(By Ruchi Hendre/ 01242020)

Roles and Responsibilities

Being first-timers attempting an ETC project semester we knew we had to find our process through trial and error. Last week we had a chart of formal roles for everyone but, didn’t have a clear schedule of responsibilities assigned. By the second week, we found our feet, everyone’s elective schedules were finalized and we had a schedule of responsibilities that were delegated to everyone in the team.

There were changes to our process, too. For Example, in the first week our meetings ran very long (more than an hour), this week our producer, Annie, came up with the idea of having fifteen-minute timers to keep track of time during meetings. We have benefited immensely from this and our core hours are being used efficiently. 

Life-Long Learning

Doing research about the cultures and the diversity of the CMU student community has been a great personal learning. We are grateful for this opportunity of designing an experience for the students, so they feel more at home. We are thrilled about having so many play testers on the campus itself! 

Deliverables

Our aim this week was to have well thought out ideas to present at the client meeting on Friday. We researched on the purpose of the room and environment, the before/after experience journey for our audience, and put together the stakeholder persona.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Project cycle

We realize there is power in iteration and believe in failing fast and following the fun. Adopting the agile style of conducting scrums and iterations of our deliverable has provided positive outcomes. Though still in the ideation phase we are not ignoring the topics of scope and limitations of implementation. We believe this will help us set realistic goals and steer clear of over scoping or overcommitting.

Work Done this Week

This week we focused on research for ideas, concepts we want to pitch to our client. First, we listed what the client wanted from us based on the earlier client meeting. Then we went our separate directions and came up with content and concept ideas. The rest of the days leading up to Friday had us refining and brainstorming. By Friday we had the following conversation-map ready to present at the client meeting.

We broke down what the client needed from us and provide possible solutions using things the room already has ( represented by the large blue circles).

As a part of furthering our research efforts, we attended the playtest workshop on Wednesday. We gained interesting insights from fellow etc-ers about our problem statement! We also understood ways of letting everyone in the team have a contribution and not letting anyone’s point of view fade.

Alongside this, we have the monthly calendar marking important dates up in our room. The slack channels are also up and running. 

To document our daily progress we have set up a dailies document where all the team members can update their work for the day, challenges and work planned for the next day.

The first draft of our logo is being worked upon by our team artist, Hanhui Lu. Stay tuned for the unveiling of the logo next week!

Challenges: Stakeholder Persona 

The challenge we faced this week was to pinpoint and simplify what the client needed for the room.

Changes Made 

Keeping track of our research progress and checking in with our instructors John Dessler and Shirley Saldamarco allowed us to streamline our approach and come up with a concise presentation for our client meeting.

Plan for Next Week: User Persona and Find Focus for Ideas

Next week we plan to conduct user research by observing the students in and around the Tepper building. We also plan to attend museums in Pittsburgh to look at the various interactive installations and be inspired to come up with more innovative ideas.