#iteration2

Add entry (font toolbar, closing toolbar) According to Karafillis (2012), Designers should visually chunk functionality that is different. This is so that the UI can be clear and tidy. However, a lot of users did get quite lost with the font toolbar, as it felt long and too repetitive. For the next iteration I will try to cut down the time for users to access deeper features in the app, so that users won’t need to break up their typing or their train of thought to access an extra part of the app.

Statistics (visibility?) I think that when getting participants to go through the stats feature, there were a bit confused due to the visibility of certain items. Nodder (2013), suggests that people prefer firm solutions rather an ambiguity. Having more visual feedback could allow users to feel more secure with what they’re doing

Dream journal (other tracking features?) According to Koester (2018), people track certain aspects of their lives to seek motivation for change and self improvement. Here are some principal reasons behind why some people track certain aspects of their lives:

self-healing = becoming healthier

self-discipline = rewarding aspects of it

self-design = control and optimize “yourself”

self-association = associated with movement

self-entertainment = entertainment value

There is a relationship between the number of motivations and how much they track. The more motivation on a single factor, leads to more tracking activity.

What do people track?

Activity & Fitness

Data Collection

Diet

Goals

Habits

Health

Heart

Media Consumption

Mind & Cognition

Mood

Sleep

Tally

Time

Wealth or money

Personalisation People like personalisation because it makes them feel more personally involved with the product, and therefore will feel emotionally invested to use the app, Nunwood (n.d.). I had the idea of users being able to change colours/themes/etc, but I  think that showing this during the testing would be good as it shows them the steps to take that action.

Add entry – name of button or page? There are many ways to do the similar tasks in the app, to speed up the process. The wording for these processes for consistency. However, participants got confused with the wording. Due to the memory work that users are doing, they remember the name of a process and associate that name to the process. However, this got confusing with the users.

Passwords & Lock Diary – change name? Much like the above, participants got confused with the task name and the section name.

Week view – left to right days I was unsure whether to lay out the days left to right, or top to bottom. A participant suggested left to right because that’s how we read (in the western world).

Syncing process – look into this To provide a sense of security I seemed to have missed a couple steps before the participant could allow the app to sync the account.

Confirmation Screens & Drafts This was something I was meant to implement as a way to give the user a safety net when they’re about to do something they might not mean to do. This was also mentioned in the Heuristic Test that I did not implement.

Design: some minor changes with the visual design

Radio/Checklist – especially around the syncing accounts

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Data Evaluation

Difficulty of tasks After gathering the participant’s (Average) thoughts on the difficulty of tasks, likelihood of the app replacing the diary, and likelihood of downloading the app, I decided to visualise it in a way that is easy to understand. Overall, I got really good reviews, and part of it was (I think) because the participants were too scared of being brutally honest. However, with the difficulty of tasks, how I measure it, is if the task is straightforward and simple (like signing up) then the task should really be easy – which users found was easy. However, for tasks that have a few more features, I don’t think it would be good for me to aim for the task to be ‘easy.’ To me, this seems like it would need more features to deepen it. However, the question that was asked may be up for interpretation, and I might need to look at rephrasing this question.

Favourite features In terms of user favourites, it was great to hear that the 3 main features were the user’s favourites (Atlas, add entry, moods), especially because those were the parts that I focused on during the research and planning phase at the start of this project.

Anything missing? I asked users if they thought anything was missing, or I could improve the app in a special way. A lot mentioned dream journals, and this is most likely because I told them about an idea that I had about tracking dreams. This got me thinking about other things that people want to track (food/exercise?). Another thing that came up often was the idea of personalisation. This makes sense as my customer journey maps and personas were looking for some kind of personalisation. Another user mentioned multi platform availability. This is something I am thinking of, however I’m not sure this can be done with the time I have for this project.

Things to work on: From the face-to-face usability test and the post-evaluation survey, I rounded up a list of things that I could potentially work on. I would need to research to find the most important things, and to help back up why I would need to make changes.

