Documentation & Reflection

This week we have done the exhibit. On the exhibit, we have shown our final prototype and have described our concept for the visitor. In my understanding, the meaning of the exhibit is that it can provide us a good chance to get feedback from the market due to the fact that the visitors of the exhibit are from different backgrounds. However, due to the COVID 19 restriction, we only can have an online exhibit which may limit the numbers and the variety (different backgrounds) of the visitors. As I observed, all visitors who have visited the discard zoom of our group are UQ staff and students. Thus, they may understand our project easier than the general public.

The other benefit of the exhibit is that it can train our presentation skills. In the exhibit, we need to introduce our product to a person who we are not familiar with we need to begin the presentation within one minute and need to finish it within a few minutes. The visitor may have no patient waiting for you preparing to begin the presentation and have no patient on a long presentation as well. This is what I perform badly at the beginning of the exhibit. I feel nervous when I presenting for the first visitor, I have used a relevant long time to prepare before I start presenting and to present my concept. I can feel that the visitor lose their interest and patient.

The unlucky thing is that before the exhibit, my prototype falls down from the table, which makes cannot support live display on the exhibit, so I use my video as a tool to display my prototype. It can be seen that my design is reasonable and the prototype that I have done is successful from the feedback of the visitors. All visitors have a response that they can understand my design and think its reasonable. One visitor said that it is interesting and makes him think of “ the useless box”(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KTilOsXBmU). Another visitor gives me feedback that she wants the device that I have done to show the next step on the LCD screen. For example, when it reminds the user to have a break, it not just have light effect and audio effect, it can show text remind on the LCD screen as well.

This is the link for my video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqJn-9Cm0) and my website (https://ixd-2020.uqcloud.net/xia/)

This week I work on finalizing the prototype and making the portfolio. The remaining work of this week is that finalized and checking the function of the prototype, construct the prototype, record the video, write the document description for the portfolio, and code the portfolio website.

I have tried to use “state change detection" to account for the times of the loop running for setting different lights effect for each time when the LED strip turn on automatically last week. I think it is a reasonable solution, but maybe there is some bug in my code, thus, when I check the functions of the final prototype this week, I found that my code just can let the led strip turn on automatically after it been turned off, but no light effect change because it keeps running the first round (the counter keep showing 0 when I check the monitor). But I have no more chance to solve this problem because I find the problem on the weekend thus I cannot get the tutor’s support. To make the user can do the evaluation, I add another light effect on the ‘void set up’, thus, there are two light effects in my final prototype which is enough for the user to do the evaluation. I have put the LCD print to the 'void set up' as well, which can present that before the user using the machine the assignments' deadline and the task that the remaining hours of the user needs to study will be shown on the LCD screen.

I have finished the physical part as well, the paper box is used to simulate a wood box. I have written a very simple website that only uses CSS and HTML to put the description and video inside as a portfolio. I have recorded the video of using the machine and have added the subtitle for it as well.

I use this week to build the prototype as well. I have visited the in- campus workshop to solve the problem that I have faced last week by consulting the tutor. The first problem that I have solved is that the servo keeps shaking and can be used without the flex sensor. The tutor said that the code is correct, the problem is that the system is very sensitive, that the servo change ever second base on the mini change of the data of the flex sensor and the ultrasonic sensor. To make it stable, I need to observe the live value when I bending the flex sensor to find the average value and try to set the value around the average value to see which one can make the system more stable. The code change from the left picture below to the right one.

The second problem is that the LED strip cannot turn off by the ultrasonic sensor then automatically turn on with different light effects in a few seconds later. To solve the problem, the count of the loop running should be recorded. The tutor has given me the suggestion that I can learn from the sample in the Arduino IDE, which called “state change detection”, it is a code that presents using the button to control the led base on the times of the button been pushed. It is similar to what I need.

Then, I have learned how to making the function that two buttons keep pressing to make the LCD work as a timer, if only one button keeps pressing, the LCD timer will stop. This function present when user put their phone into the box and sit on the seat the time will be counted as their study time, if the user takes out their phone or leave the seat, that means the user does not sit for study, so the time should not be count as study time, the timer will stop. The code here is similar to the sample code “state change detection” as well.

