While we’ve been on quarantine I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the year so far and the progression I’ve made. While I feel like I haven’t been as on track as I’d hope, this period that we’ll be home for allows me to make up for what I thought was time lost. It’s hard to break out of a bad cycle because you feel trapped sometimes. Personally it took time for me to acknowledge the position I put myself in and really figure out what’s best for me and how I can work towards that. While I’ve been small progress towards my goals, I have to remind myself that this journey truly takes time and to see the growth you need to have faith and confidence in your abilities. One thing that has helped is using my whiteboard and printing out quotes to keep me motivated throughout the day. These things can’t always be done alone, having a supporting cast can help you see the potential you didn’t think you had. Involving my family within this journey has been important too because I’m seeing how a positive outlook can affect others. I truly believe I am capable of manifesting the growth I’m seeking through perseverance and having trust in myself.
Test and Iterate 2
My office space prototype has been put to good use since it was set up. Its best feature has been how isolated it is; something I never liked when working downstairs was how I could always hear my dad on a phone call while working. But closing the door to soundproof my room causes it to heat up due to a lack of cold air circulation from the hallway, made worse by the muggy Virginia weather. To get around it I plan to get a box fan shipped to my house (that I’ll use back at school also). It took me a little time to realize, but I was getting distracted when I went downstairs to get water. To make sure I stayed on track, I made space on the desk and a shelf for some gallon jugs. The recommendation my dad made about moving the desk to get more natural light was great in theory, but it led to a lot of glare on my computer screen which forced me to adjust the desk’s position again.
Because the desk won’t get that much use after everything is back to normal, more permanent items like whiteboards and a better chair will have to be reserved for when I get my own space. For now, it serves its purpose well and will be useful as a model the next time I set up my office space.
Test and Iterate 2
Over the past few weeks, I’ve found that my idea of keeping a scrapbook was a bit more ambitious than I originally intended it to be. I thought that I would fairly easily be able to find new things to do, time to make the page, and e able to keep up with it – something that is proving a lot harder than I initially thought. As classes come to a close, along with various other commitments and concerns, I’ve found myself with a lot less free time than I thought I would have making it really hard to do things to put in the scrapbook much less actually make the scrapbook. For the most part, I’ve cut down to making a scrapbook page once every few days, rather than once a day to make more time for other things that need to be done, as well as be able to ensure that I’m actually putting the amount of effort that I want to into this project – it means a lot to me, and even if it’s not as big as I thought it was going to be, I still want it to be the best that it can be.
On a different note, I know that I mentioned the other week that I had talked to a kindergarten teacher friend of mine about doing this project with her kids as a fun teaching tool – something that she implemented for the last few weeks of her class. She’s having each kid make a page or two about things that they have done during the quarantine so far that they have enjoyed and the parents can drop them off at her house when they pick up/drop off reading material. After she gets all the pages from everyone, her plan is to put the book together, and get copies made for all the students so that they can have their own record of what’s happening. This particular expansion of my project is one that I am super excited about and can’t wait to see the end result of.
Test and Iterate: Ebay Listings Update
There have been three major developments to my project on revamping my eBay store. The one I am most excited about is that my Xbox sold within several hours of the initial listing for the price that I was asking for. I received twelve offers from buyers before the item was purchased. For the majority of online deals that I have made throughout my life there has been some sort of bargaining or adjustments made on my end in order to finalize the deal. Generally, when an item sells this fast with this many offers in a short period of time it signifies that item was sold for below market price. This makes me question whether I did enough market research on my Xbox and the accessories included before deciding on what price to ask for. Looking back, I primarily based my asking price on what I had paid for the item which was slightly lower than what I was asking for, and I even raised the price from what eBay suggested I list it at. I foolishly did not check the listing in the hours following its initial post. If I had done this and seen all the offers, it may have resulted in me raising the price. This is definitely a change I am going to make going forward: keeping up with the immediate response that the listing receives.
The other development is that I received a partnership offer from another eBay store located in China. I followed up with them over email, and essentially they have a large inventory of replica sports apparel that they want me to list on my eBay store. Perhaps I will be drop-shipping on eBay after all. I believe they saw my eBay store and its success as a way in to the American customer base. I need to do more research on this partnership and the items they have to offer to better understand how it would work, but I am certainly intrigued by their offer. Considering this partnership development as its own new project within my entire eBay project, this embodies the communication stage of the design process. I didn’t expect a new project to emerge out of my initial design-project strives. This provides a good example of an idea discussed by Aspelund on how changes are always made along to the design process. It manifests the importance of getting an idea going, without spending too much time overthinking the design to get it perfect, because it will be changed at some point along the design process as you move from step to step.
The immediate success that I have received from my eBay project is a major confidence and motivation boost. It has made me reminisce about my sneaker-selling past and how good it feels to make a deal and turn a profit. With a sale under my belt, a little more capital to invest, and a new partnership opportunity in the works I am motivated to keep this project going and I am already thinking about things to sell next and who else to reach out to.
Test and Iterate 2
Since I have implemented my project I have been able to develop a habit in my daily schedule and have become much more productive. Because of this routine I realized that my project was not benefiting me as if it previously had. I did not need to plan out my day and remind myself of all the assignments I had coming up because I was able to remember similarly to being at school. Because of this I have decided to shift my daily schedule to be more fun as opposed to priorly being focused on academics. I want to be able to create variety in my day so that I can distinguish one day from another. To do this, I have adopted some of the ideas of my classmates and have created a list of activities to do each day. This will force me to do something different each day than I previously do which is watching netflix. I hope that creating an activity inspiration list will force me to give my days some variety and each be distinguishable from another. With classes coming to an end I also hope that this list will keep me busy once my days are not full of school work.
I also have changed my journaling time to in the morning as opposed to at night. This has allowed me to participate in this activity for reflection and relaxation instead of one last thing keeping me up before I go to bed. I think that the journaling activity will help to keep my mind simulated once classes have ended and will allow me to keep staying positive in this crazy time of being quarantined.
In my freetime, I have been enjoying decorating cookies. I hope to also continue doing this once classes are over. This is a good activity that allows me to be creative as well as bring joy to some of my friends and family. Once the cookies are decorated I have packaged them and delivered them to friends and family in order to brighten their days a little bit.
List of activities/ideas:
- Decorate cookies for spring
- Decorate animal themed cookies
- Play frisbee brother
- Do puzzle with family
- Read a book
- Paint
- Listen to a podcast
- Do DIY craft
- Go for a walk
- Clean closet
- Clean house
- Bake dog cookie
- Embroider clothes
- Themed meal
- Write letter to friend
- Make a fort
- Play with dog
Update #2
With the second week of attempting to use my prototype I have come to the conclusion that my project was overall too ambitious to begin with. I wanted to be able to spend about an hour a day learning to use Photoshop. Yet, only a couple days into doing so I found myself feeling like it was just another task I had to do on the computer.
Part of being in quarantine has meant that my life revolves around technology. I realized that adding another technology related task to my list was not only unenjoyable, but it was also mentally exhausting. I constantly felt like I never had enough energy in the day no matter how much I slept. However, on days that I decided to go on long nature walks (originally so that I could take pictures to later edit on photoshop) I noticed I had more energy on those days.
For now, I am putting my photoshopping learning progress on hold and focussing on taking walks outside simply because I feel like I have more energy throughout the day and I feel better about myself overall. For these reasons, the walks have made me more productive in getting up early, completing school work, and doing any other chore/task.
Update
My update is that I have continued to use both my good and bad brain breaks and they are helping me a lot with stress relief and staying organized. I decided to print out a lot of copies of them and put them in my kitchen, this way both me and my family can use them when we need them. Right now, my brain breaks are usually for when I am stressed with school but I definitely think they are going to be useful after I am done with classes as well. Recently, my internship at the TJX Companies was cancelled due to COVID19. This has caused a lot of stress and sadness for me in the past couple weeks, and my brain breaks have definitely been good for clearing my mind and putting things back into perspective.
I haven’t made a whole lot of changes to the brain break layout since I made the good and bad moods, but I think it would be interesting to develop some more for more specific moods. I am going to start looking at the moods I and my family are most often to figure out which moods a specific brain break would be helpful for. I still think a Brain Break app would really cool. I don’t really have the means to develop an app at this point in my life, but it is definitely something I will keep in the back of my mind.
Test and Iterate- Faith
These past few weeks have felt very long. Each day feels like it either flies by before I can complete my list, or it feels so long and I find myself getting side tracked. I have been pretty constant with keeping up with my list and completing it before I go to bed. Although, I have not made that much progress with my guitar, I think that my expectations were too high. Considering that I am not learning with in person lessons it is more difficult than I expected to make progress.
The list has definitely helped me stay on track and be productive during quarantine. If I didn’t number my list it would have been very hard for me to complete everything before I went to sleep. My list is pretty much memorized at this point, and I find myself not looking at it throughout the day. This has been both good and bad because most things have become apart of my daily routine, but it also makes it easier to skip the things that I don’t like because I don’t read them from the list. I think that something that I could do to even further improve my list would be to screenshot it and put it as the background of my phone so that every time I check my phone I see the list and it reminds me what I still need to complete. This whole project has taught me that structure and goals are very important to stay on track and productive.
Test & Iderate #2
Since the creation of my design, I have been setting more goals for myself in terms of what I am creating. At first, I was using my art space in a more unstructured manner. I only used the space when I felt compelled to. This was effective at first since I was more motivated. However, as the weeks passed, I observed myself getting less motivated to be productive in my free time. In order to combat this, I started to create a folder on my computer of photos and ideas that I can use as inspiration for future works I make. By actively looking for inspiration, I have observed that I have started to set more goals for myself and spend more time making art.
After our last Zoom meeting, I also began to think more about what the purpose of my art space design was. I thought that establishing a purpose could help me move forward with the design process. Although I thought it was implied, I never clarified that my design is essentially specific to me. Unlike some other designs my classmates made (schedule templates, etc.), when designing, I was not thinking about usage outside of my own. My design serves the purpose of creating a space where I can, and want to, be creative. And, as a way to utilize the space in my room more, making it a place where I want to spend time.
Quarantine Journal Update
After making a few minor changes to the design, using my journal for some time, and sharing it with others my perspective on this project changed. I sent out the email I attached above to over 20 of my friends. Within minutes, I began receiving emails back with things that stated, “LIZA, I LOVE THIS SM!!! So up my alley! Thanks for sharing, it puts a smile on my face” or “This is so cute!!!! I’m printing it out rn :)” and “OMG THIS IS SO CUTE !! I love you! I’m forwarding it to my mom”. I saw that the prototype I created, while functional and purposeful, was not actually the most meaningful part of this project. After seeing the responses of others it made me want to send it to more of my friends to hopefully brighten more peoples days. I think so often we get stuck to patterns. We tell ourselves that emails are formal and text messages are casual when in actuality who doesn’t love to get a fun email. Or we tell ourselves that people are busy and won’t be interested. At the end of the day, we all need a few extra smiles during this time and people are interested. So many families are hurting so much and in so many ways we aren’t in control of fixing that. This showed me that while what I might be in control of, sending an email out, might be small it can help those out. If we all take control of little things that can brighten peoples days hopefully we can make these next few months just a little better. Since this realization I made a family tree for each side of my family to give to my grandparents. It was nothing crazy but it was relaxing to get my fine point markers back out and do something fun and I also knew they would be excited to get something in their mailbox from a grandchild. While I will continue to use my journal and hope some of my friends do too, I hope I continue to search for other small gestures that might bring a smile to the faces of the people I care so much about.