Add entry (font toolbar, closing toolbar)

Statistics (visibility?)

Dream journal (other tracking features?)

Personalisation

Add entry – name of button or page?

Week view – left to right days

Passwords & Lock Diary – change name?

Radio/Checklist – especially around the syncing accounts

Syncing process – look into this

Stats icon

Today icon

Define the goals of the test:

Questions – what are the pain areas? What do I need to improve? Is there anything missing?

Concerns – that the prototype does not feel true enough for participants to give me accurate thoughts to the actual UX and not the prototype software.

Areas of interest – None of note.

Purpose – Gathering overall thoughts to find out if I can improve some aspects more than others.

Determine format and setting of study:

Face-to-face and in-house at university – in a lab setting. It will also be moderated by me, as it will provide me with richer design interests. I would also be able to interject and ask questions and prompt comments from participants. Because this is an in-person test, the interaction feels more personable, and I am able to detect cues such as body language and facial expressions.

Number of users:

Nielsen recommends 2-5, and I will aim to get 5 people.

Recruit the right participants:

The people that I will test are the same people that I have first surveyed. This means that they use print diaries and would rather use print diaries than digital diaries. For participants that are unable to come to the testing sessions, I plan to reach out and find others that use print diaries too.

They will be between 20-25 years old, and tech savvy.

Tasks:

Specific Tasks: although there is a specific task and flow, I am able to also learn how people discover and explore information by watching them in-person and hearing their comments.

Collecting metrics:

To collect data to analyse, other than writing notes on the participants’ actions, I also plan to have a post-evaluation survey which will ask users about their thoughts and how likely they would use the app over their current diary.

Prototype Version 2

I had looked up guides to help me choose the app’s name (Rhodes, 2015). This includes:

Setting the right tone (this includes understanding the app’s purpose and its target audience)

Making it recognisable

Learning from what’s out there

Looking at existing apps, there were a lot of straight forward names such as “Planner Pro,” and “Cal.” Some names were variations of existing words such as “Reflectly,” “Diaro,” and “Journey.” I wanted to go with something that was a lot like the latter, a play on existing words. I then thought of the word “Dairy.” A lot of people get Diary and Dairy mixed up due to the vowels in between, and I thought that it would be a perfect name for my app. I thought that this would go well with the word ‘quirky’ and ‘funny’ that the participants have given me at the start.

I thought that it would be good because it could also inform me of the visual design (using colours, shapes, form) so that I wouldn’t have to think about it further. However it didn’t sit right with me. I really wanted to have a more creative process with the visual design of the application (hence the style guides taken from illustrations from a book). However, there still is a disconnect between the app’s name, “Dairy” and the app (besides the misspelling).

So then, I wanted to research dairy to see if there were something deeper that I could connect to the idea of the application…

According to Crichton (2012), dairy consumption has the potential to improve memory in adults, and the app’s goal is to simply have users remember and reflect on events and thoughts. In another one of Crichton’s studies (2012) dairy intake is associated with better cognitive performance, meaning that consumers are able to understand information that they take in, and make better sense of the world.

Milk is part of a system which starts from sun to soil, to grass to cow, etc . it’s a whole system of things feeding into each other and working with each other. I feel like I want the app to be a small part of the user’s life, but also have an impact with how they carry their tasks.

Collaborative Learning Through Technology

KEYWORDS SOCIAL LEARNING - COLLABORATIVE LEARNING - PHYSICAL, TANGIBLE LEARNING - PLAYFUL EXPERIMENTS - PLAYFUL LEARNING - PLAYFUL USER INTERFACES - CONSTRUCTIVIST LEARNING

PROBLEM

We have been using our modern technologies every day for many reasons but when we consider young generations, it is hard to say that the modern interactivity of them is helpful for their physical and mental progress. Apparently, we need to define our current interactivity with these everyday devices by considering youngs and offer new collaborative, social and informative opportunities for their development.