This week I focus on building the prototype. First, I need to list the details of the functions that I need to achieve which include the interaction plan and the technique that needs to be involved in the plan.

Then, I have learned how to use the servo motor, the ultrasonic sensor, and the flex sensor base on the sample on the Arduino tutorial. I have built them in one breadboard and have made sure each of them can run as what is supposed to be by using the sample code in the Arduino tutorial.

Then, I tried to make them work connectively as I am expected in my concept. First, I am working on using the ultrasonic sensor to close the light of the led strip. This function presents that the user can use their gesture to close the warning. After the user turns it off, the warning will warn again in a few seconds (simulate, actually should be 45 minutes later) to remind the user again. It is a function that can be used to remind the user to do study, to have a break, and to go back to study. After doing coding, I just can use the ultrasonic sensor to close the light, but cannot let it reopen automatically with a changed light effect and then close it by the distance sensor as a loop. I will go to the on-campus workshop to consult the tutor about it in next week.

Then, I tied to let the flex sensor and the ultrasonic sensor control the servo motor. It present that user needs to bend their finger (flex sensor) on the top area of the box (ultrasonic sensor) to lock and unlock (servo motor) the box, if the user bends their finger in other places, the box will not be locked or unlocked. The code I have written for it seems correct, but the servo keeps shaking when I run it, and when I waving hand on the top area of the ultrasonic sensor, the servo can work without the flex sensor. I need to consult this problem at the workshop next week as well.

This week we have submitted our individual prototype and have down team critiques. When I have viewed the work created by others I find that a lot of them have created a prototype that is easy to be built but with an amazing concept, which makes me think about if I can change my concept to simple but novel. Some of the interaction modes inspire me as well. In my team, we shared the same problem space and the same target user. We choose to develop different ways to help university students relieve their stress. The good advice that I have gotten from the comment that others have given me is that can reward user to encourage them finished the study tasks, such as if the user can finish study task on time for six days, the time table will clean one-day study tasks for the user to relax. The other advice that perhaps useful is that changeable music can be played in the user’s break time of the study.

There are two teams give me comment that I work differently with the team space and team domain ‘body as controller’. After discussing with the tutor, I know that my problem is that I didn’t clearly describe the relationship of my concept with the team concept and didn’t meet the requirement of the body as the controller. Thus, I improve my concept this week. My concept is a box that can help students with their time management of the study. In the previous interaction that design for users to stop warning, the interaction is a touch box. There are different types of warnings that are used in different situations, but the only way that I have designed to stop all warnings is to touch the front side of the box. I would like to change it to do the gesture in front of the box, the hand gesture (date of the assignment deadline) can be used to stop the warning that works to warn the user to begin the study. The gesture can be used to unlock the box to take out the smartphone as well. There are two other ways may be used to stop the warning that is sound recognition and pressure detection on the seat, on the time that user go to relax and the time user what to keep study without relaxing.

In the technical part, I have visited the school to learn the LED strip and LCD of Arduino. I don’t know the reason why it always has a warning when I tried to learn it at home, which causes poor function on the prototype that is submitted this week. After learning them from the tutor, I find three reasons why I cannot let it work when I do self-learning. The first reason is that I didn’t do reset, reset button on the kit can be used when sometimes it cannot work. The other reason is that I don’t know the element’s name and hard to find what I need in the Arduino kit. The third reason is that I sometimes connect the electronic line incorrectly and not clearly understand how the breadboard work.

This week I work on building the prototype, create the video demonstration, and finished the description document. In this assignment, my performance is really bad. I have used too much time to finalize, which make me have no enough time to solve the technical problem when building the prototype. I have no enough time to finished the video demonstration as well, it requests 6 minutes but my video less than 4 minutes. I have finished the document demonstration, but if I have more time, I may perform better on it.

There are two reasons why I perform very badly on this assignment. The major problem that I have faced is a time management problem. I really use too much time on finalizing the concept to lack the time of building prototype and video. Due to using some time to rebuild the team concept with another team, I got my initial concept on week 6. I have done some research and changed my concept in week 7 and week 8. I finally got the concept for the rest of my project on Friday this week, and begin to build the prototype on Saturday. Although I have done some user research, literature review and have learned something about the function that I need to achieve for my concept during the weeks that I have used to change concepts, it is not useful when building the prototype for the assignment, because I have made a big change on the week 8, which means nearly nothing can be used for this assignment from the weeks before. Finally, I have used too much time on building the concept but have not enough time to do other parts of my assignment. Thus, the biggest problem that I have faced is time management problems. The way to solve the problem is that setting weekly tasks and the weekly deadlines for myself for the rest of the works and finding a way that can always warn me to finish the task on time.

The other reason is that I have faced technical issues when I build functions in Arduino. I have tried to learn the neo-pixel strip and LCD display. I have used more than 10 hours to follow the Youtube video tutorial to learn these two functions. I have tried different videos. I am sure I make the code and the link of the electronic line correct. However, when I click the upload, it always reports an error. Finally, when I try to just run the sample code, it reports the error as well. The error report seems no reason and makes me very sad that I finally cannot show functions in the video. Finally, I only show two functions and stimulate others in the video. The two functions that I have achieved are LED blinking and a finished webpage that can let the user input their weekly timetable, a task that time they want to work per day, do self-report of whether they have finished tasks and input the assignment deadline.

I post this week’s journal late because more content I want to record in this journal and I need time to tidy them. For example, I have done interviews in this week, but need more time to do the transcript.

In the contact session of the last week, the tutor said that my previous concept is not good, because of it complex and focuses on a lot of aspects. She suggests me design things that focus on one aspect such as encouraging the user to stretch their body or doing time management for the student to reduce their stress. Before design, I should do some user research and some literature review. I think one of the previous concepts is not very complex but can meet the design for encouraging the user to stretch their body, but forget to consult why that concept is not good as well. But personally, I am more interested in doing things to help university students solve procrastination and helping them are managing their studies better to relieve their stress of study. So, this week, I focus on developing a concept of time management.

Research

First, I have read some articles about university student’s time management and procrastination. A survey result showed, in the article “evaluation on time management skills of university students”(https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/docview/2070394882?rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo),that university student’s cannot study effectively and need support about it. Another article called “Academic Procrastination, Emotional Intelligence, Academic Self-Efficacy, and GPA: A Comparison Between Students With and Without Learning Disabilities” (https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/doi/full/10.1177/0022219412439325) reflect that a huge amount of university students’ suffer from procrastination, it makes them have low GPA and make them facing stress of study.

Then, I have done research about ways to solve procrastination. I have search a method called “pomodoro method”. This is a time management method that use timer break work in every 25 minutes with 3-5 minutes break, and have a long break every four of 25 minutes working period. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique). This is a good method that can be considered to be used in manage our study to avoid making user feel tired and boring on study. However, personally I think 25 minute per session is short and may interrupt student’s focus on study. So, I have consult two of my friends about it, they all think it is short and give me advice of 50 minutes to 1 hour per session. I have read articles about method of stop procrastination. An article called “8 ways to stop procrastination and start studying” (https://student-cribs.com/blog/student-life-advice/8-ways-to-stop-procrastinating-and-start-studying/) have introduce some useful tips that may useful for helping user to stop procrastination. Another article called “Measuring and reduce college students’ procrastination”(https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/docview/896736008/fulltextPDF/1AC052A2766242A5PQ/1?accountid=14723) involve computer based evaluation to collecting data about the different effects of different study mode involve students’ study efficiency.

Finally, I have done two online interview as the initial enquire. The transcripts are listed as follow. (A- interviewer, B- interviewee)

Interview 1

A: Hi, I want to interview you some question about your study and time management, which will be used as data in my course. If you might I use your response in my assignment? Anytime you don’t want me use it, just tell me and I will not use it.

B: That’s ok.

A: Let’s begin. The first question is, as a university students what kind of things make the you feel stress?

B: I will feel stress on catching deadlines of assignments and always worry about the exam. I always need to catch the assignment day and night on the last 2 days before the deadline, which make me tired, nervous and worry about the grade. I always feel have no enough time to prepare exam and feel stress on doing exam and after exam. Sometimes I feel nervous about social communication. I am an not outgoing person. I am afraid of doing the presentation and don’t have good skills in making friends. I feel hard to know other’s mind, I mean sometime I really don’t know why their feel angry.

A: What kind of factors may cause you delay the study?

B: I always attracted by my phone when I am studying. When I am studying, I always check social media on my phone. So, it is really interrupting my study and affect my study efficiency. Another thing is that I always feel that it have a long time until the due date, so I do work slow, however, I always need to catch the deadline day and night on the last few days. And, I am not good at doing housework, I need a lot of time to do it, and after a long time working on housework, I don’t want to study. So, it’s hard for me to begin study.

A: What kind of effort that you have done for decreasing procrastination or just for increasing your study efficiency?

B: I have attached a calendar on the wall in front of my desk which has marked the due of assignment on it, but it is not useful, I always ignore it. I believe that study with other’s can improve my study efficiency that I can easy to begin study and can discuss the difficult parts of the assignment with others. However. It’s not useful. I have tried to study with my friends, but I still interrupt study due to I always check my phone, and we will chat together when we sit for study.

A: How do you think about the study period of your study should be? For example, you can think about “pomodoro method”.

B: I think one hour study with 15 minutes break is good, and I only study 4 hours per day.

A: That’s all my questions. Thank you.

Interview 2

A: If I can do a short interview with you about your study and time management and use your response in my assignment as data? Anytime you don’t want me use it, just tell me and I will not use it.

B: Ok.

A: Let’s begin. The first question is, as a university students what kind of things make the you feel stress?

B: I feel stress on catching deadline of assignments, worry about its result, and always feel no enough time to prepare the exam, so also worry about the exam. Some time I worry about the financial problems, I need to feed myself as an adult.

A: What kind of factors may cause you delay the study?

B: I always think the assignment is not a huge meal, but finally, find it is a challenge that really needs more time to finish. So, finally, my grade is not good if I really hurry to finish a big meal. I am a night cat, I always read the novel until 3 pm in the morning after I stop study on the night. Even though I don’t study at night, I sleep at 1-2 pm. Sleep late makes me wake up late, and will not use the majority of daytime to study. So, it’s hard for me to begin study. And, when I stop the study, I mean I just want a short break, but I have attracted by my phone and then not come back to study. I really have strong procrastination.

A: What kind of effort that you have done for decreasing procrastination or just for increasing your study efficiency?

B: I use my calendar note on my phone, so it can jump message to warning me things that I have to do. I think it is useful to go shopping and do other things but not very useful for warning me to study.

A: How do you think about the study period of your study should be? For example, you can think about “pomodoro method”.

B: I think 50 minutes study with 10 minutes break is fine and I want to study 3 hours per session.

A: That’s all my questions. Thank you.

Concept

A box that can help university students to release their stress by offering time management service. The box should be put on the desk for better visibility. It can help the student to arrange their time of study and their life around studies such as sleep and eating. The box will warn the user to study, warning the user to sleep when students study late but have courses in the morning, warning the user to have rest or eating lunch if it detected that user keeping study for a long time. In the front of the box, the days left from the deadline and the time of hour that the user should work on today (such as the task is 3h per day, but have studied 1 hour, it will show 2 hours, or it will show more hour if the task of yesterday didn’t finish). To make sure students sit for study, not for play, it requests user set phone as no internet mode and Vibration mode, put it into the box before the study, so the user can receive an emergency phone call but will not be interrupted by social media. It will lock the phone in the study period even in the break, because user are easy to be attracted by phone and hard to come back to study, unless it detected shake which means phone call. When the user puts the phone into the box, it becomes to calculate the time as the student keeping study and will warning the user to have a rest between study (pomodoro method) and warning them to come back to study after the break by voice output and light effects. Meanwhile, a progress that can detect the progress that running in the computer will run. When it detect user sit for play game rather than study, the time that user sit their will not be record as study time. It allows the user to set their weekly study plan on an app and will work base on it. User can delay break or stop waring to study more time as well.

Technique

I have thought about what kind of technique should be used base on this concept. I think that I need to use the Arduino kit, and need to learn neo-pixel strip, press button, LCD, touch sensor and pressure sensor. I will learn it after I get feedback from the tutor about the concept.

