Presentation

This week we immersed our time into the presentation for our initial concept ideas before we form into a group. It was great to see how everyone’s ideas were different yet somewhat similar themes; for example, having theming around smart products, music, colors, and mental health. It was great to see how people interpreted it differently. There were some interesting ones; for example, using pressure to create color, dance with light- using shadows, and musician- using a string. I would love to see these concepts developed into projects.

However, I was a bit disappointed because I was excited and looking forward to seeing blue-sky thinking. Maybe it just me that have higher expectation. It seems most of the ideas were restricted with limited imagination because some of the design it’s already in the market. It may be because people wanted to be practical to design something that was possible to make in the end. I am not saying they are wrong or the design is bad. Please don’t get me wrong. I am sure each design has its purpose, meaning, and time that they had invested. It’s all valuable. I understand it was hard to come up with something that is out of the box; I was on the same boat. It was painful, not able to have an “interesting” and “fun” ideas. I being there. But I am also agreed that if we keep pushing ourselves and research for more possibilities, we will get there at some point, which I am still working on it.

Reflection

Reflecting on my own presentation, I didn’t do a good job, and it still has room for improvement. Speaking in the on the stage was not my thing; it depends if I am nervous or not. Sometimes I can pull it off even though I am nervous, but this time I let my nervous taking over the control. The more I wanted to do good on presenting my idea, the more nervous I got. But I want to get better at it next time.

Though, I learned some tips through this experience was that don’t wait for too long to present. The more I waited and held back, the more nervous I get. Secondly, don’t look at what I wrote on the poster since this is my idea. I know what it was and how it works. Finally, I just need to have more confidence and faith in myself. In this way, I would be able to explain more clearly to bring my idea across the table.

I felt my concept was cool of using the human water figure as the character in the game, and the droplets are presenting the sweat loss of the player. However, I should have explained it well of what my concept was. Is it a game? Or is it a product that reminds people to drink water? Since some of the feedback I got was confused about my ideas. Let me explain; it was a concept of fitness game that encourages the user to do more exercise and, at the same time, tracking their daily water intake. It is a way of reminding and encouraging people to drink more water.

Additionally, I should also back up with more research about why water is good for our bodies. For example, boost your metabolism, help the kidneys to function, lose weight, …etc. One thing I forgot to mention during my presentation, it was that the user would stand on a pad with two buttons in the front. The user will use their feet to interact during the game(inspired by the Dance Dance Revolution game).

My concept still has room for further refining and tweaking. For example, can this be taken away from using the screen, and cooperating more interaction with multiple users? Even though it doesn’t have a restriction that we need to have multiple users or not. Nevertheless, it would be nice to expand into more possibilities for the physical interaction project since the more people play, the more fun it will get.

Feedback

Overall the feedback I got was better than I thought. More than half of the people understood my concept. They thought it was a nice way of presenting our body water loss and encouraging people to drink more water. Some of them didn’t get my ideas and was confusing about what is the purpose of it. Is it a game or a product. Moreover, a few others gave suggestions on how to make it more playful. Lastly, few said that if it was already out in the market. It was not they make the water shape form from scratch for the commercial only, which I thought it was clever (If you are interested, please check out this link of how they make it - G Active - The Making of Active Water). These were all important feedback I got, and it helped me to know what area I would need to do better next time, thank you!

I think giving paper critique was a great way to stay focus during the presentation rather than spacing out.

Theming

I attended two sections of theming after the presentation. Based on all the ideas, we were trying to find a common theme or creating a theme from more than one idea, which was hard. It is easier to name a theme based on a single idea. But to find a relationship between two or more ideas was a challenge for me. In this stage, I want to push myself to think further rather than just merely naming base on what the ideas were. It was not easy. I found myself staring at the posters searching for clues and meaning behind the ideas. I only contributed a few ideas. It was a good brain exercise to train my brain to think differently. At the same time, learning from others and see what ideas they had.