In week 5, we are combined with another team that works in the ‘body as a controller’ as well. Therefore, we mainly focus on coming up with a new concept as the team’s topic this week. In the beginning, we tried to combine the ideas from the teams together, to combine ‘boxing game’ which is used to help the user release stress to environment protection, we would like to change the content in the boxing game that uses removing the rubbish floating on the sea to instead of smashing the goods that inside of the room. After consulting the tutor about this concept, we are suggested to think about the problem space and the value for the user before come up with a concept. This suggestion let me think about the design process. As a Chinese student, I know that when coming into the design, a lot of Chinese students have a bad habit that gives a concept without doing research about users. However, as a design student, I have learned that “ design is a subject that serves people, which should be user-oriented.” When I was a freshman. Now, I study interaction design, which I should think more about how to let the technology providing a better experience for the user. Thus, as a designer, I should always warn myself to understand the user before coming up with an idea.

Then, we decided to do literature review about stress and environment protection to see if we can be inspired by the problem space, the technology and the existing system that are mention in the literature. I have read some related works such as the technology that can reduce the rubbish in the sea and the games that can help to teach children to protect the environment. Base on it, I find that teach children to protect the environment is important to let next-generation protect the environment as a hobby. I come up with an idea that using a physical and simple game to teach children to protect their surrounding environment, show the impact of the pollution for the environment, the animal and the human. However, in the group meeting, we finally decide to use ‘stress’ as the domain in the new team, and we choose to develop ways to help students release stress. Each of our teammates will focus on a different way to help students to release stress.

In the beginning of this new identified topic, I have read some articles about the target users. When searching the key world ‘student stress’ in the online library, in the first page, several papers focus on the stress for college students. Cause its relevant high percent appearing, I suspect maybe college students’ face more stress than younger aged or facing more types of stress. I will do more research to prove my guess later.

A paper called “When the problem is stress: Every area of a student's life provides its own type of stress. Coping tactics range from "flight" through drugs to "fight" through various therapies” (G. W. Jay,1983) attract my attention. It is published in 1983, I want to compare what kind of stress that past student and current student both faced and to see what’s kinds of new ways that is a fiction compare for the ways in the past, it may useful for me to develop a fiction interaction for future. I want to know what kind of ways that useful from past to now and to see if it can be changed more novel. Anyways, I will do surveys and think about my individual Sections in the next few days.

Reference

G. W. Jay, "When the problem is stress: Every area of a student's life provides its own type of stress. Coping tactics range from “flight” through drugs to “fight” through various therapies," in IEEE Potentials, vol. 2, no. Winter, pp. 23-26, Fourth Quarter 1983.