How we take advantage of the technology for the education today?

Media Exposure on young people and it’s detrimental effects:

Cheap entertainment

Replacement of the hands-on activities

Passive consumption rather than involvement

Isolation from the outside

Misinformation

CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS

How might we create playful learning experiences for collaborative, social learning in public spaces (schools, classes) by taking advantage of the technology?

How might we empower learners through playful experiences and together?

How might we use collaborative learning as a bridging the technology gap between children and families?

PROJECT GOALS

Give learners agency and autonomy in the experience, supporting them in taking an active role, rather than passive stance in their own learning

Support learners creative contribution to the learning material with the other learners

Support learners to use their bodies or the objects around them to contribute to the playfulness.

Engage learners with digital technologies and experiences that support “21st-century skills”

Let learners discover through play.

Support learners’ natural curiosity and social nature to play and learning

RESEARCH

Learning Styles

There are 7 primary learning styles:

Visual (Spatial) – These individuals learn best through pictures, images, and spatial understanding

Aural (Auditory) – These individuals learn best through sound and music

Verbal (Linguistic) – These individuals learn best through words, verbal and/or written

Physical (Kinesthetic) – These individuals learn best through experience and rely on the sense of touch

Logical (Mathematical) – These individuals learn best through logic and reasoning

Social (Interpersonal) – These individuals learn best through group interaction

Solitary (Intrapersonal) – These individuals learn best through self-study

Constructionist Learning Lab

● Learning by doing

● Technology as building material

● Hard fun

● Learning to learn

● Taking time - the proper time for the job

● You can’t get it right without get it wrong

● Do unto ourselves what we do unto our students

● Digital world

Social Learning Theory

Traditional theories of learning generally depict behaviour as the product of

directly experienced response consequences.

In actually, virtually all learning phenomena resulting from direct

experiences can occur on a vicarious basis through observation of other

people’s behaviour and it’s consequences for them.

In the social learning system new patterns of behaviour can be acquired

through direct experience or by observing the others.

PRECEDENTS

TSUMIKI is an interactive toy that combines building blocks with the digital world. The blocks' layout and positions are read by a sensor, and an image is projection-mapped onto the blocks to match how they are stacked. Depending upon how they are stacked, you can make animals appear or play number games.

RETAIL DESIGN EXPO DALZIEL&POW STANDS 1

Dalziel&Pow’s interactive wall is an interactive exhibition stand to demonstrate how appropriate technology can be used to engage and create shareable content. Our screen-printed illustrations sprung to life when touched, uncovering a host of playful animations, data-feeds, and sounds.

RETAIL DESIGN EXPO DALZIEL&POW STANDS 2

Dalziel&Pow’s interactive stand concept centres on interfaces activated and controlled by the audience. Visitors are invited to place a selection of everyday objects – a box, a plant, a smartphone, a coffee pot – from a shelf onto any of four sensors to trigger bespoke film content and accompanying soundtrack layers.

LOCAL PROJECTS BIO DESIGN STUDIO

At the Creature Creation Station, visitors create and test new virtual lifeforms by snapping flexible building blocks that represent DNA segments. Sensors in each block sync with the kiosks below to provide real-time feedback on the genetic design in progress. Without explicitly knowing it, visitors are creating a series of biological commands, with the DNA models serving as a proxy for genes.

PROTOTYPE

AUDIENCE AND CONTEXT OF USE

Who is it for?

For the primary school children and their families.

Where and when do they experience it?

At school or at the museum. I am planning to test it in public environment.

What are they doing while experiencing it?

They interact with the content and each other while learning by experiencing the content.

What the audience take away as the result of this experience?

Help people acquire new knowledge by linking it to the existing one and lived experiences.

They reach the conventional information in a more engaged way by using diverse senses and analytically understand their point of views among diverse perspectives.

POTENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES