The Integrated Reflective Cycle
In class we talked about reflective cycles and their appropriateness. After reviewing the models, I believe that the Integrated Reflective Cycle could be useful to my work. Previous to starting blogging I created a document of 32 potential questions to ask myself based on marking rubrics and the academic reflections lecture. I feel that using this reflective cycle will allow me to create my own relevant questions on the fly and make the process much smoother.
Figure 1. The Integrated Reflective Cycle, From Reflection Toolkit, by The University of Edinburgh, 2020, https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/the-integrated-reflective-cycle.
Figure 1 showcases four key reflective stages:
Describe the experience.
Identify what went well and what could be improved. Explore your thoughts, feelings, and assumptions, ask yourself why.
Think about the experience in the context of professional literature, your learning, and personal experience.
Prepare for future experiences.
I've chosen this framework due to it's similarity to my natural reflective process and it's simplicity. Unfortunately the original creator of the model, B. Bassot (2013), doesn't have her original journal available to be viewed online. However, I trust the information conveyed by The University of Edinburgh. I'll be using this moving forward to organise my thinking.
Volunteering
At the beginning of the week I attended my first volunteer session. I spent leisure time with a few of the residents and held polite conversation. From my experience I've noted that although the care facility has a multitude of board games, only one resident has a keen interest in them. She attributes her sharp mind to playing board games often, and says she's held this interest since she was young. I have no insight into why other residents may not play these games, however, it's interesting to note. I have plans to play more board games with her next week.
Week 3's Tasks
This week I completed some tasks with the help of ChatGPT. Using this tool brings me a bit of shame, as if I am using a shortcut that undermines the validity of my work. I did originally consult the tool to save on time, however, I'm confident about it's ability to bring a broader perspective that I may not have considered previously. I used the AI to give me ideas for what limitations I may have in my development. I narrowed the set down to restricted user feedback, ethical considerations, lack of expertise, accessibility, time constraints, and platform compatibility. To feel more secure in my direction, I also outlined mitigation tactics for each point, with quality research, planning, and conversations being key recurring points.
My Limitations and Mitigations, Own Image.
After my experience doing a summer research project, I believe that outlining and keeping aware of my limitations is paramount to my work. It's when I don't do this that my work derails and I end up having to make dramatic pivoting decisions. I'd like to avoid that as much as possible. This is why I have a key milestone task in Week 7 that urges me to take a critical look at my development in terms of my brief, proposal, and limitations.
To make it clear in terms of ethics, 'Informal conversations with family members' will be done in a non-participant, non-confrontational way. I intend to develop my understanding through a conversational, natural way that may occur by spending time with these people. There were few insights had while creating the limitations. However, later on in the week when gathering feedback, a few gaps arose that related to these limitations, therefore, providing me insights.
I also created some personas solely using ChatGPT. Due to my inability to consult my demographic and my limited exploration in my 'Discover' phase, I believe that creating these personas using an AI tool like ChatGPT is the best way to minimise tokenism and stereotypes in my work. I intend to create more with my own research at a later stage, and I have added this task in at Week 5. The personas can be summarised like this:
Grace, the grandmother who'd like to try the app out for her health, but isn't particularly tech-savvy.
Robert, the active senior who is very interested in the brain training and flexibility capabilities of the app.
Mary, a retired IT professional that values mature apps that adapt to you.
Sarah, a care facility worker who would love to engage her residents.
Mark, a supportive son who would love to personalise an experience for his elderly father.
I'm very pleased with the results, and I think the personas cover the facets of my demographic outlined in the 'Customer Segments' section of my Business Model Canvas. I also believe that giving myself room to improve on these personas in the future is good for my learning. My understanding is being developed alongside my project and doesn't stay stagnant, which is ideal to my methodology.
As well as this, I did some quick research to support my plans to gather feedback. I found a good paper about a project called ELDERGAMES that I intend to fully review later. Schieber (2003), cited in 'Cognition, technology, and games for the elderly: An introduction to ELDERGAMES Project' by Gamberini et al. (2006), proposed numerous sets of design criteria to support age-related issues in apps. I think more research should be done into papers that support the accessibility of my project, so I've added a task to Week 4 called 'Accessibility Research.' I did a minor amount of research into brain training, and outlined two sections of games for my project:
Entertaining thinking games: sudoku, trivia, candy crush, etc. Games an individual may seek out in their own time.
Brain training games: word puzzles, memory tests, etc.
I intend to keep developing this section later in the week. I believe that distinguishing these sections is important for my design process and was good for collecting feedback.
Finally, I created some quick sketches of my prototype to show to peers.
