Blog 6
Week 7 13, Sept, 2024
Des302 Blog Assessment
Reflecting Des301
Based on What? So what? Now what? Reflection model
https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/what-so-what-now-what
What？
This week, I embarked on the development of my app prototype, breaking the process into two phases: app development and AR content creation. The app is designed to help users strengthen their connection with locations through AR interactions, ultimately fostering a sense of belonging and alleviating loneliness. The current focus is on solidifying the app’s structure and overall style.
The primary challenge I faced was designing the app flow. My desire to highlight AR as the core function became complicated as I introduced additional features. These extra ideas cluttered the user flow, making it confusing and unfocused, especially in my Figma design. Seeking clarity, I consulted with classmates, who suggested that, given AR is central to my app, other features might be unnecessary. However, because my app aims to strengthen user connections to places through audiovisual experiences, I felt that removing these features would compromise that goal. Their feedback, while helpful, prompted me to rethink and clarify my design strategy.
I began the week feeling motivated, eager to put into action all the research and insights gathered during the empathy and ideation phases. However, as the design process progressed, the issues with the app flow made me feel frustrated and confused. After reflecting on the feedback and revisiting my goals, I gained more clarity, boosting my confidence in how to move forward with the project.
Figure: APP flow
This experience has underscored an important lesson: I shouldn’t let one problem dictate the entire direction of a project. Being in the tech stream, I became overly focused on showcasing AR technology, which narrowed my design perspective. I also found that my obsession with integrating sound features had restricted the innovation of my AR interactions, limiting my creativity.
Interestingly, this realization helped me see that I could pair sound with AR to enrich the user experience in a more meaningful way. Instead of focusing on sound alone, I could use AR to represent sounds visually. This fresh perspective allowed me to rethink how I approach my design challenges, reminding me that I don’t have to choose between functions but instead find innovative ways to integrate them.
Reflecting on this week’s process revealed that my earlier decisions to focus heavily on AR had boxed me in, when in reality, the true goal was to build a sense of connection through various media. By re-examining the project through this lens, I realized that combining AR with voice and photo features could not only enhance the AR's role but also better serve the app's overall mission to connect users to their surroundings.
So What?
Moving forward, I am committed to exploring creative ways to combine AR with voice and photo functionality. For example, I could design AR scenes that visually represent sound or create an AR art gallery to display user-uploaded photos. These combinations will allow me to preserve the audiovisual focus of the app while ensuring that the AR feature remains prominent and purposeful.
This new approach comes with its own set of challenges, primarily increased workload. To manage this, I will need to reorganize my schedule to ensure that these additional features can be incorporated effectively while still respecting the time constraints of the project. This will likely involve reassessing priorities, determining which features need to be implemented first, and setting realistic deadlines for each phase of the development process.
Now what?
