have a common place where we can store our project related files. I suggested it, but the team didn't want to do it because it was too "troublesome". So I just went with it. For now, to share a file, we would post the edit link in the facebook messenger group, which gets pushed up as we continue to use it for discussion and eventually becomes difficult to find. More problems would occur later.
The next part was the groupwork part. I felt like there was alot of inconvenience because it seemed like the methods of online communication that I use differ vastly from the rest of the team. I was suggesting tools like Slack or Discord that have #channel-based separation so that different topics can be discussed and organized into different sections. However, the rest of the team was insisting on using Facebook Messenger, which is a single channel chat where you have to scroll up forever if you ever want to find something from an older conversation. It doesn't have a "search" function that lets you search your past messages using keywords. Simply said, I find it inefficient. But the team wanted to use it, so I just went with it.
The interview questions were relatively simple to come up with and we found out that during the interviews, you can simply continue asking "why" on certain topics, which will directly lead to deeper findings (in most cases). When organizing the information we collected, we had some trouble because we couldn't find the files where each of us typed our interview notes. I think this might have been solved if we created a team drive firsthand so that we have a common place where we can store our project related files. I suggested it, but the team didn't want to do it because it was too "troublesome". So I just went with it. For now, to share a file, we would post the edit link in the facebook messenger group, which gets pushed up as we continue to use it for discussion and eventually becomes difficult to find. More problems would occur later.
Evaluate - What was good and bad about the experience?
What was good about the experience was that we were able to try out the Explore and discover aspect of design thinking on a larger scale than what we did on paper 1 on 1 with our peers. This gives us a better understanding of how we should do this in our future projects, assuming we learn from the mistakes we made. The interviews we conducted on some of the study hall students allowed us to gain new insights that we otherwise wouldn't have known.
What was good about the experience was that we were able to try out the Explore and discover aspect of design thinking on a larger scale than what we did on paper 1 on 1 with our peers. This gives us a better understanding of how we should do this in our future projects, assuming we learn from the mistakes we made. The interviews we conducted on some of the study hall students allowed us to gain new insights that we otherwise wouldn't have known.
What was bad about the experience was that there were slight hiccups caused due to the very limited time we had because of everyone's vastly different schedules outside of school. This leads to very little amount of time in which we could cooperate together outside of schooltime. For example, I usually go home and sleep from 4:00PM until 9:00PM. And then start working at 9:30PM. I had serious trouble finding time to work on projects together as the other members were usually busy doing other assignments around 9:30PM and they certainly weren't available at 3AM. Another issue was Google docs trolling, not that big of a problem but it became annoying. Eventually the whole team decided to stop.
Envision - What else could you have done?
I could have done more to help with our team's task management process. I also could have compared similar topics and see which one which one we would be more suitable for us to do.
Plan - What would you do differently next time?
For the next project, I would come up with a slightly more considerate initially individual brainstormed list of potential design thinking projects. I will give my own ideas ratings out of 5 for Significance, Interest, and Viability so that there is clear proof that my top 2 topic suggestions I will present to my team are products of evaluation.
For the next project, I would come up with a slightly more considerate initially individual brainstormed list of potential design thinking projects. I will give my own ideas ratings out of 5 for Significance, Interest, and Viability so that there is clear proof that my top 2 topic suggestions I will present to my team are products of evaluation.
Reflection: Define
Process - What Happened?
Process - What Happened?
We took the information that we collected from the last session and used it to help generate a problem statement. This was done by defining clear user groups, and categorizing them as buyers and sellers, who each have different expected process journey maps. By combining this with insights from our empathy interviews, we were able to formulate the problem statement.
Think and feel - What were you thinking and feeling?
It felt like defining a clear user group was very simple, but trying to clearly define the underlying problem was difficult
Evaluate - What was good and bad about the experience?
Envision - What else could you have done?
Plan - What would you do differently next time?
Reflection: Define
Process - What Happened?
Process - What Happened?
Think and feel - What were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluate - What was good and bad about the experience?
Envision - What else could you have done?
Plan - What would you do differently next time?
Reflection: Define
Process - What Happened?
Process - What Happened?
Think and feel - What were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluate - What was good and bad about the experience?
Envision - What else could you have done?
Plan - What would you do differently next time?
Reflection: Define
Process - What Happened?
Process - What Happened?
Think and feel - What were you thinking and feeling?
Evaluate - What was good and bad about the experience?
Envision - What else could you have done?
Plan - What would you do differently next time?