Test & Iterate 2
After 2 weeks of using my prototype, I discovered a new way to make it better. Although I realized that it was much harder than I thought to make enough money using these apps, I still found ways to make this better. I decided to use a resistance band and put it around my hips, holding my phone in place. This way, when I was working out I could have my phone on me without holding it. This increased my step count for the day. I also thought of some new ideas like creating a drop-shipping website to make some extra money on the side. Over time I also became less and less focused on this idea, so I am still looking for ways to remain motivated. One way I did this was by setting a goal for each day. It was not very effective, but it definitely helped as well.
Test and Iterate #2
Over the past two weeks I have been doing pretty well with my daily schedule. However, instead of writing everything down each night for what I plan to do the next day, I have found that I have pretty much memorized the outline of my schedule and just mentally fill in the blanks depending on what needs to get done that day. I have found myself forming many habits. The first thing I have done everyday for the past two weeks is make my bed and workout. I also have gotten into the habit of reflecting on my day in a journal. This was the overall intention of my daily schedule prototype so although I am not following it directly, I am pretty happy with the outcome. Additionally, I have been limiting screen time and time cooped up in my room in general. I try not to go back to my room after waking up until I am ready to end the day. The outline I made on my fill-in-the-blank schedule has helped me to want to get up earlier and get to bed earlier as well as each day is typically a productive one.
Test & Iterate
In the past few weeks, I’ve made a few modifications to my daily activity schedule. Some days I would have more work than others or I would get sidetracked doing something else, so I would move around and activity or two to a different day. I’ve even added a few things like rearranging a portion of my room each day or watching the news.
One element that caught me by surprise was the amount of external influence I was receiving from my friends and family. Whenever I would crawl out of my room, they would ask if I’ve done Activity X or that they see improvement on Activity Y, which definitely makes me feel like my prototype is working.
As the school semester is winding down, I want to add more things to my daily activity schedule to make my days go by faster, but I’m not too sure if I’ll follow through on adding more things when I’m in complete “Summer mode.” My internship (luckily) is still planning to proceed as scheduled, so I will definitely have to create another daily activity board for myself to adjust to the new schedule. My prototype has also definitely taken a positive effect on my mood, as I am now more productive and engaged with the resources I have, as opposed to inactivity and laziness.
Update
After starting a couple weeks ago working out and reading have become routine. My brother and I have been great motivational tools for each other for our workouts. In an effort to keep the fitness program we are doing fresh we challenged each other to find a new workout to incorporate. This was also in a step to make the plan less competitive and more focused on bettering ourselves. Since I last posted my commitment to reading everyday has become very serious. I have been asking friends and family for recommendations to diversify my readings. Recently, I began reading Shoe Dog by Phil Knight which is the memoir of Phil Knight’s career. I was recommended this book because Phil Knight began his career as an accountant, my major, and then transitioned into creating Nike. Finding books that are interesting and that I can connect to has helped me enjoy reading more. Overall, this process has became more efficient and productive as time goes on. I plan on continuing this routine even as the quarantine ends.
Test and Iterate Update
I’ve made a few changes to my initial prototype. I’ve realized that I can’t control what I do every minute of the day. Therefore, I started making TODO lists that I’ve pushed myself to finish by the end of the day. Recently, it hasn’t been too hard to finish all my TODO’s. Because of final projects, end -of-semester homework assignments and studying for finals, I’ve kept myself pretty busy. I’ve also managed to motivated myself because since there’s only about a week of school left. However, I do think I’m going to encounter a lot more problems after school ends. I believe that I’ll wake up late every day, won’t want to do anything since I won’t have any school work. I’ll mostly be wasting my time, waiting for quarantine to be over. However, I need to keep myself motivated, regardless of the situation. Therefore, I’ve decided that I’m going to use this time to learn new things. For example, I’ve started learning video editing, so I will continue with that. I also want to learn photo editing as well, because I want to eventually learn photography. I will also learn a new computer science language (probably C++ or C#). Cook and Bake more often than I do now. With all of these in mind, I want to create a flexible schedule or a TODO list to ensure that I do at least 2 of these every day. This way, I can keep myself accountable of doing these, while I don’t also punish myself for not sticking to the schedule.
Project Update
In the past two weeks I’ve actually been doing pretty well on my design project. As I mentioned in my last post I adjusted my schedule to focus more on the beading end and simply producing more jewelry which has been just what I’ve been doing. I also successfully made it into the Instagram so I have begun posting in order to update those who might be interested in what I’m making. I even sent some sorority themed bracelets to some of my close friends to cheer up their quarantine and they loved it!
Another direction I have decided to go in with this design project is inspired by the girl I actually own the beading company with in the summer. She began making these bracelets that she’s going to sell, and donate the money to Coronavirus healthcare workers in order to help out in any way she can. I found this idea to be an amazing way to give back and do it with something I love which is beading, so I think in the next few weeks were going to do a second round and we will both make bracelets for it. I am excited to give back and take this design project even further so that I can help people as a result of the current conditions today.
Project Update
After using my prototype for a couple weeks, I found a few ways to update it and make it better. One of the things I mentioned in our previous zoom meeting was that I wanted to get an easel to make painting easier. I ended up ordering one and when it came I integrated it into my workspace set-up and tried it out. I tried it out by working on a project for my current painting class and found this it significantly improved the way I worked. Also, now that I have a real easel to work with, I don’t have to be as careful or worry about ruining the table I was working on by staining it with paint. Since I am in a painting class currently, and lost access to the schools art studio, my prototype was a necessary thing for me to make and it has definently helped me complete my schoolwork faster and create higher quality assaignments. My prototype has helped me stay productive durig quarantine, and I believe this has improved my mood and provided me with a creative outlet to entertain myself with while stuck at home.
Prototype Update
Now that it’s been a couple of weeks since I started making a list of my workouts, I’ve been liking it better than just randomly doing random things, but in the last 2 weeks I’ve run into a big issue with it. I started a job at a company that hires college kids to do odd jobs like landscaping or moving, but right now we’re doing grocery shopping for elderly or sick people who aren’t safe going to stores and shopping for themselves, so I’ve been really busy and work probably 5 days a week now. The challenge for me is to find out when I’m gonna do all the workouts I put on my list, and sometimes it’s difficult, especially on Thursdays, I usually work a 10-5 shift at a food distribution service that sometimes lasts longer. To accomodate for this I’ve been waking up earlier and planning on what Im gonna do before work and after work in order to maximize my time and make sure I don’t miss anything.
Test & Iterate #2
After using my prototype for multiple weeks and acknowledging what I wanted to change, I made a few adjustments that I felt would push me further. I made more specific options for working out, breathing exercises and yoga. After my first week using the prototype, I had mentioned in my reflection and in our Zoom call that I wanted to hold myself to higher standards and hold myself accountable for the things I just push aside if I don’t want to them. In writing out different workouts for specific days or different yoga videos to follow a certain week, I have been able to create a more realistic standard for myself and follow a better schedule. I did, however, allow myself to change up the exercises if I didn’t want to do a certain one because of the weather or if I was sore. I also have added writing out my daily and weekly schedules on a post it or a planner because it wasn’t working for me to write it out just on my phone or computer. Having to write it physically and having a physical copy looking at me above my desk helped me pay attention to it more. Overall, I have been enjoying the daily routines and it has helped me get through the weeks while also managing my schoolwork and personal life.
Test and Iterate #2
In the past two weeks, following my schedule every day has been difficult. Instead of following it to a tee, I have allowed my schedule to give me inspiration and motivation to make my days more productive and meaningful. Every day I make sure that I do something impactful with my day whether that is for myself or for others. It is important for me to not to stay inside all day being unproductive and lazy. For example, in the past few weeks I have volunteered to make hospital gowns, gone for daily walks in which I call my friends to check in with them, enjoyed time outside reading or gardening with my mom, walked my dogs, journaled about my day-to-day life and how I am coping with quarantine, painted, and of course spent substantial time on school work. Making the change from following a schedule to instead doing something substantial everyday has been way for feasible and as a result much more impactful. I have learned that it is okay to sleep late occasionally and watch Netflix for a few too many hours or stay up too late. But, it is also important to maintain balance and make my day-to-day life as “normal” as it once was prior to quarantine.
With only a week or two left of actual class work and exams, doing things to keep me motivated and productive are going to be even more important. It would be easy to just lie around all day doing nothing, but I plan on continuing to find inspiration from my schedule to keep me inspired, positive, and productive.
Test & Iterate #2
After using my activity planner for a few weeks now, I’ve noticed that although I haven’t fully completed every activity that I listed originally (haven’t gotten the chance to read Stephen King’s book yet), it definitely has made me more cognizant of how I go about my days… and not just in relation to creativity and leisure, but also in regards to school work. I found that by setting creative and athletic goals for myself, the want to be able to complete those goals has caused me to get into more of a routine with my school work, too. This is because I either don’t allow myself to engage in a creative activity until I’m done with some portion of my homework, or until I deserve a well needed “brain break.” I have also realized that I definitely could’ve added more activities to my planner, as I’ve done a lot of experimental cooking/baking and have tie-dyed some old sweatshirts and sweatpants that very well could have been listed as creative goals. A great part about my activity planner being electronic is that I can add and change any activity whenever I see fit, so for future use, I’ll definitely tweak the planner that I currently have to be able to fit more activities.
I felt most accomplished when I completed my 28-day workout challenge. I’ve tried so many different workout challenges in the past, but never once have I completed them fully. I think that setting this workout challenge as one of my activity goals definitely helped motivate me to complete it. Also, this workout challenge is one of the only ways I’m able to get my heart-rate up every day, as all the other activities I do at home revolve around sitting down. I’m definitely going to attempt to continue doing this 28-day workout challenge for the rest of the summer, or find another challenge to keep myself busy and motivated.
Test & Iterate #2
The initial intent of creating a “To-Do” poster was to allow me to stay organized and productive in quarantine. While it was helpful at first, I have noticed that recently, I have ignored my poster and used other ways to track my school assignments. The only aspect of the poster that I have found beneficial is the section for my 30-day workout challenge, as after each workout, I am able to cross off that specific day and see my progress. I also noticed that after creating my board, I was more focused on my fitness and school assignments. While that was part of the initial intent, I think I was so focused on those aspects of the board that I completely disregarded the self-care reminders. I want to create a more balanced routine, where I have time to complete both my assignments and self-care activities. I have decided to transform my board into a health, fitness, and self-care board, instead of a “To-Do” board. While I was interested in having a “To-Do” board that included various aspects of my daily life, I think it was distracting and I ultimately found better ways to organize and keep track of my work online. I was also inspired by some of my classmates’ projects and their focus on self-care. I decided to create a list of 30 activities that I am interested in doing over the next month. I went back to my brainstorm and started creating a list of activities and tasks I want to complete. I also decided to use pictures of each activity instead of using phrases or sentences on my board, as it is more motivating and aesthetically pleasing. This new design will allow me to cross off these activities after I complete them like my workout challenge. I think this will allow me to focus more on myself this summer and feel accomplished after completing a self-care activity. Additionally, after our last class discussion, I was inspired to create a journal and reflect on my day and productivity. While I initially wanted to journal every night, I found myself struggling to remind myself to write every single night. I also did not want to force myself to journal every night, so I decided to only write in my journal on the days or nights that I remembered or wanted to.
Test and Iterate #2
Recently I have made major adjustments to my at home gym. I realized that the basement was just too confined for me to get all work in and too cluttered with furniture and things that needed to remain clean. I had to find a spot that was able to be messy and big enough to work, and what better place than the garage. Although it is usually cold, I just wear a long sleeve and sweatpants too accommodate for this. My mom moved her car out and I ordered a mat online to provide optimal space and range of motion. As you can see, my dad and I put our worker’s hats on and got building. Instead of just trying to use miscellaneous wood as weights, we decided to construct a squat/bench rack to hold up a bar and give me a more conventional way of benching/squatting. The bench itself was made to be able to incline as well, and this whole process took a good long week of hard work. We use cinder blocks as weights to load into the boxes on the side and have weighed out everything so I know exactly what I weight I am doing. The maximum I can load it up to is 250lbs, which is pretty good considering the materials. The only problem I have encountered while working out is the stabilization of the buckets on the side, they tend to swing a little even after we taped them throughly. That will be the next step in trying to build the perfect in home gym experience. In the early process of still testing it out and seeing how well it will holdup with weight, but so far so good.
Iteration #2
My desired outcome for this project was for me to do something fun every day and not just sit around on my phone or watch tv all day. My original design was a 30-day challenge where I scheduled a fun thing to do every day and I would check it off every day once I completed the activity. It went really well in the beginning and I was so into it until I just missed a day because I had so much school work to do and that by the time I had free time, I didn’t want to do the thing scheduled so I didn’t. Then one day turned into two and then a few more days and I realized I had not stuck to my schedule. I was still doing a lot of fun things like baking or painting or playing basketball, but they were not the originally scheduled things. I was doing whatever I felt like doing in the moment because there were sometimes where I just did the activity that was on the challenge because I had to do it, not because I truly wanted to do it. I then was watching a YouTube video one day and it was 100 things you can do during the quarantine. I saw how many different things there were to do so I decided to write them all down, tweaking a few to make them more applicable to me. Now instead of having something scheduled, I can look at the list and choose the activity that moves me at the moment or if I don’t know what I want to do I can just use a random number generator that will pick the activity for me. I think that this will be a good way to continue to keep me busy and have a little fun during these crazy times.
Test and Iterate
I decided to wait to see the impact of my design and take note in changes as days went on, if it began to lose its purpose due to the overflowing worries that are beginning to burden our brains more than the glories or happy thoughts we all tried to rehash by creating our “Humor Boards”. To be honest, my family has been struggling a lot with this time as our loved ones have been experiencing real pain and stress from the repercussions of COVID-19. Our small town has lost individuals to COVID-19 that were stand out personalities that could change the atmosphere in any room, but simply could not beat the disease. Leaving behind families, friends, and children that could not mourn properly. On top of this, the Coyle’s are all extroverts who, like many, live to talk to strangers, tell stories, hug, plan ahead, and share life. It was the other day when my sister, a senior in high school right now, got notified that not only was her prom, graduation and final season of track was cancelled, but her future coach at William and Mary University sent a bold email out that explained that he believed a fall semester may not take place. Granted, this may not be true, but it then hit me that this simply is a scary time to be facing “The Great Unknown”.
“The Great Unknown” is an idea that has always stuck with me. When questioning what is “the Great Unknown”, ideas pop up like who will I marry, what job will I get, will I have kids, will they be awesome? Never could I imagine to ask, what will I do in a shelter in place for a global pandemic? Boom, a grand example of what the Great Unknown truly brings to the table, unpredictability. The unknown is the territory of our own specific lives in which we least want to explore, whether that be through conscious choice or subconscious force. We want to avoid it because it scares the crap out of us and leave us questioning everything we think we know about the world and our own selves- it is a red-light blinking over our most underdeveloped qualities. It also can be our greatest teacher.
I started to realize that each of my family members putting together a board that held 20 funny stories, qualities, quotes of one another does not seem like a product or design that has lasting impact on a day. This project design made me think of the quote, “Souls tend to go back to who feels most like home”. My family sees me in my most raw form. My disgusting “rolled out of bed” morning looks to my hormonal stages of being a teenager, and everything in between too now. They are my backbone in my great unknowns and this chapter in our lives, although very scary, has been a design project in and of itself on how human beings face uncertainty. My families ability to just take time to write about each-other was in and of itself the most flawed flawless design. Us all together sitting in a kitchen in different spots, laughing to ourselves, peeking over each others shoulders, that alone I could write an essay on. That is something we have never done before. We absolutely ripped on one another, wrote stories we swore we never would “tell mom and dad” and some lectures have brewed since the creation of our “humor boards”. But, the design does not end at the board. It made me recognize the design of my family. My families ability to laugh and smile, step outside when the sun cracks through the clouds, and to simply understand our blessings in each day has become the ultimate catalyst in our survival of Quarantine. Our ability to stuff our faces with as much food as possible, to yell embarrassing things in the other room while we know our Dad is on a Work zoom, or our little sister is talking to her boyfriend on zoom. To simply find good music to blast throughout the house or open every window to make inside as enjoyable as outside. To fully understand that when it comes to extreme measures, family is always constant. Each of us together through creativity and humor have accomplished the simple things.
My design taught me that it isn’t about writing a book, getting the best revenge body post quarantine, or redoing every room in the house to get inspired. It’s always the people that surround you at the end of the day, no matter what that taught you where inspiration begins, with love. It is about texting those I love and sending them something to make them laugh or call and tell a funny story to ease this pain. This time is very painful too many for a multitude of reasons. Although it is easy to say we all are in the same boat, we are not. Some families are at shipwreck, others have hit rock bottom, some may not even have a boat to rest on. The entire world is scared. Family is core and I am so blessed to have my days decorated with different personalities that allow myself to look forward to knowing I can dive into any great unknown with them as my backbone and continue to use laughter as my daily dose of medicine through this time.
Test and Iterate
Throughout these past two weeks figuring out how to productively spend my free time has been a daily struggle. However, being able to take a walk at least once a day has been a calming and mindsaving exercise. On these walks I have been able to take pictures and document interesting “pandemic things” in my city. These range anywhere from empty streets, blocked off beaches, or social distancing lines outside of grocery stores.
I have been applying these images to my productive free time spent learning how to use Photoshop. While this learning time was very engaging and exciting for me in the beginning, I have started to grow tired of being on the computer and instead found myself more willing to take pictures on my walks. I think the next step for me would be to find that spark of inspiration again to help me be more enthusiastic about using photoshop. My goal is to at least become intermediate proficient on the program before the school year begins in the fall. In the meantime I will continue to go on the daily walks and document the scenery. I believe that if I keep doing this I will have enough images to choose the best from and photoshop them to include animated elements that bring back the normality to the scenery.
With the design process I think I was able to make this activity work to the best of my current capabilities. Obviously, nothing is perfect and I fell short in the inspiration portion of the process. Since I have exhausted my use of technology, learning how to use photoshop just felt like another mundane computer related activity. I believe by easing my overall use of technology learning Photoshop will be exciting for me again. I am still determined to complete my goal.
Test and Iterate
Over the last week I have used my design 5 times to work out. Overall, it has been a very positive experience using the design to workout in a way that feels like a gym. We had never invested in anything around the house to use for workout purposes because we were always members of gym, but this experience has so far proven to be effective for me. It has changed the way I worked out at the start of the quarantine period which has lead to more intense lifts and exercises and overall more intense environment. I have been able to get more hype and locked in due to the addition of the sound bar that I placed down in the basement which vibrates throughout the whole room (even though I have gotten in trouble for having it too loud at times). The various weights I ordered and objects I’m using as weights have helped me be able to stick to normal exercises that help me instead of working with body weight exercises that don’t hit every muscle group I need. The space has ultimately given me a sense of normalcy in these crazy times and has been somewhere I can take my mind off things for a couple hours.
To take this idea to the next level I have found that a couple things need to be improved. The first is space to workout in. The couch as a divider I thought would be a good idea to separate the two sections of workout space, but overall it just gets down on the mobility I have and space to work with. This also goes for things like the nightstands and baby playpen that are taking up space. What I plan to do is move the couch to the side for the time being and night stands in this awkward are of basement that isn’t used and leads to storage rooms. This will give a bigger space to dynamic stretching in and things like broad jump. The other change I want to make is adding a large mat or rug onto of what is down here to be able to possibly put cleats on or shoes to do agility shoes. At the end of all this my basement will have to go back to normal and not be torn up. I feel as though I waste too much time going in my backyard to do those type of drills and then transition back downstairs and back out, I would rather just have everything in one place. Lastly, I hope to try and post this on social media platforms to possibly inspiring others who are struggling to find a place to work. The overall experience using the design process has been a struggle, yet very enlightening. After the zoom meeting on Thursday, I realized that m design didn’t fit all of the hierarchy of needs yet, I had room to grow to become more creative. That led me into the tweaks in my design to try and meet the hierarchy of needs. I felt as though the hierarchy of needs almost acted as guidelines for me to try and break through the surface level and really address what was important for me about my design.
Test & Iterate
For my prototype, I created a before bed checklist in an effort to change my attitude towards quarantine. For the following week after creating this list, I reviewed the list nightly and asked myself the questions. Some nights I would go through the list and become a bit frustrated, as some of the questions have to do with communication, something very difficult to maintain during these times. I noticed I was only really talking to my family and a couple friends, which is fine but not my usual routine. I was becoming frustrated with my nightly questions as I wasn’t always happy with my answers. After reanalyzing the questions, I realized the questions weren’t the problem, the reflection was. I decided to add a part two to my prototype. I would add a plan for tomorrow in order to make each day a little better. This plan could be anything from a schedule to a to do list to list of goals. No matter the format, I would stick to this plan in order to have a positive attitude in our crazy new way of living.I look forward to continuing use with my product in the future as I am beginning to see a positive turn in my mental state.
I found the way we went through the design process to be very organized and systematic. It was refreshing considering I usually come up with crazy ideas that don’t accomplish anything. I am inspired and come up with a single solution that may or may not be functional. In this process, we came up with multiple solutions to a single problem, then continued to develop our favorite solution. I feel that this way is more efficient as it forced me to realize there is always more than one solution to a single problem. I am excited that our professors encouraged us to find a solution to a real world problem we were struggling with; it definitely gave us more motivation. In the future, I hope to continue the use of my prototype nightly reflection. I hope that maybe I can turn it into a nightly reflection/mediation so that I can be more at peace in my hectic new environment. I can make my product better by posting the reflection questions in a corner of my room and dedicating that space to my reflection corner. I could possibly sit by the questions once a night and mediate after my reflection. I believe that if I make my product a part of my room, I will want to make it a part of my life and thus be more enticed to do it. Overall, I had a lot of fun creating this product as again, it found a solution to a real world problem I was having. I was able to understand and identify what I was struggling with the most and create a plan to alleviate my problems. The way I used to think has been modified so that I think about multiple solutions instead of just one. As I move forward in my major and then career path, I hope to keep this in mind as I believe it causes me to be more open minded and creative.
Test & Iterate
Since last week I have worked out every day that I had a workout planned. I have felt much better overall since I have started my workout regime. I have enjoyed the program that I created for myself because it leaves little room for excuses to be made while I am working out. This past year I was uncommitted to working out stemming purely from laziness. Now that I have all the time in the world I have no excuse for not working out. As time goes on I hope to slightly alter the lifts that I do so I keep the workouts fresh and effective. I am excited to see how I progress during the quarantine.
After being encouraged to make my prototype less focused on myself and look to involve others I decided to make it a competition between my brother and I. We decided that we would lift using the same weight lifting plan that I made for my prototype so we didn’t receive advantages from varying workouts. The end of the competition will be once we are free from quarantine and we will see who has increased their lifts the most since our start last week.
I think as time goes on I may include friends in the competition or let them do it within their own families. I hear a lot of people say that they don’t have the facilities to workouts so I have been thinking about creating workouts with stuff that can be found at any house or uses bodyweight. By no means am I fitness guru but with platforms like YouTube I can research effective workouts used by fitness professionals. We could also use Zoom so that every person who is involved can workout at the same so we can hold each other accountable.
I thought the experience of creating a prototype for a plan made the experience much more efficient. I understood the goal of what I wanted to accomplish more clearly than not preparing for it through multiple levels. Going through each step of laying the plan out made it much easier to see what was feasible given the circumstances as well as making it more organized.
Test & Iterate
I have been logging the amount of money I’ve earned each day and from where. I have found that the most I have made in a day was 45 dollars so far. I realized that I needed to either lower my goal, or find something more profitable to do. I decided that I am going to create a website to sell my clothes that I don’t wear anymore or that I have never worn, sell clothes that I have recycled and made better, sell my electronics, and start a blog. Each of these ideas can increase my profit and productivity this month. Through one inspiration, I have found another, even better one. This list has already begun to change my experience as I feel more organized and more determined to make money and come up with creative ideas to do so. With this goal, I am more inclined to become creative in order to accomplish it. As I explained before, there are many doors that this log has opened up for me.
Things that I can improve about this are to make it online, although I do like to write things down to better remember them and to feel in more control. However, if I make this electronic, I could set reminders for myself to log things down. I could also go way further and design an app where others can log where their money is coming from, can view statistics to see how much they can earn if they make this every day, etc. That might just be another idea that I begin to work on to make some money as well.
The overall experience surprised me as I have never had this many ideas come to me so soon. I started thinking about things that I’ve never thought of before, and it made it easier to build off of ideas. I think that the process of taking steps has made it a lot easier to come up with good ideas and take them even further. Even the other ideas I have come up with have allowed me to be more productive and have motivated me to do things to keep me mentally sane during quarantine. Overall, I was surprised yet impressed with myself for all of the thinking and brainstorming that came out of this. It has made a drastic change in my quarantine experience.
Test & Iterate
Throughout this week, I used my Google Calendar, Wunderlist for my to-do lists, family activities plan, as well as my cooking schedule. Around the beginning of the week, I was very overwhelmed by the amount of things that I had in my Google Calendar. I had set amount of time for every activity that I had planned on doing for each day. However, this didn’t go very well. In the begging of the week, I had convinced myself that I could do it. But by Wednesday, it felt like I hadn’t even taken 10 minutes for myself to breathe and just relax. In addition, I realized that I hadn’t put my workout schedule in the calendar, so I found myself waking up earlier than usual to do the workouts, which was fine, but I’ll remember to put that in next time. Some things I need to improve upon:
- I need to give myself flexibility. Some days, I’m going to feel a lot better than other days. In times like those, I want to be able to move things around.
- I need to give myself a little more time for breaks and some time to spend outside, whether it’s running, walking or just to get fresh air.
These are just few things I want to change in the future, but I definitely think that there will be more changes. As for the family activities, they’re going pretty well. We’ve been spending a lot more quality time together doing something rather than just talking about what we did today and the current situation. It helped us laugh a lot more, regardless of what’s happening. Our family could never really work together because of the opposing personalities within us. However, on Monday, when we were making dinner together, we worked together so well and the dinner was delicious too! Lastly, my cooking schedule has been very much a success. I have been very motivated to cook or bake everyday. I’ve learned to make so many different things. Sometimes even my brother comes to “help” but takes all the food with him after. I think one main thing that has motivated me a lot is my brother taking pictures and posting them on instagram. It’s very refreshing to see something I baked/cooked as I’m going through instagram that night. Maybe one thing I could add to my cooking schedule is to create a social media dedicated to it. This way, I don’t have to rely my motivation on whether my brother posts. I can post it myself and see a compilation of my creations.
I haven’t filled my checklist for the week, but looking at it now, it seems as though I can check off 9 out of the 12 things on there, which I would consider a big success, considering it has only been a week. Overall, I’ve been so much more productive than I was. I’m also much more motivated and excited to go through my day. To move my idea up higher in the Design Hierarchy of Needs, I want to create a physical calendar in my room that I can fill every week. I want to hang this calendar right by my bed. This way, I can have a more concrete thing to look at every morning. I also want to make this with colorful and cheerful colors to ensure that I will start every morning with an exciting attitude. Also, I think remaking the design every couple of weeks might be a good idea. Since I’m going to be looking at it every morning, it might be annoying looking at the same design and same colors every day.
Test and Iterate
Over the past week, I have tried to utilize my design for a makeshift art studio as much as possible. Though I knew that my setup would never be as good as the university’s art studios, my setup allowed me to be able to finish my assignment for my painting class, and then complete two more small, paintings. There were some minor tweaks that had to be made to the design. I had to change out the wax paper that was substituting for my pallet a few times ore than expected due to it causing the paint to dry faster, and the stool I was using proved to be too tall for the smaller paintings I was doing, but overall, it worked surprisingly well. Though I was struggling with a way to find inspiration and motivation to actually paint, I found that going outside for walks helped me get inspired. For motivation, I created an Instagram in order to have a place to display my art and I found that once I made this, I wanted to keep posting which motivated me to paint more.
I think the next step in creating this space is to get an actual easel to work with. This would not only make the space more functional and easier to use, but also add to the wow factor by making it a more professional setup. In order to take this project to the next step I have been looking at different types of easel I could get and am probably going to get a standing easel so that I don’t have to continue using a tabletop.
Creating this painting setup changed my quarantine experience by providing me with a way to continue engaging with an activity I love. Creating it also provided me with a challenge that I could focus on to take my mind off what is currently happening with the world. By finding a way to continue creating art, something I love doing, during this stressful time, I feel that I was also creating a way to cope with the times. Painting is a creative outlet for me and, since this quarantine is leaving me with a lot of free time, using this time to create has helped time pass and gotten rid of the boredom I have been feeling.
The overall experience of creating this was very interesting. The entire time I did not really realize that a plan was forming in my mind. Back when I was making a constraint map, I never would have imagined that it would end with me creating a mini paint studio. By using the design process, I feel like I didn’t even realize I was designing something until I was almost done. I hope I can use this process to find other ways to make my quarantine experience more fun and productive.
Test and Iterate
During this past week of using my schedule I have been able to learn a lot about how I can iterate on my design. Overall the schedule has helped me become more productive during the day and feel more motivated to do work. Being able to cross things off my to do list makes me feel proud and accomplished and motivates me to complete more assignments and tasks. Being able to see everything I need to do for the week has made my life more visual which has allowed me to fully realize all the work I need to get done. Seeing it all laid out in front of me creates enough stress in order for me to feel the need to do work. But, with that being said, I find it challenging to motivate myself to start working each day. It was challenging to hold myself accountable to the specific times I allocated in my schedule because there were no real repercussions for not following them. Something I thought of to motivate myself to stay on schedule is to create rewards at the end of each day such as extra freetime or more time to exercise. I have also decided to work on my mindset when going about following my schedule. This past week has been very laid back about following the schedule. If I missed a specific time by five minutes I would think to myself I might as well skip the entire hour. This is a bad mindset to have because I am just letting myself waste more time. In order to work on this I have decided to change my schedule a bit by creating less activities in the day but having each time slot last longer. I think that reducing the amount of times I need to switch activities will allow me to waste less time and be more productive. I have also decided to look at my schedule in a different way. Instead of trying to follow the schedule perfectly I have decided to make it just an outline for my day and allow myself to make variations to the schedule depending on what I need for the day.
I have also realized that working in my room does not provide me with the best environment to be productive. This past week I have been working in my room but one day I randomly decided to work in the dining room. I was able to be more productive and less distracted in the dining room than in my room. I think that this is because it is a space that I can allocate for only work as opposed to a space that I use for all sorts of things. After making this change of where I do my work half way through the week I was able to follow my schedule better because I was less distracted by the things around me. The only problem I have found with working in the dining room is that my dog will come over to me and look at me with those puppy dog eyes saying “Come play with me!” This distraction was not in my room because I was able to close my door but it is now hard for me to resist because I love playing with my dog. In order to reduce this problem I plan to set aside time each morning before I start my work to play with my dog. This will hopefully make her tired so that she will not distract me once I start my work.
In order to push this idea further, I plan to incorporate journaling into my day. After speaking with the class, I realized that a lot of my classmates really enjoyed their time journaling during this time. I hope to be journal each day and create a little story of my life that I could look back on and remember this crazy time in our lives. I think that journaling will also help me bring some sort of calm thinking into my life. Being able to reflect on each day whether it be my accomplishment or my struggles will help me to stay positive and motivated during this time. Journaling may even allow me to come up with new ideas to do during quarantine or help me explore previous ideas and innovate on them.
Overall my experience with the design process has been rewarding. It has helped me become more productive in my house and has taught me some interesting things about the ways in which I work productively. I hope to be able to find a project to do creatively such as embroidering or painting. This will hopefully give me motivation to do my school work so that I can finish and work on something that I love to do. I plan to look back on the beginning of this process and get inspiration from all the opportunities I laid out for myself when we came up with 50 ideas. I plan to incorporate more of them into my everyday schedule and keep working to make my time at home more enjoyable.
Test & Iterate
My prototype worked well for me, and I think that my productivity definitely improved which was my main goal. The first day I found myself using it but it still being something that I had to heavily rely on. Although after a few days I found myself following my “to do” list with more ease as it became apart of my routine with memorization. I think that as I continue to use my prototype I will eventually not even need it anymore and it will all blend with my schedule and become second nature. At first, I thought that it was a bit disappointing that my prototype would eventually not be used, but then I realized that means it really served its purpose. My ultimate goal would be to create something that instills positive life long skills or habits.
After talking with Professors Smith and Allen I agree that I think the next step of my “No Excuses” Quarantine list is making it available for people who have different goals and lists. I would make it into a document that I could email to people that was editable. I have added what I would send below.
My experience with my design was interesting as I had many different ideas but felt as though this one allowed me to incorporate my three main goals for quarantine. This 100 percent changed my quarantine experience because it forced me to think more critically about what I want to accomplish these next few weeks and set goals for myself. Even if I didn’t create a prototype, the brainstorming and design process transformed my mindset. It allowed me to realize that everything can be improved and looked at in many different ways.
Overall, I learned so much from the design process that I will carry throughout various aspects of my life even after this class. Prior to MIDE 300, I did not realize the amount of time and steps that went into creating a prototype or even a good idea. I definitely was one who went immediately to the idea that I had in my head and assumed that it was the best/right solution to a problem or goal. Although, now I really appreciate the process that goes into creating and editing the object.
Test and Iterate
So far my design has been pretty successful. I’ve been doing about the same amount of exercise that I had been doing before, but it’s a lot easier to be motivated than it was before I had started writing everything down. When I wake up I don’t start wondering what I’m gonna do that day, and then start bargaining with myself about how much or how little I’m gonna do that day. Instead I have a clear set of requirements for myself to complete, and instead of bitching out on doing more, I’ll finish what I started because I feel like I owe that.
The actual workouts on my prototype also seemed to be a little off, because they were guesses about what I would do, rather than the type of exercises I had already been doing. For example 20 minutes of core on Tuesday was closer to only 12 because I’d do several good exercises to exhaustion and then I’d only be at around 12 minutes and didn’t see a reason to keep doing it. Also doing the ruck run is kind of dangerous and can result in injuries pretty easily so I made it lighter than I originally had it. But after a couople of weeks doing this I think I should have a good and consistent idea of what kind of exercises I should be doing every day.
I think next I would add more detail to the list, for example number of sets, minimum number of total reps. The counter to this though is that I like just writing “max sets” because I think a workout is most valuable if done until failure. Also I want to increase the amount of miles I’m running each week, and I haven’t planned out an entire week of training with a calculated amount of mileage since high school, and I think doing that will help me hit a higher mileage.
I think a wow factor could be adding something motivational on it. Maybe next to the harder exercises on it I could write down things like “get after it”, or “embrace the suffering”. These are kind of cliche, but when you’re in a really tough workout and you start thinking “They don’t know me” or any cliche motivation quotes you can find this inner strength that you can use to carry yourself through the workout.
I think that using the design process has really improved my motivation in keeping up my workout routine during the quarantine without access to a gym or people to run with. Sure, I probably would have done an equal amount of work had I not made the list, but it would have taken longer and not had the same effort to it. When you make plans to run with someone, or have a set practice time, or make plans to go to the gym, there’s not a lot of procrastinating and debating how much you will do, but when you’re alone and on your own schedule, it’s really easy to fall into this trap of delaying the inevitable, and staring at your shoe laces or checking your phone when you could just start the workout and get it done sooner. Going through the design process I found a solution to this problem. First by thinking about what I could do to improving my life, then by refining these thoughts into ideas. From there, I made my prototype and made the decision to actually use it instead of resorting to my usual procrastination filled routine. Finally I realized that it makes working out alone and at home a much quicker and smoother process, and it holds me accountable for the amount of work I do. If I cheat and cut out workouts, then I’ll feel bad about it and be more motivated to do everything that i wrote down, and maybe even go beyond by doing an extra set or running an extra mile.
Test & Iterate
After using my fitness account on instagram for a week, I would overall consider it a success. It was exciting to post all the different meals I cooked, all inspirations for meals I want to cook in the future, what workout I did that day, etc, and I found that just the simple fact that I would be taking a picture after whatever I did and posting it, motivated me to do it in the first place (and with a little help from caffeine)! Just having a collection of pictures on the account of all the inspiration and progress I made throughout the week was really cool to see and makes me want to continue doing this because I felt a sense of accomplishment looking at it and reflecting. It kinda felt like a virtual diary of sorts because, since I am the only one who can see the account, I could talk about whatever I wanted and in some posts I found myself captioning words of encouragement to myself, which I didn’t anticipate. For example, on one of my posts when I felt like I was struggling during a workout, I posted a picture of my running shoes and captioned, “I kinda struggled with the run today because it was super hot! I’ll make sure to do better and maybe jog in the morning tomorrow instead of the afternoon!”. I think having this account changes how I look at fitness and getting healthy because it is essentially just a place where I can visually see my progress, what inspires me and what motivates me during this journey, which before it was all disorganized in my head.
Throughout the week, I did find some flaws in this design. The largest one being getting ahead of myself with the posting. Especially in the beginning, I found myself scrolling through instagram for an hour or two just looking for workouts, meal ideas, motivation, and workout accounts to follow. I excitedly posted all of these things to my account. I then looked at the collection of photos I had accumulated and immediately got overwhelmed. Where do I even begin? I decided that after that, I needed a little more structure to how I would post in a way that would actually help me, and told myself I would only post at most, 3 times a day. This helped me really prioritize what was important to me that day and what I was most proud of, and I felt that this was more rewarding than just posting random food/inspiration pictures.
If I were to push this idea further, I would consider incorporating 21-day or 30-day challenges for myself on the account to further target any specific goal I had in mind. For example, I could do a 30-day no midnight snacking challenge. I think that when it comes to getting healthy, frequently setting small goals for yourself can help you progress rather than you goal being to just “get healthy”. To add a “wow” factor to this design, I would create an app that could provide more structure, efficiency, and organization when trying to get healthy, and it would also have a space where you can post inspiration pictures, meal/workout ideas, etc, similar to the instagram. The app would also be able to set reminders for you if you needed them. This would improve usability, proficiency, and creativity in the design hierarchy of needs. Of course I would need to do some research on how to make an app but I think this would definitely elevate my concept.
Overall I really enjoyed my experience with the design process. Before this class, I had no idea that this much strategy and thought has gone into creating an idea or design for a product. Breaking it down into stages really helped me see that every step truly is necessary so you don’t leave out any details or make mistakes when trying to make a successful product! It pushed me out of my comfort zone when it came to the sketching, concept board and brainstorming part of the process because I usually don’t transform the ideas in my head into visuals or words, but I found it very helpful throughout this. It was a fun and efficient way to get my ideas our there and find the best ones and I would say that I got the most out of these steps in the design process. I also enjoyed working the the Design Hierarchy of Needs because it helped change my perspective on what my concept really was by categorizing what is was actually doing for users. If I ever come across a project where I need to come up with an idea for a product in the future, I will definitely refer to the Design Process!
Test and Iterate
After using my concept for awhile, I realized that is really only made sense for when I was in a bad mood. I felt the need to vent, as well as make a list of what I needed to do if I was feeling stressed or overwhelmed. I decided to make another Brain Break for when I am in a good mood. This Brain Break again asks what is on your mind, but then it asks you to list three good things that are contributing to your mood. I think that this was a good addition to the bad mood brain break because it allows you to look back on the things that put you in a good mood, and hopefully remember and be able to replicate those things in the future.
Before I made changes, I primarily used my Brain Break Journal when I was feeling stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed. The venting section was really good for me, as once I wrote down everything that was going on in my head I felt a lot more clarity. Writing down three things to improve my mood was also extremely helpful because it gave me a non overwhelming to-do list that I knew would make me feel more at ease.
Before I made this journal, I knew that writing stuff down helpful me but I never had an organized outlet to do so. I also knew that making a list of things I should get done usually helps me, but again I didn’t have a formal way of doing this. My brain break journal totally changed the way I deal with stress and anxiety. Usually, I just kind of let the thoughts sit in my head which causes me even more stress and leads me to being a lot less productive. After developing a formal way to express my stress relieving techniques, I can say that I have been a lot more productive and have found that easing my anxiety is a lot easier and quicker. The fact that such a simple design can make such a big difference is definitely a big take away for me.
The next place I might take this idea is beyond just good an bad feelings. I might try to make a brain break for a bunch of different emotions. I would still keep the prompts very simple and straightforward, but I would tailor them to specific moods and what prompts would be the most helpful for such moods. I might also make an end of the day Brain Break, to fill out at the end of a day after taking one or two Brain Breaks to evaluate how you are doing and if what you did earlier in the day improved your mood or not.
To add a wow factor, I might make the Brain Break journal into an app. The app could send you notifications throughout the day to take a Brain Break, and whatever mood you pick that you are in there would be different prompts to fill out. You could also just go into the app whenever you want and complete a Brain Break, which would be especially helpful when you want to relieve some stress. I think that this journal being in the form of an app would make it more usable and would encourage people to use it a lot more.
My overall experience using the design process went a lot differently than I thought. Usually when I don’t use this process, I end up designing the first good idea that comes to my head. A lot of the time, once I end up trying to execute this idea it does not turn out as good as I envisioned. Using the design processed forced me to take things one step at a time, and not rush into a final decision of what I was going to make right away. The Brain Break journal is not at all what I thought I was going to make when I started this process, but I am really happy with the way it turned out and I think that is due to using all the steps in the design process.
Test and Iterate
My original idea that I decided to work on and iterate was a planner and checklist to follow while I am home. I want to create concrete goals for the remainder of the quarantine and increase my daily productivity. After trying to use my planner for the past week, I realized that there were a few things that weren’t working for me.
Firstly, I have found it hard to adjust my sleeping schedule to what my agenda had outlined. My agenda calls for sleeping at 12 AM and waking up at 9:30 AM. I still think that is an ideal sleeping schedule, but certain bad habits and aspects of my quarantine schedule conflict with this plan. For example, one of the only times that I connect with a large group of friends is at night when we play online poker and zoom. While I would like it to start earlier, a lot of times people aren’t able to get on until 11 PM, which means I stay up later than 12 AM a lot of nights. I wish that I could easily just avoid the temptation to stay on the zoom call, but because I miss my friends, it’s hard for me to do so. In the morning, my bad habit of ignoring alarms and sleeping in late has also been a source of struggle for me. To resolve these issues, I decided to make my bedtime and wake-up time a little more flexible ranging from 12 AM-1 AM and 9:30 AM- 10 AM, respectively. I also have made it a rule to turn off my main bedroom light by 10:30 PM to let myself get tired at night, and in the morning, I have made it a rule for myself that I can not use my phone (check texts, go on social media, watch a youtube video, etc) until I go downstairs and start making breakfast. Another rule that I have made for myself is that I can not make coffee after 10:30 AM. I really love coffee, so knowing that I will have to sacrifice it for the day if I don’t get downstairs will definitely help motivate me to get out of bed.
I have also added meditation back into my schedule. I have never been able to put meditation into my daily routine, but I have always believed in the benefits of it. My mom even paid for my brother and I to take lessons in meditation a few years ago, so I feel especially obligated to keep trying. I will do this before breakfast and before dinner for 20 minutes as I had been taught. I hope that this might give me some extra strength, peace, and introspection.
To make sure that I stay on track with starting homework on time, I have added in a new aspect of my schedule which includes Facetiming my boyfriend. He always starts homework pretty early and is done by mid-day, which is my goal. He doesn’t really need anyone to keep him on track, but he’s agreed to Facetime while we do our homework to create a more motivating environment. The point of Facetime isn’t to talk, it’s actually the opposite, both of us are to mute ourselves and talk as little as possible. I have always been a lot better at doing homework with friends because when to take a break, I can have a quick 5-minute conversation instead of getting sucked into my phone or laptop.
The rest of my schedule is pretty much the same as it had been before, but I have added that even when it comes to my free-time activities, I would like to include my friends whenever possible. For example, if I decide that I want to clean my room or organize a certain portion of it, I can ask my friends if any of them need to do the same and we can Facetime to keep each other company. As I mentioned before, I love to work with friends, and that applies to all things, not just homework.
A detail that I changed is that I took Facetime out of my list of activities because I have incorporated it into my schedule in other ways, and I have found that I Facetime people at random times every day and it is not something that I need to plan or schedule. I substituted that activity with the activity of repurposing clothing. I have always really liked to cut up/sew/patch clothing as projects, so that’s something I would like to start again.
Finally, I changed a few things about the format of my schedule. I changed the title from “My Daily Planner” to “Today I get to…” to serve as a reminder of how lucky my family and I are. I am so lucky that some of my greatest concerns right now are what to do with all this time. I also took out the checklist that I planned to use to write down my homework tasks. I realized that I don’t really need to do this because I use my physical planner to write down what I want to accomplish, and using the checklist would mean I would need to print a new one out every day. I didn’t even print it once because I hated the idea of wasting paper. I adjusted this template so that I can print it once and hang it up in my room and not feel as guilty. The last change was that I took out most of the timing checkpoints that were a part of my schedule. I figure that every day my schedule will vary depending on how much homework I have, when my mom makes dinner, etc, so it is more important that I just follow the agenda in order, instead of on time.