This week I have finalized the individual concept after team discussion and consult the tutor’s advice. In the team discussion, we reviewed the three options of the team project. Due to the reason that one of our teammate come up with an idea that he wants to separate the work and create a game that can help students release stress as a team project. However, after discussion and consult the tutors about three options, we find that the options one is hard to achieve in this special period. We finally decide to choose option two, we share the same domain, the target user group, and one element that effective to destress that is the sport. We will develop a different prototype to help university students to release their stress and the sports is one way that can help to destress will be involved in all individual prototypes.

My individual concept is that an electronic device that sits on the desk which can detect student's stress levels and can help them destress when the stress has been detected. It will attract the user’s attention when the stress is detected by emitting sound and light. To snooze it, the user can drink water (a cup connect with the device) when the first warning comes. The other way to stop it can be to work in any warning time, which is that the user needs to play with it for a while. After the user plays it for a while, it will encourage the user to go back to study. Base on the tutor’s suggestion that a couple of different approaches for stress relief should be offered, I read more websites to find activities of destressing. I find that candy, yoga, sport, herbal tea, bright light, soft music, deep breath, nature, life, and study plan are useful in destress (Jennings, 2018) (Liu & Qu, 2017) (Melnick, 2017). Then, I come up with two designs that show in the picture below.

The one on the front part of the picture shows a digital calendar that has digital screen, stress light, boxes, and cup in the main part that sitting on the table. It links gloves (GSR), basket, and yoga blanket. The student needs to wear gloves when they study for detecting their stress. The calendar will record the user’s study plan (show weekly plan on the screen) and life plan and will warning students what they want to have warning by voice output, and will warn them to drink water, eat lunch, go to sleep and get up. The screen of the calendar will change when the stress is detected. It will show different things when the user does exercise. For example, it will show pictures of nature when people do deep breathing and will show a yoga tutorial video when the user does yoga. When the stress is detected, the stress light will shine and twinkling and soft music will be played. Users can stop it by drinking water for the first time. On the second time, the user needs to do activities to stop it. Some activities can be chosen that are deep breathing (detected by lavalier microphone), yoga, and shooting a basket. To encourage the user to do the activities, the box that contains candy (must have some chewing gum) and chocolate will be opened when the user finished the task. Sweet, soft music and herbal tea are helpful in destress.

The other concept (the bottom of the picture) is a simple device that combines with a box with a ball and a cup. It links gloves and a lavalier microphone as well. It can warn student’s drink water as well. When the stress is detected, the box will twink and the soft music will be played. Users can snooze it buy drinking water at the first warning time and can stop it by doing the activity as well. Users can choose to do deep breathing or throw the ball for a while to stop it. When the user does the deep breathing the light twinkling rate will decrease, finally, the light and the music will be turned off. The light effect change is the same when the user throws the ball.

References

Jennings, K. (2018). 16 Simple Ways to Relieve Stress and Anxiety. Retrieved 27 April 2020, from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/16-ways-relieve-stress-anxiety#TOCTITLEHDR_3

Liu, C., & Qu, M. (2017). 10 ways to rlease pressure, one minute effective, let's try！. Retrieved 30 March 2020, from https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2017/04/20/a1321182.html

Melnick, M. (2017). HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media. Retrieved 27 April 2020, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/stress-relief-that-worksn3842511

In the contact session, we have done a report-back activity, which let everyone present their work that has done, the plan for Easter break and the concerns. It can be seen from this activity that our team’s working progress running a little behind compared with other teams due to the reason that we have been combined with another team and using the extra time to redefine our team topic. We have used the first few days in the week to finalized the assignment, but none of us finish the individual concept design. So, in the Easter break, I will finish the individual concept design and learn Arduino. I have worried about Arduino before because I haven’t learned it before this course, but I will try my best to learn it and can get support from the tutor online. So, I have no concern now.

Another activity in the contact session is that do an observation of passengers on the train. It is an activity that trains our method to do observation and evaluation in this special period. In the activity, I have watched a video on YouTube to do the observation and collecting the insight. Then I have read the shared document to find an evaluation method that can be used in this activity. I think the document is good to be collected which is useful in finding a suitable evaluation method for our individual prototype as well.

