Week 3's Tasks
As expected, I had to move the last portion of my involved feedback task to this week. It brought some relief to do this and didn't end up taking that long. My talk with the ECL went well, I got to know some of their people, tech, and processes. There are ethical risks in meeting with my stream partner as they are not allowed to advise my project. I'm interested in working with the technologies they suggested, like IBM Watson and Inworld, however, I'll have to mind any future interaction. I will do this through focusing on their experiences and expertise rather than my specific needs.
I used a modified Pecha Kucha format for my presentation, and created 15 slides that I will talk to for 20 seconds each. In this process I had to reformat my scope, and I'm now more happy with how it looks.
Scope V2, Own Image.
Using post-it notes for this task proved to be easier and more readable. In this way, anyone I show this to can easily discern changes between scopes. I aimed to have the scopes scale between plans so that I can aim for plan C and work upwards towards plan A. I feel that this will work well with my process and benefit me in the long run. As well as this, my demographic age range is clearly displayed as 60 - 75 so that I can aim for a specific range of interest, technological ability, and functioning. Going forward I'm interested in finding more elements to add to my scope so I can refine them based on time, effort, and value.
Volunteering
I spent my entire volunteering session with the resident I played Rummikub with last session. We played Scrabble, I hadn't played Scrabble since I was a child so it was fun. I won, but looking back on it I believe she was holding back and helping me so that I would win. We chatted about the types of games that she's interested in and the games that the care home gets the residents to play. She firmly believes that playing board games allows her to keep her mind young, and understands that's why the staff schedule mental games on the TV with the residents each morning. She doesn't know whether the other residents enjoy the session, but states that they don't get a choice anyway. It's an interesting thing to note in the context of brain training for my project.
Week 4's Tasks
Part 1: Lack of Confidence
This week feels like it's off to a slow start as I tie up ends from the research stage and move into designing.
My to-do list for this week, Own Image.
I've been getting through my research tasks and I hope to start some work into low fidelity prototypes by this week. However, due to issues, I have extended this task to next week as well to give myself more time. I'm reframing this task to begin by using illustrative tools to generate wireframes. Then, I will see what I can create in my chosen technologies and use that + feedback to inform my direction. Previously I was optimistic about only doing the latter half of this plan. However, I believe wireframes are essential to early prototyping, and I can't believe I disregarded them. I think I was too keen to start practical practice due to past experiences and my lack of knowledge. Another issue I encountered was being denied making an account under IBM. I believe this is due to using a visa instead of a credit card, however, after emailing support, I was told they are refusing service or communication about the issue. I will be looking into a student account to see what options there are for me. You can see the outcome of this here.
Because of this direction shift, next week will move from the 'Test and refine' stage to the 'Design' stage. I believe that I've been ambitious with my methodology stages - which is a good quality - so I'm trying to keep this up while not being down about rescheduling. Therefore, I'd like to try reach the 'Test and Refine' stage in Week 6, the week before we go on lecture break. I will continue to perform the 'Discover' stage throughout with volunteering, research, and case studies where appropriate.
I got around to summarising my feedback, which supplements my scope direction.
Feedback Insights, Own Work
I did this by picking parts of the feedback that were insightful to my project. It's good to be clear on the results of my feedback and have something I can look at quickly.
Working through tasks with graphical considerations proves to be a bit difficult. This tracks similar to previous assignments where I either rely on references or produce sub-par graphical work. I attempted to create a brand guideline using content from ChatGPT and the internet, but I'm not confident in the results yet. This brand guideline explores my brand purpose, potential logo symbolism, and visual identity guidelines. I feel that I will naturally explore this more when I perform my accessibility research this week. I decided to leave it where it is for now and revisit it next week. Following this, I moved the task in my timeline.
Rapid Prototyping for Logo and Scope, Own Work
I did a little bit of rapid prototyping to visually depict my scope. I'm not too confident in the outcome, and as mentioned previously, I feel my confidence will improve when I analyse more cases.
Part 2: Stronger Direction
I identified some brain training cases that I want to experience to support my project. There is a mix of demographic, complexity, and gamification in each case. The cases are Lumosity, Peak, Elevate, CogniFit Brain Fitness, and Mind Games. At this point in time, I've experienced the 3 free games on Lumosity and I'm currently in the 7-day free trial of Peak. I analysed my experience on Miro by using a key that identifies each feature's relevance to my project. I also added some images so that I can visually remember the games I played.
Lumosity
I found the elements involved in Lumosity - like mood, sleep, training trackers - very interesting. I also enjoyed experiencing how the Lumosity team designed the games for maximum engagement with sound, visual instructions, and forgiving failures. It was a let down that they had no trial as Lumosity is a well-known brain training game, and I'd like to design something that is in line with what's out there.
Peak
A common feature between Lumosity and Peak is that they both assess the user on app startup. I like this idea and will include it in my scope. Peak seems to have a higher focus on objectives, scores, and scaled difficulty with ranks. Many of the games echo concepts I've seen elsewhere (eg. flappy bird, word search) but add extra difficulty for the 'brain training' feel. I do like the features present in this app in terms of gamification and brain workouts, and I'd like to work with it in a more senior-appropriate manner in my low-fi prototypes.
I think its great for my project understanding to be able to experience these games. I get an understanding of what I like, don't like, and what fits into my scope. Before the end of this week I'd like to wrap up this task by going through the last 4 cases at a quicker pace.
Figure 1. Interface Layout Mood Board, Own Work.
I have a few days left of my week and I feel more confident than I did at the start. I've made a move into reviewing the papers related to my accessibility research, and created an 'Interface Layout Brainstorm' of images that I think will support my wireframing, pictured in Figure 1 above. By the end of this week I'd like to finish my accessibility research, brain training research, and make a good start into my wireframes.