iadp week 5 reflection

It's week 5 - half way through the entire IADP :) It's only halfway?! and most of us felt that it has been ages since we first started the programme.

This is the week where the teams decided which stage of the process that they want to go back to. Upon checking in with the team, we got a good sense that our 3rd prototype would take quite a long time to iterate in order to address all the improvements/questions that we received from our testers during the week. As such, the team decided to shelf it, and build our 4th prototype. As for our 2nd prototype, we have decided to merge its features with our 1st prototype.


Prototype (iteration)
The team reviewed the list of ideas that we had previously to decide what our 4th prototype would. And almost immediately we agreed with an idea and started putting something together :) Also, we iterated on 1st prototype based on feedback last week; and built in features of our 2nd prototype into it as well.


Test (iteration)
So we went on testing our prototype internally in class to gather feedback. We got tonnes of feedback. Even though everyone was really busy with their own prototypes,  it was really encouraging to see that people are very supportive in helping you test out your prototype. This is a case of true empathy in action :) And of course I was more than happy to volunteer to test prototypes of other teams as well.

Went out to the field and tested our prototypes namely 1st & 4th. We then unpacked the feedback upon returning to the Genovasi playground. And quickly iterated based on the feedback received during our test fieldtrip.


Show, don't Tell
Teams had to choose to present only one prototype to the project partner. And so the team decided that we wanted to go with the 4th one - everyone in the team was really excited with this prototype somehow. And so, we got into preparing & rehearsing a  3-minute presentation. Got feedback from the class, and continued to refine our presentation.

One key thing I learned from previous design thinking projects is that it's important to show and NOT tell. Even better is to get the user to experience your prototype during your short presentation. Another key thing is to showcase empathy during your presentation, and that would help your audience understand why you decided to build such a prototype for your persona.

I get a sense that around the room that everyone was pretty anxious with the presentation. Some of us were even rationalising that it's just a presentation, and it's not that we're going to get fired from our jobs or possibly not graduate from the programme. But it was actually a good thing that everyone was anxious which means that everyone wanted to do well.

The project partner as well as invited guest showed up to listen to all our presentation & give feedback. Compared with the other groups, our presentation was the most engaging. However, the guest wasn't really sure what our prototype was really about. At the gallery walk session, the guest were very generous in giving us feedback. The other thing is we realised that there wasn't a clear linkage between our prototype and our insights; and therefore we definitely have lots to do the coming weekend.


Other activities include:
1. Can't touch it. A modified version of the basketball game I played at OBS. Everyone would need to touch the object but not each other, exchange places in the shortest time.
2. SPLAT! A simplified version of the toilet flush game I played at OBS also. The idea is for the people standing next to the person whose name is called out to shout out SPLAT asap.
3. The newspaper game - we were using cardboard boxes. Interestingly the guys team somehow decided to
4. SOS aka Show Off your Skills. We were asked to share our skills & experiences with everyone in the class. Purpose is so that we can connect with others
5. TED video on Google glass where we learned that the fulcrum is at your ear


Finally, we all got through round 1 of presentation with the project partner. We got way loads of feedback, more than expected but that's a good thing rather than no feedback. I guess we'll have to wait till next week to unpack all the feedback and devise a plan to move forward.