With each day I have been able to realize what works for me and what does not. It’s a great way to understand the design process. When I made the prototype, I felt a bit overwhelmed because I knew there were things that I didn’t love about it, but I wasn’t sure how to resolve those issues or even identify some of them. However, after discussing my concept with a few different people and using the prototype, myself, I was able to slowly edit it, one aspect at a time. When I finally sat down to make all the changes to the original, I realized how much better the new design was suited for my daily life. I believe that I could still make future iterations that are superior to this one, and that is what is so exciting about the design process: it is potentially endless. I am thankful for this assignment, because while I do have faith in myself to have possibly made some of these habitual changes eventually, it has definitely expedited and streamlined the effort.
OLD:
NEW:
Test and Iterate Reflection
As I started using my design, the fill in the blank daily schedule, I noticed a number of things. First being that I needed more spaces for daily chores, such as doing my laundry or cleaning my room. Additionally, I needed more room for overall error, recognizing that each day will not go perfectly as planned. Going forward, I would add more free spaces and also spread things out more. Realistically, I would have more time for other activities because, for example, eating lunch would probably not take an entire hour (as pictured on my schedule). I would also like to find a method which enforces that certain things on the option list get accomplished, such as, cleaning my room. In order to do this a possible solution might be to put the not-so-fun activities in red and require that I have at least one red activity on my schedule each day so that I am being productive but also doing fun activities such as drawing.
This design changed my experience throughout quarantine because it gave each day a purpose and a plan. The most important component that I realized for me personality was the fact that it forced me to get dressed and out of my pajamas. In a time of self-isolation, it is so easy to lay in bed all day and not get ready which would definitely negatively affect my mental state after a while. I planned each schedule the night before and would wake up knowing that I had a list of activities that I needed to accomplish, making me feel more motived and urgent in getting out of bed.
I would take this idea a step further by adding a reflective space on the bottom of each day. This way, at night as I was planning tomorrow’s events, I would realize what went well and what could’ve gone better that day, to improve it even more for the next day. This way, the creativity aspect on the design hierarchy of needs is more represented so that I can discover what works for me and what doesn’t and think of new ways to go about each day.
Using the design process was a very helpful method for this process. Initially, I did not understand the constraint map and honestly found it to be a little backwards. Later I realized that the whole point of it is to recognize problems in order to create real and working solutions. Without recognizing what needs to be fixed in the first place, a design might end up with no real purpose. I was able to see what my made concern was during this time, and brainstorm concepts on how to fix it, which then led to concrete ideas and solutions.
Test & Iterate Reflection
I have made a few changes to my first prototype development, which was my schedule for making bracelets and necklaces. After about a week of execution and practice with this schedule I realized I didn’t have everything together in order to execute everything on it, as there was an issue with accessing the Instagram account I planned to post on which I’m still trying to figure out. Therefore, I decided to change my schedule for the current moment to just making / beading, as well as taking photos. I will say have the schedule to remind me to stay productive and actually make at least one piece of jewelry everyday has been very helpful – as you can see in the photos I’ve included.
I think I had a good design plan prototype but I could’ve taken it a few steps further and created like a mood board for the kind of jewelry I wanted to make. I found myself researching to get inspired anyway, and I realize after the fact that I should have from the start put together inspiration in order to speed up the process – so that’s something I want to do as I continue with this project. However making a plan definitely changed my experience for the better, because it held me accountable rather than like, let me just make something while I’m bored because I enjoy it. It helped me stay focused and productive, and I’m definitely going to keep this going for the future of the business.
I think next I need to develop the idea further to come up with the end goal for myself. Do I want to push selling jewelry right now? Or just send to my friends to cheer them up during this time? Or just make a ton to prepare for the summer so that when we get into pop-up shops and having to make a lot I’m prepared? Over the next fews I think I need to narrow down my focus for the future goal – and it could even be multiple of those things !
In terms of adding a wow factor I think this goes back to my point on making an inspiration board. How can I make something that no one has seen before and isn’t similar to other designs I’ve made – with the same beads? Is there anything online that can really make a difference in the inspiration process? I need to explore this further in order to develop the best jewelry I can make!
In terms of the design process overall – I found it really useful. I have never developed anything this way, and found it tough to come up with 50 whole ideas. However on the flip side of that I also found it inspiring that there were so many opportunities to spend the amount of time I currently have – whether I narrowly focused in on them or not it really reminded me how many directions it was possible to go in. I also enjoyed developing a prototype with the idea in mind that there was always room to grow and expand the original idea – as I have personally realized I have to do. I have included some photos as well of product I made and I can’t wait to see where the iteration process takes me even further during this semester at home.
Test and Iterate
After using my concept for a few days, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish all the activities I’d listed for myself before April 9. However, that doesn’t mean that I won’t continue them until they’re accomplished. I put turquoise colored check marks in the “Read Two New Books” and “28 Day Workout Challenge” circles to represent activities that I’ve completed only halfway, and dark blue checkmarks in the ones I’ve fully completed. I only had enough time to finish Becoming, as I had a lot of work to do for school this past week. I hope I’ll be able to start reading The Long Walk this weekend, though! As for the 28 day workout challenge, I’m actually exactly fourteen days into it, so that resulted in a half-way checkmark as well. I also embroidered with an embroidery loop, as opposed to embroidering jeans like I originally planned.
I think my experience with my design went pretty well, as it was nice to see my activity goals in a visual way. Also, checking off the goals that I’d completed felt really satisfying, and it showed me that I’m making the most of my spare time at home. Before creating my prototype and setting these five goals for myself, I found myself doing whatever I wanted on a daily basis. Sometimes, a day or two would go by and the only things I’d have accomplished were taking notes on the lectures my math professor posted on Moodle and watching more episodes of All American on Netflix. I was letting my days go to waste, and it not only hindered what things I could’ve accomplished, it also caused me to be really unmotivated.
Creating my activities planner allowed me to set goals for myself, but at the same time it wasn’t strict to the point where I’d feel bad if I were to miss a planned activity on a certain day. Some days I would only do my workout challenge, and other days I would do a little bit of everything. Knowing that I accomplished something every day that would add up to a completed product felt extremely rewarding. After coming out of this experience and having completed many planned activities, I know I will use this technique in the future to make my days more efficient, especially during the summer.
I believe that my prototype helped me attain Creativity and Proficiency on the Design Hierarchy of Needs. I was able to complete two projects, painting and embroidery, and my day to day activities were more proficient than before. When we first entered this quarantine period, I think I was mostly just functioning. I was doing basic things, nothing really that challenging or new in any way. I’m really glad that at the end of this design process, I’ve moved way past this Functionality aspect.
Test & Iterate
My “To-Do” poster has been extremely helpful in increasing my productivity and organization. After completing certain assignments or workouts, I cross off or erase that task. I usually keep a similar to-do list on my computer, however, I have found that the ability to cross off a completed task on paper is more rewarding. I have enjoyed my prototype, as it is a different version of a to-do list that I would normally use on either my computer or planner. The purpose of creating a poster was to ensure that I could always see the assignments I needed to complete and the assignments that I have yet to complete. My prototype has encouraged me to be more productive during the day with school assignments and it has also reminded me of the importance of self-care. With the 30-day workout challenge in the center of the board, it has been a constant reminder to stay active and to also focus on myself during quarantine. The first couple of weeks in quarantine were difficult, as I was unmotivated to do any of my work, however, my experience changed with my prototype, as it made me more accountable for my work and constantly reminded me of what needed to be completed that day or week.
While using my prototype, I have noticed some flaws regarding my design that I want to alter in the future. First, I decided to use post-it notes to keep track of my assignments. I wanted to use the least amount of paper as possible, so I decided to reuse the original post-it notes for as long as they would stay on the board. I found this difficult, as the post-it notes would easily rip when erasing or fall off the board. I want to use a white-board material, so it is more sustainable and the writing can be easily erased. I also want to make a check-list for my self-care reminders, so it will motivate me to take the time out of my day to prioritize my favorite self-care activities. I think that my next step in my design would be to focus on sustainability, and to incorporate the self-care component more in my design, as it is an important factor that I need to prioritize during quarantine. I think I could also improve on the overall aesthetic and appearance of the board.
I can improve on the creativity and innovation component on the Design Hierarchy of Needs. I expressed my interest in altering the physical appearance of the board and I think that the creativity component will be extremely helpful for this part of the design. I may reorganize each section by color. For example, I will use blue colors for the school work section, as blue is a more calming and intellectual color, and for the workout section on my board, I would use the color red, as it is more power evoking and energetic. I think that the use of productive and motivational colors would impact my emotions towards each task and section.
I enjoyed using the design process to create my “To-Do” poster. It was helpful that we broke down each part of the design process, as I think many people tend to skip certain steps or do not recognize the importance of each step in the process. For me, the inspiration and identification stage was the most impactful part of the design process. I was able to think of and connect different ways COVID-19 was impacting different parts of society and the world. The third step, conceptualization, provided a more visual understanding of my ideas from the first two stages. I was also able to reflect on my current state and personal goals during quarantine. When we started this project, I was confused about the prototype that I would ultimately create and its relation to COVID-19. However, after the third stage, I started to visualize different ideas that helped create my brainstorm and three visual concepts. The next two stages, exploration and refinement, and definition and modeling, helped create a more finalized plan for my prototype. However, I had difficulty starting to conceptualize these three concepts. With limited instructions, I was confused on where to begin and how these three concepts could be translated into a prototype. I think I focused too much on the final product in this stage, rather than simply creating a visual representation of my ideas. The final two stages, communication and production, were also difficult to start, as I had three concepts to incorporate in my prototype. However, after I created my prototype I was extremely excited to share my ideas with others and see how it would impact my quarantine experience. I was unable to recognize how each step would impact my final design when completing each step of the design process. However, after completing the design process, I recognized the value of each step and the importance of taking each step seriously as it will impact the final design.
Test & Iterate
Since I created my prototype, about a week ago, I have used it as a space to create two works of art. I made my first work the day after I made my prototype, since I was so excited to use the space and my art supplies. I drew a butterfly on one of my canvases and colored it in with paint pens. While making this piece, I was watching Netflix on my laptop. Watching Netflix on my laptop is something that I have been spending a lot of time doing while social distancing, so pairing that activity with a more productive one made me feel a lot better about it. The combination of the two activities also made both activities a little more enjoyable and relaxing. The next work that I created was a portrait. I have never been confident in my ability to draw people since most times in the past when I have tried to, I was not happy with my finished product. However, realistic portrait drawing has always been something that I have wanted to be good at. Because of this, I wanted to try drawing a portrait again just to see where my skills were at. I decided to draw a picture of Billie Eilish because she has distinct facial features that I thought would make the process easier for me. I sat at my desk and drew the image while listening to music. In the end, I was actually pretty impressed with my drawing. I know that I still have a lot of room for improvement, but I think that I proved to myself that I have the potential to get better at these kinds of drawings.
The only change I made to my design after using it was putting newspaper down on my desk in order to prevent damage to the desk’s surface. I decided to do this because when I was drawing with paint pens, it got a little messy and some color got on the desk. I thought that a protective layer, like newspaper, would be the best way to prevent this from happening again. Also, newspaper would make cleaning up easy since I could just throw it out. In terms of the designer hierarchy of needs, it is not so easy to think of a “wow factor” addition to my design. I think that maybe a new organization system or easel might improve my experience. However, I do not feel that these things are completely necessary for me right now.