In the personal work, I have read some literature and have searched existing works relevant to our team topic. Base on the reading and research, I have summarized some stress types that university students may face, which are catching the deadlines of the assignments, fear of failing the exam, suffering from financial burden, and feeling the stress of the new social environment. I have identified some key elements that should be involved in my individual design as well. For helping university students release their stress, doing exercise, deep breathing, attracting the user’s focus, drinking herbal tea, colorful and bright environment, interact with the animal, management of the study and sleep and listening to the soft or classical music are useful. The design should have the function of personalization, which can make user setting plan or setting its work mode to fit their personal need.

I got an initial concept today base on the finding that from reading above. It is a thing that sits on the desk but can detect student's stress levels. When it detects that the student is stressed, it emits a sound and light to attract the user's attention. The student then has to play with it for a while to work this out. When it detects that the user is less stressed or has played with it for a period of time, it then encourages the user to get back to study. The student can 'snooze' it when it first comes on for avoiding it becomes annoying. It could be like a ball that the student has to bounce or throw for a while to reduce their stress. Or it could be shaped like a pretend animal that holds the ball that is used to do sport, and the cup with juice or herbal tea that may useful in reduce study stress.

Now, I am thinking about whether the concept is novel and fit the domain ‘body as controller’. I worry about whether it easy to be achieved by the Arduino kit as well. I will talk with the tutor in the next week.

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.

From week 3 to week 4, we come up with our group topic base on the domain ‘body as controller’ and the posters of other students that we have viewed on the contact course. In the team discussion, each of us comes up with two ideas, then we discuss whether they meet the requirement of the assignment, such as if it is novel and open-ended. Then, we do an online search and deep thinking of the detail of the concept, such as how to achieve the concept, what is the value of the concept and the user group of the concept. We list our concepts when the second meeting. We discuss each of the concepts. Finally, we decided to do a stress-free zone by vote. The core technology we want to develop is that a boxing game which can let user release their pressure by doing boxing and by shouting out.

Base on the topic that we have chosen, I have come up with an idea that not accepted by the team but be agreed can be an additional section. I think the project called stress free “zone”, as a zone, only one way to help user release their pressure is not enough. So I do an online search of ways to release pressure, some elements that I find it useful to be added in the game is that deep breath, music, animal, bright color (Liu & Qu, 2017). To combine those elements with our game, an activity can be set before the game begins. To make the game begin, the activity asked the user to do deep breathing in the circumstance of light or classical music, pictures of nature of the animal, which have bright colors on it.

For preparing the presentation, we separate works, I do persona, team introduction, and general introduction of the space, technology, topic, and domain. When creating the personas, it makes me think more about the targeted users, such as how the design (our concept) attract the user to use, what kind of specific user in the user group are more likely to be attracted, what kind of specific requirements will be come up by the user and so on. In the presentation session, tutors give us two devices, one is finding more methods to help the user to release pressure. The other is that better visual effects can be used in the game, such as when the user does the action of Smashing, relevant effects like the vase broken will be showed on the screen. Due to some students drop the course, our team is combined with another team. In the following week, we will discuss the new topic that we want to do or choose one from two teams that we can use the feedback we have received.

Reference

[1] Liu, C., & Qu, M. (2017). 10 ways to rlease pressure, one minute effective, let's try！. Retrieved 30 March 2020, from https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2017/04/20/a1321182.html

[2] pixabay. (2020). boy-cartoon-checkup-clinic-comic [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/zh/vectors/boy-cartoon-checkup-clinic-comic-2027768/

[3] pixabay. (2020). classroom-comic-characters-project-1 [Image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/zh/vectors/classroom-comic-characters-project-1-1297781/

[4] Hassan, M. (2020). Internet-people [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.pexels.com/zh-tw/photo/614071/

This week we have done exercise “The world café” base on the topics that have been generated. The purpose of the activity is that makes students sit and do brainstorm together to let us understand each topic better and to inspire us by the posters that have done and other student’s ideas that have been come up in the activity. After finished ‘The world café’ activity, we can easy to choose the topic that we are interested in working as the domain in the team project.