Rapid Prototyping, Own Work.
These sketches are based on images of the Yeonheebot project, my outlined scope, and accessibility concerns. I like having something to talk through with people, however, iy does both comfort and bother me that my project concept is so close to Yeonheebot. I have something to base my work off of, yet, it feels unoriginal. I intend to deviate from the concept with future iterations from this point.
Involved User Feedback
On Wednesday night I did some research and drafted a plan to collect feedback on my design decisions so far. My intent was to create a group discussion session where we would give feedback to each other, therefore exercising reciprocity. This was important to me, as it allowed me to prioritise relationships, facilitate discovery, talk with an 'active partner', and build the capacity to learn from others - all factors important to my methods and toolkit. I also consulted a new source to broaden the depth of my co-design understanding. According to the Sunlight Foundation's 'Guide to Co-Design' (2023), the key components of a co-design process should involve:
Intentionally involving target users in designing solutions
Postponing design decisions until after gathering feedback
Synthesizing feedback from target users into insights
Developing solutions based on feedback
I used these bullet points to outline my process. My stream supervisor was sick, meaning our meetings were online. Instead I visited the sustainability stream with my buddy and we garnered feedback here.
I found that in this setting, especially when I was giving feedback in return, discussion was best held one-on-one or two-to-one. Through this process I held two discussion groups and produced Figure 2 below.
Figure 2. Feedback table with labelled post-it notes, Own Work.
I was able to separate my feedback into 5 key groups: Brain Training, Development Validity, Concept, Demographic Accessibility, and Next Steps. I haven't synthesized this feedback properly into insights and next steps, however, some of the suggestions made I've already decided I need to work on. Notably completely revisiting my scope, as I've identified that I designed these scopes heavily with my lack of expertise in mind. In this way, I've completely lost my focus on accessibility. I mentioned last week that the loss of accessibility in my scope's plans B and C made me uncomfortable. Peer 1 mentioned to me that I need to align my scope in terms of what's important to me and my project. I like how in her project she has removed some 'core' features in her less ambitious plans, however, has kept the design 'soul' of the work. I aim to do this for my scopes before the end of the week so that it makes it into my presentation.
Timeline
My to-do list for this week, Own Image.
Last week I noted that I wanted to be more ambitious with my tasks for this week. I did, and it's left me with a few half-done and unfinished ends. I think this is fine and I'm happy with it, as it meant that all of the tasks were in my mind. In this way I can freely move tasks that are important to me, but more prevalent, to later weeks.
In terms of my conversation with my stream partner, the ECL's contact didn't respond to my email. When talking with my stream supervisor she suggested that I contact him again, this time CC'ing in another contact who is completing her PhD there. I got a chance to catch this PhD contact for a quick chat between classes, and she suggested some inspiring work for me to look into. I was prepared to ignore this task in favour of getting to chat with the ECL's contact in class next Thursday, however, he responded. I'm going to meet with him today (Friday 4th August) to discuss what technologies and data he has available for my work. This will greatly help to inform my vision.
Tasks I want to finish by this week:
Involved feedback: Summarise insights and next steps from feedback.
Tasks I'm creating for/moving to next week:
Rapid prototyping: I want more substance before I work on a low fidelity prototype. This will be a priority for next week so I can move onto prototypes.
Brain training game research: I want to trial some brain training apps as well as explore my options. Part 1 | Part 2
Tasks I'm removing:
Validate hypotheses with research: This was a 'nice to have' based on research, however, I can't justify the time and effort.
I feel like I'm moving very fast in terms of development. I do want to have a crack at prototyping though so that I can feel out my limitations in terms of lack of experience. I'm feeling nervous and semi-confident about my remaining tasks for this week. I am prepared to move the last portion of the 'Involved Feedback' task to next week if needed, as I feel like I know the results well enough to work it into my presentation.
References
Gamberini, L., Alcaniz, M., Barresi, G., Fabregat, M., Ibanez, F., & Prontu, L. (2006). Cognition, technology and games for the elderly: An introduction to ELDERGAMES Project. PsychNology Journal, 4(3), 285-308. http://www.psychnology.org/File/PNJ4%283%29/PSYCHNOLOGY_JOURNAL_4_3_GAMBERINI.pdf
Sunlight Foundation. (2023). Guide to co-design. https://communities.sunlightfoundation.com/action/codesign/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CCo%2Ddesign%E2%80%9D%20refers%20to,particularly%20within%20the%20public%20sector
The University of Edinburgh. (2020). Reflection Toolkit. https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/the-integrated-reflective-cycle