So far, I have really enjoyed using my design. Prior to transforming my desk into an art space, it was an area in my room that was largely unused. And, ever since being in quarantine, the only place in my room I have been spending time is my bed. Now, I think that my new desk design has really changed the experience of being in my room for me since I spend less time lounging around. Judging from what I have already experienced with my design, I think that making art in my room will be a great quarantine hobby for me. It has made me feel a bit more productive and is also somewhat of an escape for me. I also am starting to appreciate some of the free time I have since I would never spend so much time on art under normal circumstances. My design also led me to make some other changes in my room. While sitting at my desk, I noticed that the couch in my room is really close to it, and was making the space feel a bit confined. Because of this, I did some rearranging; I moved my couch closer to my bed and moved my dresser to the space my couch was previously in. Although I was not planning for my design to cause me to rearrange my room, I was happy with the results. I think my new room setup is a bit refreshing since it doesn’t feel so much like I’m stuck in my highschool bedroom.
The design process was a lot less simple than I thought it would be. Things such as the constraint map, and brainstorming, were not easy for me. I was unsure of what kind of issues I could include in my constraint map and if there were “right” or “wrong” answers. And, having to brainstorm so many ideas was definitely a challenge for me. After coming up with about half of the ideas, I got a bit stuck and it took a while to finish my list. Also, I did not know if I could be creative enough to convert any of my brainstorm ideas into a real design. At times, I was questioning certain aspects of the design process and did not see how they directly related to the design process. For example, my constraint map included larger societal issues so I could not see how I could incorporate anything from my map into a design. However, although I did have some struggles and concerns throughout the design process, I also had a lot of positive experiences. I enjoyed the more visual activities such as creating my concept board, 3 sketches, and prototype. Drawing out sketches made my brainstorm ideas come to life in ways where I could imagine taking my ideas further. And, getting to create my prototype was a great experience since I was able to relate it back to all of the earlier steps of the design process in order to see how one led to another.
Test and iterate
When first faced with the task to “intentionally design our habitats to adapt as well as we possibly can to our new environment” I didn’t really know what that could entail other than rearranging a room. I was still conflicted about how I could tackle this task after doing the constraint map. Then I was looking through social media and I saw a lot of “30-day challenges” for working out or self-care and I had previously done a few and thought that it would be fun to make my own for things to do during the quarantine. Once I had the idea, it felt like everything came together very quickly. I immediately knew what kinds of things I would put on there, as many of them were things that I enjoy doing and have wanted to do more of but never had the time at school. I loved making it look pretty and organizing everything into the template.
One of the things that I didn’t truly factor in making the challenge was materials or weather. For example, I initially put baking as one of the first days, but when I went to go make some recipes I had found online, I realized we didn’t have all of the ingredients I needed and would have to wait to go to the supper market because we are only shopping once a week. The other one was the weather. I had put outdoor activities such as bike ride and walk on the beach earlier on the schedule, but when the day came for a bike ride, it was bad weather so I had to move a few things around.
Overall I think that the challenge has made life a little better in quarantine and has gotten me to do other things besides watch tv. I have found that I have been doing some of the activities more than just the days I scheduled them. For example, I have played the guitar more than just the two lessons I scheduled for the past week which has been super fun, and I have probably baked and cooked so many different things than just one day. It has also been nice to cross off each day with a big red X showing what I have accomplished and how far I’ve come.
I think I could take this to the next step by using it not just during quarantine, but during other times of my life. I can also change up the activities depending on the month/ season like if I wanted to do it during the summer I could put sailing or swimming, or if it were in the fall I could go apple picking and go to a football game. Also, maybe I could add the wow factor of having to document each day’s activity in a fun way either through a picture or a short video and then at the end of the challenge I have a whole scrapbook or video of memories to show what I accomplished.
Overall, I really liked learning about the design process and putting it into a real-world context. I think the hardest part was the constraints, because of how I was really unsure of what I should be including and also what the actual constraints are for the pandemic. I really loved the brainstorming phase because I have been in a lot of different brainstorming situations from themes of parties to what we should have for dinner, and I loved the concept of letting your brain go to the farthest and craziest edges. I feel like I still have to work on the testing and iterating part of the process, as a lot of times when I have an idea, that is final and I don’t like to change it. Whereas now I know that iteration is really important in making the idea even that much better. I hope to continue to use the design process not only in my career but in many more areas of my life.
Test and Iterate
After the first couple of days of making the scrapbook, one change I decided to make was the format. For my prototype, I had used an online platform to set up and design the pages, but after a couple of days having to rely on my extremely unreliable wi-fi to make the pages, email the pictures to myself, and upload the pictures to the platform to make the pages grew to be too much. It was extremely frustrating to be forced to rely so much on the wi-fi, and so I decided to switch to a more traditional platform: paper, markers, tape, and ribbon. I had originally avoided using these more hands-on materials due to the scarcity of them actually in my house. My family, though very artsy in terms of performance art, isn’t particularly crafty and I wasn’t sure how much I would be able to find. After scrounging up some old construction paper and glitter glue from lord-knows-when, I started to make my scrapbook again. The more I worked on it as a hands-on project versus online, the more that I found I was actually enjoying it a lot more. It gave me the ability to work in different areas of the house and explore with the texture of the materials as well as just the look to make the scrapbook something really special.
After switching over to a physical format, I realized how much easier making the scrapbook was since I didn’t have to be the sole contributor. I asked my sisters and my parents to each make a page and add it to the stack of pages I already had along with their name signed along the bottom. But I didn’t want this to be just about my own experience. I thought of this project as a form of documentation of the whole COVID-19 pandemic experience, not just my own. So, on Monday I decided to reach out to a very close family friend of ours who is a Kindergarten teacher in my hometown who had been talking about the fact that she was running out of assignments to give her students. I proposed the idea of asking each kid in her class to make a page for their own scrapbook. These pages could then be dropped off at her house when the parents were dropping off/picking up books for reading and she could piece it together and make copies for all the kids to have. She seemed really intrigued by the idea, and when we talked again yesterday she mentioned that she was in the process of coming up with a writing assignment around the scrapbook idea. For my own scrapbook, over the past week, I’ve begun contacting family and friends from all different places proposing the idea that they make a page, or do a write-up and send me a paragraph or two and some pictures, and putting together a book of all our experiences. My brother and his college friends, most of whom I’ve only met once, have taken to emailing me different poems, short stories, or essays that they’ve written as well as little anecdotes about the past few weeks. A couple of my friends still on campus sent me a video of themselves watching movies, doing work, and fooling around. I’m still working on developing the format since the more things I get the less practical the physical copy has become, but it’s obviously still a work in progress.
Overall, using the design process for this assignment has been interesting. It has certainly pushed the boundaries of what I thought was the “right” way of doing projects and making decisions, and in many ways has pushed me outside of my comfort zone as well as helping me to make new comfort zones. It’s definitely a process that I still feel I need to work on, it’s not a perfectly natural thing for me and it’s going to take a lot of practice, but I feel that it is something I can learn to do if I keep trying. I think some of the harder parts of the process came from having to translate thought into words or concepts since I am someone who is very comfortable working in abstractions and with theoretical thought, and sometimes switching to the concrete can be disconcerting since I tend to act in a “decision making” way and dismiss any of the weirder or crazy ideas as unrealistic right away. Training myself to not just think in terms of complete abstraction or complete realism was/is definitely the hardest part of the design process, but I also think it’s one of the more fun parts. I look forward to being able to continue working on the design process and changing my own habits in terms of thought and creation.
Test and Iterate
From start to finish, this project was a lot more complicated than I was originally anticipating. After starting with the constraint map, I was a little nervous continuing on with the project. This is because I had never done anything like it before, so I was worried I wouldn’t hold up to the standards my professors were anticipating. Then for the next challenge, trying to come up with 50 brainstorming ideas was really hard. I was stumped after idea 10. Fortunately, I was able to see what other students thought processes were on the MIDE site which helped inspire me to complete the next 40. After the hardship of coming up with ideas, the concept board came easy. However, it did make me nervous when I saw that everyone else looked differently. But I was proud of my work and how I thought it best summed up my brainstorming ideas with a personal and universal touch to it. It was from that point on where I started to get really excited about the challenges because I like to do more hands-on activities. For the three-concepts project, I knew right when I read the prompt that I wanted to make a video. I was fortunate enough to choose the family activity the night before this project was due so I got my family to assist me so we can do something different that’s not a board game. I did run into a roadblock when I was trying to come up with a prototype. However, after thinking about all the ways my concepts were related and then conversing about it with my peers, I settled on a 30-day challenge. When creating this challenge I wanted to add some excitement to my daily routine. I chose activities that I have enjoyed in the past but haven’t fully had the opportunity to do due to my hectic college schedule.
Before creating my prototype I started getting into a routine that was like a blackhole. Yes, it was productive, however, I started to find my activities less and less intriguing. After beginning my 30-day challenge, I have found that I’m excited with every new day that comes. This is because I have something new to look forward to that changes every day. I appreciate having a variety of activities, yet have some consistency so I can elaborate and improve the experience. For example, go on more complex adventures or dive deeper into a book. By adjusting my activities will allow for more innovation. Another reason why I like the 30-day challenge is because I can see ways in which I can improve it.
One way that I’ve already transformed my prototype is by inserting pictures of the activity I completed on my challenge calendar. Therefore, I can visually see my progress. Even though I am six days in, by looking back at what I have done has given me a sense of accomplishment and a boost of encouragement to continue this journey. Another way I can improve my prototype is by making two activities instead of one (one in the morning and one at night). Therefore, I can keep the repetitiveness of it (like read books) yet it will allow me to try new things at the same time.
A wow factor that I could use for my project is inputting videos instead of using photos. At the end of the challenge I can string the videos all together to show my journey throughout the 30 days. What inspired me for this was my Video 365 application. For the past three years, I have been documenting a second each day of my life. When New Years comes around, I string all 365 videos together. This allows me to reflect on my past and see all of the happiness that year has brought me, and help me bring back good memories that came from it. So if I do something similar to that with my challenge it will have more immediate results and allow me a higher sense of accomplishment.
Overall, this design process was a lot harder than I was originally anticipating. At first glance all of the activities seem “easy-peasy lemon-squeezy,” however, when you dive in, it’s a lot more complicated. Trying to think outside the box is really difficult and takes a lot of time and effort to work through ideas until you reach a solution that you’re happy with. In terms of the design hierarchy, I believe that creating the prototype hit the usability phase of the pyramid since it incorporates all the basic ideas that were considered before and transforms it into something tangible. Proficiency and creativity will come after the prototype has been tested for a while so I can properly alter it to become as innovative as it can be. I’m excited to see how this process will progress in the future. After using this design process, I am more confident to tackle other projects with the same kind of tactics to grow an idea into something better.
Test and Iterate
This past week in following my daily schedule and routine, I have definitely made some tweaks. For example, some days I had more homework than others and I was able to spend my time doing other things such as painting, playing board games with my parents, or being lazy and watching reality tv. Another thing that I have been loose on is my wake up time. I am a person who requires a lot of sleep, so waking up before 10am on some days is just not a priority, especially on the days in which I do not have much to do. I think that the most helpful part of making a schedule was being able to keep myself accountable and to be able to follow and normal routine like I was doing when I was at school. Especially in times like this, routines are very important because if you are just sitting around all day it can cause you to go a bit stir-crazy. Another part of my schedule that I have been utilizing and enjoying is the time scheduled for exercise. Not only does exercising help me with my school work, but it keeps me motivated and allows me to get out of my house for an hour without breaking social distancing rules. Overall, making a schedule has been very beneficial to my days in quarantine. The best benefit to the schedule is that it has helped me to stay organized and on-top of things and has encouraged me to write out the things that I need to do and complete.