The activity separate to three-round, context, audience/domain and refine respectively. The main purpose in the round one-context is to make us get a general understand of the topics and to draw from theme inspiration. We discussed the posters on the base of the topic and summarized the concept of posters in this step. The second round tries to make the student get deep thinking of posters and the topics about the user, context, reason, and value of the design. We gathered all the information on the posters related to the ‘wh’ questions on the teaching screen which is used to lead us to think more about how to develop the topic. In round three, it mentioned the way to realize the design, we also developed more concept base on the topic in this round.

After ‘The world café’ activity, I find that I’m interested in making musical instruments and a broad topic ‘body as controller’. I have thought about the new type of music instrument before meeting group members, however, I had been told to work on ‘body as controller’. We use the time on the course to know the teammate but haven’t decided on the working area of the team project on the course, but working on it together on the weekend.

Soldering Induction

I have finished all Induction by this week. Compare with other inductions Soldering Induction is more interesting for me. At the beginning of the induction, the tutor teaches us how to make a simple circuit for a light. I can understand the circuit diagram, but hard to operate, I never assemble the circuit after graduate the junior high school. Then, we learned how to do Soldering, after practice, I find the key method is that we should heat the tin close to the electric wire and add the tin drop. Finally, I make a light successfully.

Presentation

In the contact, we focus on do self-presentation of inspiration and critic others. Before I listen to others’ present, I misunderstood the task brief, I focus on technology and navigation. I have used the power we have in our pockets. To meet the requirement of Relevant& Novel, I should think of the future, what interesting interaction and experience that future users will have. In the initial concept, I want to develop a technology that is used to solve the problem of the new student missing on campus. I will redo my assessment and focus on exploring that is guiding new students by different experience designs in different scenarios. I have finished online research, the inspiration I will use called “Jack Sparrow’s compass” from a movie. The unusual is that Jack’s compass guides the owner to what they wanted most rather than the north. I will use it to redesign it in week three.

We have done the discussion of all pitched to gather topics on Wed. afternoon. That is a good chance to learn from other’s work, what is good and bad, and think if there are some element can be used in my work.

New site (campus) assistant

Problem

Most of the new students may face the problem of missing on campus that cannot find sites or facilities on campus. Similarly, when people visit a new site they may face this problem as well. This technology focuses on helping people find the way.

Place

It can be installed on campus or attractions or shopping centers. On the campus, it can be set to clean campus on the time that the majority student comes to course, after clean, it can stop and stay in front our the gate or in the center of the campus. During the orientation week and the first two weeks of the semester, it can be set to moving more round without clean more for guiding new students. I use it instead of the map in the shopping center and attractions, no movability required.

Functions

It can identify various languages. It can show the normal map, map with a picture of the landmark, and show the 3D route on the VR glasses. It can move in a place as The Robot cleaner to let users consult the route in any place inside the campus. It can help visitors take travel photo and send to their email. It can offer a detail location of facilities that people want and can offer a booking service, such as meeting with the doctor. It can collect feedback after user use it by providing a few minutes Q&A session for who agree to (have time) giving feedback for both the machine and the campus. (eg. whether you still face some challenges on campus?)

Inspiration

My idea comes from a previous interview that I join to give user feedback of my friend’s project. She asked what challenges I face on campus when I was a new student. The challenge I faced is similar to a large number of new students, which is missing on campus and hard to find the location of the target facility. Thus, I want to design a Map that can help the new visitor find the way easily, consider the movability, I use the Xiaomi robot in my design.

Xiaomi clean robot

Interaction

I am a master student whose major is interaction design. I have learned a lot of skills in the previous study such as presentation, visual design, software programming, front-end web development, user research method, and evaluation method. However, I still think my ability to coding is poor. In addition, I haven’t learned any hardware programming, back-end web development, physical construction, sensors, and basic electronic skills. Thus, I am a little worried about the course. This is my final semester, I really need to pass the course to graduate on time. Thus, I will do self-learning to strengthen my skills in software programming and front-end web development. I hope to learn some skills of physical construction, sensors and basic electronics in the course. I think I may have the ability to join physical construction work in the team project after learning those skills. I am familiar with the presentation, visual design, user research method and evaluation method, which I will practice in the course. However, I think I have no talent of hardware programming and back-end web development, I have no confidence of working on it in the team project even though I can learn it from the tutor in this course. Overall, I want to practice skills that I have learned before and learned skills relevant to physical construction in this course.