This week was enjoyable and interesting.
On Monday, I began working on the paper prototype so I can show my group the ideas I have.During class on Tuesday, we started working on the paper prototype. We began with the paper prototype I have created, we listed the functions we needed in the app. We created like an outline for each function. This was fun and interesting, I felt that when we were creating this paper prototype for each screen, we were thinking carefully about each function and how the user will use it. In our design team, we were trying to test the prototype. Each one in our design team tried to walk over the prototype and see if it’s understandable and clear. While doing this, I felt that the user have to go over a lot of screens and press a lot of buttons. We started thinking about how to eliminate this and how to make our prototype user-friendly. One of our team suggested having a button that can expand. In this way users don’t have to go over a lot of screens. I liked the idea and we started working on it. After class we decided to finish this, we seem to have a lot of ideas in terms of the interface and how the app should look like. As it was a paper prototype we thought we could ask more people for suggestions. We had a list of ideas to ask in the walkthroughs critiques. I feel that paper prototype is very important and helpful as it tests the user interfaces and what changes we could have before going forward.As for my team, we tested it and had to change a lot of stuff. Since at this stage we don’t have to code or use any high fidelity application, it was easy for us to change and add to our application prototype. For the interface, we decided to have a navigation bar on each screen. The home page had a button that a user can swipe to get into the next page(pillar page).
On Thursday, we had to read the “Stakeholder Walkthroughs” and how it brings end users, stakeholders, and the design team together to evaluate early prototypes (paper prototype). Our design team was prepared to present our paper prototype. As we didn’t have the chance to present it, we were discussing our prototype and seeing if all of our design team have the same understanding of the prototype.
Also on Thursday, my professor reviewed my portfolio. This was really helpful since last week I was frustrated and confused about what to put in a portfolio. I got to discuss most of my portfolio pages and I got a lot of critiques. From the review I got, I realized that I have a lack of content in my portfolio and I had to clarify many things. I need to describe each project and the output I got from the project. It looks obvious to me, but it’s unclear for people who don’t know about the project. Also, I need to change the layout of many pages as it’s not clear. It was valuable having this review as I considered reviewing it once I am done with the quarter. I need to work harder in my portfolio as the next year is our senior year. It’s hard to work on this while having to study for classes. Well I need to push harder, as my father always says “I have to stop complaining and start working”.
On Friday, we had the paper prototype Walkthroughs critiques. In the first part of the critiques, I presented with one of my teammates the prototype. We got some critiques and I got to ask the questions we prepared. We had many suggestions on how to make our prototype better. On the second part of the critiques, I reviewed my classmates prototype. I felt sometimes it was hard to walk through the prototype without the help of someone. I think this is because I don’t know what’s the app for. On one team, they had to explain the whole process as I didn’t understand it.
Once we were finished with the critiques, we had the guest speaker “Joel Ong”. He presented his work and background. I liked several of his works, one of his works I liked was how he connected his personal experience to his work. I liked when he said “to live is to leave” and how he created something that connected to the place he wanna go. His struggle of not being able to go to the place he wants to go is hard and thinking about this in his work is impressive.This made me think about my personal life (not being able to go back home). I have the same feeling that he has I have to leave in order to live. However, I don’t know how to create stuff related to my struggle as he did.