Module Journal: Project Planning & Management

I decided against using a template so that I could practice general design skills and customise my user personas to suit my project. I decided to include information on family background and the fears and fond memories of my personas since I found it relevant to my project. I'll probably change the final images before submission and take photos of my friends instead of using stock student images - they're just placeholders right now. I'm a little annoyed at how Blogger is compressing the quality of my images - the ones I'll submit in my pdf will be the original quality, and if I can't figure out how to improve it here I might upload them on a file-hosting site and leave the links in the blog posts. For my two personas, I decided to pick students (who might end up visiting the installation in the uni gallery), who came from very different backgrounds, and try to see if I could make an exhibit that could attract both of them.

After discussing with Julian as well as Mike, I've decided to choose the first idea, "Take My Heart". I'll probably rename it for the formative assessment, but for now it's Project Heart. Issues For the interaction part of the project, my initial idea was to have a microphone placed on the podium so that users could use it to record their own sounds. I took into consideration the possibility that the visitors to the exhibit might not take the project very seriously, and thus end up " trolling ", or making a joke out of it, recording swear words or just random fart noises. This is why I intended to filter the submissions at the end of every day and only add ones which were deemed "appropriate". After talking to Dionysia about the project, she voiced the opinion that the project was a tad bit " cheesy " - bordering on sentimentality that the most likely audience of my exhibit won't relate to. This increased my concerns th...

As per the required class exercise, here's the 3 user journeys for the 3 ideas that I have. They're quite simple, but mostly because I haven't fully fleshed out the ideas. Will try to make a more detailed one after I've chosen the idea that I'll move forward with. Reference:  unDraw (2018). [image] Available at: http://www.undraw.co [Accessed 14 Oct. 2018].

1. Take My Heart/Listen Purpose:  Meant to evoke shared nostalgic memories between strangers, so that they feel more connected to other human beings. Deliverable:  An installation where the user is beckoned to a podium on which rests a human-sized, anatomically accurate (ish) beating heart. Interaction:  The user is given instructions to pick it up, which will trigger audio to play from the podium - sounds such as the humming of a childhood lullaby, the sizzle of breakfast on a frying pan, etc. The user is then invited to either record their own sounds, or suggest new 'memories' to be added to this collective 'memory bank'. Recordings will be vetted at the end of each day of exhibition and added to the exhibit. This way, users can have different interactions on different days of the exhibit. Feasibility:  In a technical standpoint, the project is relatively straightforward, since the proposed artefact and interactions can be achieved using an arduino, an...

As a part of the first week's exercise, I started thinking about what I might make for my final year project. According to the handout given during the Level 6 Induction, and IMD final year project needs to fulfill these requirements: Interactivity and coding. This means that I'll need to create something which reacts to a user's input, created with the use of code and digital media. The final year project also needs to demonstrate skill, reflect my interests; be related to my intended career field; fit into a professional portfolio; fit into my available time frame and resource level; and most importantly be memorable to users. The activity of the first week's lesson was to think about problems we've noticed in a game, app, or museum experience and suggest possible solutions. We also needed to ask the opinions of our classmates to see if they agreed with the problem and proposed solution. Finally, we were asked to think of problems we faced personally and conside...