Personally, I love to be creative so making a schedule allowed me to spend time on creating the ideal layout, colors, and sections to include that would most benefit me. My experience with the design was fun for me because planning and organizing my days is something that I enjoy and it helps to relax me having all the things that I need to do laid out in front of me. My schedule has definitely changed my experience in quarantine as I have mentioned above in that it keeps me motivated and accountable and prevents me from having any excuse as to why I haven’t completed an assignment. Moving forward, even when things go back to normal, I think that I will implement this daily scheduling into my life at school. While it may be more loosely scheduled as there will be more things going on, I like how it keeps me organized and allows me to be prepared in tackling my day to day activities and deadlines.
Since the pinnacle of the design process is creativity, a ‘wow’ factor for my design would be something that is usable for everyone and include elements that are beneficial to all users. This could entail digital and well as printable versions, a range of colors and layouts depending on the month, or an editable formatting option that allows users to have their choice in formats that would suit them best.
For me, I like to do things in steps. I believe that everything is a process and it takes time. It is easy to get overwhelmed when a giant project is thrown at you all at once with one deadline. So, I enjoyed the design process as it allowed me to think about one thing at a time which allowed me to better develop my ideas. Also, it was beneficial when at the start we created a giant list of ideas and from there were able to curate a smaller list until we eventually picked our final idea.
Test & Iterate
After using my prototype for a few days, I found myself making changes by essentially just ignoring some of the things I had written down. These ideas either didn’t flow well in my day or they weren’t benefitting me in the way I had initially intended. For example, the routine I strayed from the most was the nightly routine. I didn’t follow much of a schedule or routine at night other than skincare and meditation, which I added in after the fact. I also added more things specific to working out, exercising and diet. I altered the working out aspect of my prototype to make it more specific so I could have a goal for myself that was also realistic knowing my personal habits. I altered that to make it so I was doing it at least 3 to 4 times a week so I wasn’t on a strict daily schedule. Another aspect that was slightly altered was the movie and game time with my family because that is something that is not completely under my control and everyone has to be on board to participate in an activity like that. I also have just not been following it as strictly as I had initially intended, but it has worked out because it has helped me more with possible ideas for what I will do on a specific day within my routine. I also never kept up with keeping a journal as much as I would’ve liked to because I felt like the days began to get away from me. I made changes along the way and they were pretty much unintentional given that I just chose to either create something new or not do something I felt wasn’t helping me. Two other additions I had were painting and cooking, which I added to the “mood lifters” section. These were both things that I have spent a lot of time doing and have enjoyed my time doing them.
I printed out my prototype and put it on my wall above my desk, where I do most of my work and spend a lot of my time during the day. I left it the way it was and didn’t physically alter it at all. If I made changes, they were either mental or I wrote them down on my phone within my smaller and more specific daily schedules. I have definitely found myself taking advantage of the “mood lifters” section within the prototype. When I have had free time, I have either looked at the poster I had put above my desk or thought of something that I had been doing in days past that would be beneficial in my free time. I also found that when using my prototype, it became less focused on my self care and more focused on just having a general organization and routine to my days. Although it has helped significantly with focusing on self care processes and ideas, I found that it was less specific to this area than I had intended. However, I think this was a positive change because I was able to be focused on my life in general, with selfcare leading the way,
This routine and planner has definitely helped me to fill time in my days and has given me something to fall back on. I have been able to use a daily schedule that helps me to feel productive and has benefited my personal self care. I have enjoyed my experience overall and it has definitely helped me get through the weeks. I have turned my prototype into more of a routine and I have taken full advantage of making daily schedules within the ideas in the prototype. Having this prototype has actually changed my experience in small but meaningful ways. It helped me to motivate myself initially and gave me structure and guidance for how I was going to plan out the rest of my semester. It allowed me to really think about and explore new ideas that I had in the back of my mind and finally had the time to pursue them. Without this prototype and the motivation of the design challenge, I probably would’ve just gone through the motions with my time in quarantine.
I think if I were to expand on this prototype I would try to push myself harder to move out of my comfort zone. Instead of changing things on the prototype that I felt I wouldn’t be able to do well or that was too difficult, I would try to push myself to do things that I was somewhat hesitant about initially. Another way I could push myself could be changing the prototype every couple of days or after a week to make it more difficult as I get more comfortable. I would also make categories more specific, like my diet and other specific workout exercises. This corresponds with the proficiency category in the designer’s hierarchy of needs, where I would be consistently trying to make each week better and harder for me so that I actually improve and make progress with what I want to achieve. I also think this relates to the reliability category, because I need to make sure I am making a consistent effort to stay on top of what I am doing each day and week, along with my goals for the near future. The creativity category could help to push me further and make it more challenging for myself in coming up with more unique and creative ideas and habits.
In thinking about the design challenge as a whole, I have enjoyed the way this class and the design process has helped me create a new normal amongst the disruption of COVID-19. Exploring and seeking opportunities for positive change has been extremely beneficial for me and I think I will continue with this design challenge concept even beyond this class. I think I personally work well with attempting to design habits. Specifically with being at home due to COVID-19, it was helpful at the beginning with envisioning the following 6-12 weeks because I was able to map out and think about potential ideas. The concept board was one of my favorite parts of the design challenge as a whole because it made me think of many different ideas that I could potentially pursue during my time at home. In exploring a broader range of ideas, I covered many different areas of my life that I want to improve on or explore. hese ideas expanded beyond my prototype and I have started other projects and pursued other ideas that I didn’t choose to use for my final prototype. Thinking back, the processes allowed me to have something to look forward to and focus on throughout these bad times. It gave me something to be passionate about when many of the aspects of our lives that we are passionate about have been stripped away.
Test & Iterate
After completing the first week of my guitar lesson prototype, I realized I underestimated how much I remembered. I quickly got bored with the exercises I was doing and found that I wanted to get right into learning the songs. I decided to change the timeline a little so that the reviewing of chords is only one week rather than two so I can get back into learning songs and doing what I enjoy. I also found that playing songs is great practice for chords and strumming.
My favorite part about the prototype was the journaling aspect which I did not expect. This addition was kind of an after thought, but it was what I looked forward to the most. Listing my accomplishments and reflecting on my struggles made me feel like I was really making progress. Identifying my frustrations helped focus me in my other practice sessions. Another important tool that helped motivate me to practice was my reward/punishment system. On days where I didn’t really feel like playing, I did a 20 or 30 minute workout to get my body moving. Usually afterwards, I felt productive and wanted to do something with my day–namely guitar. Also, to reward myself for practicing, I would eat some ice cream or cookies since I usually practiced after dinner.
My experience with this design was productive and positive. I was reminded of the things I really enjoyed doing, and making that Brainstorming list has really helped me when I catch myself being bored. With 50 items on a list, at least one of them would make me feel better. Moving into the Prototype, I wasn’t really sure how to create something that would truly make me relearn guitar the way I wanted to. Making something aesthetically pleasing and simple seemed the best place to start, and after creating my original timeline I pushed myself to expand on it. I think that this design changed my experience during quarantine because it made me do more with my day than just stare at screens. I could rest my eyes and take pride in listening to music that I am playing with my own hands. Being in quarantine, it is hard to find things to be proud of doing, but playing guitar was extremely rewarding.
I would love to expand this idea into more weeks with more songs that I can add to my skills. Also, implementing review in the plan so that I don’t forget any old songs that I have learned. Also, if there was a way to make this into a challenge with two people, competition would definitely aid in learning quicker and better. Creating a community within this challenge could add a ‘wow factor’ that brings people together in a time of isolated crisis.
My overall experience with the design process was rewarding. I do wish that we had the opportunity to work with our small businesses to create a website, but this was rewarding in a different way. This process gave me an awareness of my own actions and a choice to do more with my day than just watch television and be scared of becoming sick. Beautiful things can still happen and exist among a crisis.
Test and Iterate
I changed my prototype jar using a memory jar I previously made (I would put receipts of memories in there such as little notes, movie tickets, museum tickets, etc). By combining these together, my previous prototype has really grown in strength and capacity. Now, not only can I be reminded of good memories and be inspired to make more after this social distancing and quarantine period, but I have added a new challenge to the jar. Now, when I pull out one of those memories, I will be challenged to rethink it in a new way- such as a way I could use that memory to make a new related one inside the house, or plan something related to that memory to do when this is all over. It will bring out more creativity inside me, and also work towards plans in the future. It is also just a fun experience to be reminded of good times and reflect on them and how I’ve changed since, like a diary. I also think it brings in another component I mentioned in my self-care concept, meditation and reflection. I can pull out memories and reflect on the components that went into it (physical space, businesses, weather, people, whether that or they are still around or how those components have changed since). This reflection will help me navigate my experiences and feelings in this new context of appreciating what we have/had while we must live in a smaller radius than before.
I have been following more of a routine with my prototype. I have been waking up earlier, and decided to do some sort of workout (could be something minor like an ab circuit some days) every day as another change. By including that as part of my daily routine, I have more structure and get more daily movement (which has been decreased compared to being at Bucknell with the dance team, walking to class, etc). Using the prototype has also led me to connect with my friends more meaningfully because previously, I had been sort of lazy about staying in touch.
Overall, my experience with my design has been a really positive one. I’ve found my days to be more productive and meaningful, and it no longer feels like I’m doing “nothing”. This has also (bonus) resulted in me having a better sense of what day of the week it is since each day has some distinct activities. I am also really glad to have had important conversations with my family that were provoked from my prototype activities- such as when we can get the family together, and why certain times work/ what people like to do since our schedules and interests are all pretty different (ex. I will not watch a horror movie, my mom always wants to watch those.
My overall experience utilizing the design process has also been very positive and informative. The inspiration and identification module was an eye opening step. At this point, I had been very confused on what the ultimate product would even be for this- I think I was overwhelmed and didn’t understand the extent to which we can have control over our lives in the environments we are in, and the extent we can shape our own environments by choice. I loved the conceptualization stage- this may have been one of my favorite stages. Putting down my ideas onto physical objects felt really good- especially the mood board part where I could get a sense of the idea and how it made me feel. Stage 4 of Exploration / Refinement and Stage 5, Definition / Modeling, were where I hit sort of a roadblock. It felt hard for me to then make a physical sketch of what the product could be, because I was thinking about the end product being a “thing” and not an experience, which was why I had been so confused. Stage 6, Communication, and Stage 7, Production were perhaps one of the most exciting parts of the design process for me, because I could actually have a physical prototype that I could share with others that really made sense to them and that I could finally use. The instant after I made the first draft of the prototype, I remember feeling as though it was perfect and that it needed no changes. But, I later realized that there were plenty of changes that could be made after testing out the prototype to improve it. Looking back at the progress since the beginning of the design process and along the way, I now understand not only the process making sense and distinguishing the different steps from each other, but I see the value in using the design process. Before this whole project and this class, I would have just jumped straight into making something after I had an idea. While this is still something good to do to get as many ideas out as possible, like we have done in class (ex. come up with as many apple pickers as you can), the process shows how an idea or ideas can evolve, change, and improve. I am also more aware of the multiple impacts and possibilities of design- how our ideas and designs can interact differently with different people and being aware of that, and how helpful it is to see things from someone else’s perspective- which also relates to not pigeonhole yourself into one idea that you block out possibilities for other ones or changes that could be made. At the end of all this, I am proud of myself for how I have developed throughout this design process, and I am happy at how my product turned out. I will continue to use it in the following weeks, and I can already see how it has positively impacted my social-distancing experience by helping me regain control of my surroundings, find a routine that is still novel day-to-day, and be a happier person in a better mood overall.
An Update from April 21st- My design product is still going strong! There are some better days than others, but overall I have seen how much value that my product has added to my life now that we are social distancing at home.