This week in IXD501 we shared our project ideas with the rest of our groups. The purpose of this time was to narrow our three ideas down to just one. We went around the room and everyone explained their ideas people have their opinions and helped you figure out which idea you should go with. My three ideas were: The Health of your house, Improving Productivity in Retail and Improving Transport services in NI.
When explaining my ideas to the group, I mentioned the use case of each and how my thought process was backed up by research. There was clearly a need for all three of my ideas but it was choosing the one that would present the most opportunity for further development and the most feasible to construct in 10 months.
The idea that I and my classmates were most keen on was the transportation one. I think this is because we all use public transport frequently and we see the flaws in it every day.
The main aim of the transportation idea was to tackle a bigger global issue, climate change. I want to develop an application that serves the public so well, that people will look towards it as their main source of transportation. After all, when a customer finds a service or product satisfying and easy to use, they use it more.
I want to make it so easy and enjoyable for people to travel that they choose to use it over personal travel methods, therefore reducing carbon emissions and contributing to the climate change movement.
I will now conduct more research into the existing customer problems within transport in the local area, to find out what people are saying and if there are any current plans to improve these services. From this, I can figure out what I need to do in order to improve these services and encourage my overall goal of lowering emissions in NI.
From my research, I hope to figure out more about my users and how they are feeling. I also want to figure out their goals, behaviours, and context of use for transport services so that I can optimise a solution based on their needs.
This week in IXD502 we took the next step to developing an area of interest for our essays. For this week’s class, we brought an idea for an essay title and a question. We dropped it into a Miro board and we began crowd-sourcing information for each person's question. This was so helpful for me especially as my essay question was quite broad. “How is technology being utilised to tackle ongoing global social issues.” I have now got a bunch of research sources to check out and help me to develop my essay.
Miro Link: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPOzybL4=/?share_link_id=781091377249
Now it is time to narrow down my essay question and begin researching a little more into my subject to gather a better understanding of the area. I want to be able to tackle my essay with as much knowledge as possible to make it as interesting as possible.