Hey everybody who still reads my wordpress. Thanks for your time. Anyways, this is gonna be my last entry and I am just gonna say what I have learnt in this project and stuff.

Ever since the start of the project I was excited yet worried to work as a team. As I knew from the start that everyone is a designer here and we have got our own ideal perfect idea or perspectives on things, I thought working as a team could prove to be a little challenging.

However, to my amazement, I learnt that in order for a team to work and succeed in their project, we have to learn how to co-operate, be happy to do our part, and learn to give and take, take every criticism with a pinch of salt. I felt that I also learnt to appreciate the art of interact design and I was enlightened by the fact that designing a product or dealing with real life situations would be a tedious and long process due to the developmental work and research process.

I was also given the opportunity to understand the whole deal of in depth research study to work on sufficient ground. It was absolutely entertaining and at the same time wonderful to work with such great team mates, especially Jon, Pim and Phong who are ever ready to give a helping hand.

It was good to see work distributed fairly, in the sense that every had their own speciality and talent added into this project. I learnt to appreciate my group members, as we each have our own forte on design and we contributed at our best to this project.

Overall, I definitely learnt that in today’s society, interactive design which actually works could prove to be very effective and definitely an added convenience to our lives.

Yupps, so that’s all that’s left of this wordpress.

Have a good day.

Cheers!

Geraldine Lim

S3159270

Design Studio I

This week jon, pim, phong and i came together for a major group discussion on our final report to wrap up this long project. We listed down things that are to be included in the written report, and discussed about it.

These are our report outline:

Introduction[G]

1. Original Project Intention[G]

-brainstorm of various ideas

-further breakdown of many ideas

-choice of supermarket idea

-initial direction:shelving

-specific direction: fun supermarket

2.Process

-various ideas of a fun supermarket & research[PHONG]

-video[PHONG]

-personas[JON]

-golf kart idea[PHONG]

-instructional manual/blue print map[CHRISTINE]

-what we’ve learnt[EVERYONE/JON]

-user-testing: problems & solutions[PIM]

3. Conclusion [JON]

- bibliography (referencing)

We later divided the workload between basically the 4 of us as christine wasnt present. So I am off to writing this report=)

So right after friday’s lecture, jon pim phong and i had a small group meeting. we basically just met up to ensure that everyone knew where we are heading right now in terms of the report and such. all of us agree to focus on the mario kart game thingy for our repport. thus, over the weekends i thought about the pros and cons of this mario kart game.

I know it’s weird for me to say this, but i actually cant wait to get all the stuff gathered for the report..and finally write the report. i hope we’re able to finish it on time. alrights, im gonna do some readings.

=)

Hello to you guys who read my wordpress=)

Week 8 was the AGIDEAS week, and many of I am sure took the opportunity or an excuse to take a break. There was no readings to read that is why I did not post anything for quite some time. Anyways, I am back with a new  group updates and work to be done. This is gonna be the final lap into finishing this semester’s group project, and I wish I had more energy to sprint this last 4 weeks. However, I am not exactly in the pink of health, been nursing my flu this whole week and I am not getting any better=( It’s terrible having a flu and slight fever, it bad.

Anyhow, it’s Week 9!! and Blue Bananas had a group discussion regarding about our upcoming and final lap to finishing this project. One major part of this group discussion was brainstorming for our report. I reckon this report to be detailed with step by step process of our supermarket project. We just gotta sort things out for the report, setting aside the unimportant things and focusing on the important process development work. This is gonna be messy (I know!), but we gotta include the choices made along the way and writing the report properly, making it understandable and stuff.

Yupps, it’s all gonna be good cos I know most of my group members like jon, phong and pim do not stop half way, as we progress and update each other on stuff very often, updating our blogs/wordpress and of course our wiki regularly. =) GJ guys.

Alrights, I am gonna end here. Gonna nurse my flu and drink plenty of water, prolly think about how to write the report and stuff (this project has always been on my mind, cant wait for it to be done perfectly). =)

Our group video presentation went not bad at all, though there were certain things which we should have paid more attention to and also there was definitely more room for improvement.

We should have really included and made it clearer on our current progress right now, where we are, what we are heading to do right now and stuff. It was not clearly stated in our video presentation. But, everything is done and we cant turn back time. So I reckon this is a good learning experience for us to reflect and think about what we should have done next time when there’s a similar presentation like this. Alright guys, the next time we all should pay more attention to the brief and really make clear what we want others to see our project as. yupps

And yeah lets continue progressing on this project! =)

Have a good anzac day!

Hey everyone,

life’s been alrights, BUT BUSY!! and we finally done the video!! yay!! thanks to most of the group pple..=) I just wanna thank Jon for pushing me in the trolley and taking photos!! and editing the colors..  (jon ur arm must hv ached..i’ll massage u!!=)) And thanks Phong for drawing the mario stuff so we could use them for the vid/stock photos..yeah..oh and thanks for the Mario MUSIC!! it’s fantastic..Lastly..I must thank Pim for sitting by my side while I edited the photos by placing the graphics tt i drew for our vid presentation..and also for putting up every bit of my whines and nonsense!! ok and thanks Christine for doing the cover page for cd..LETS ALL EXCLAIM IN JOY THAT WE’RE FINALLY DONE WITH THE VID PRESENTATION!!

I’m really relieved that it’s all done and stuff..It was a good job done guys! blue bananas we rock! ok as u can see im overly ecstatic..

So here’s the vid link on youtube..

Hello, hello!!

Just last week my group had to do some examples of personas..and since it’s my first time doing and writing a persona from scratch, so pls pardon me. okay, here are my personas..:

1. INFORMATION USAGE:
Name: Sally Wakefield
Sex: Female
Birthday: 26 April 86
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Hometown: Canada
Religion: Free Thinker
Marital Status: Single
Children: -
Income/month: $3000 (including rent and stuff)
Education: major in journalism in UNSW
Hobbies: singing and baking.
Favourite music: pop music
Fashion Inspiration: current fashion trends
Staying: In a residence hall on campus, with a roommate
Work at: part time as at Lush
position: Sales promoter

Place where she buys her groceries: safeway
Weekly spending on groceries: $100
Cook herself or eat out: cook at home most of the time
What does she normally buys: fresh food(meat,vegs), cereal, fruits, organic food. home necessity
What she thinks of the current supermarket system: she thinks it’s alrights as she goes to buy her groceries every monday at about 10pm. she tries to avoid busy time and sometimes late night food are cheaper such as the bbq chicken which safeway roasts.

2. INFORMATION USAGE:
Name: Darrell Chia
Sex: Male
Birthday: 6 October 1982
Age: 26
Occupation: Student
Hometown: Indonesia
Religion: Christian
Marital Status: Single
Children: -
Income/month: $5000 (including rent and stuff)
Education: double major in finance and marketing
Hobbies: basketball, tennis and watching soccer
Favourite music: R&B
Fashion Inspiration: street fashion
Staying: 2 bedroom apartment in the city with a housemate
Work at: part time at Pizza Hut
position: Sales promoter

Place where she buys her groceries: Coles,Safeway
Weekly spending on groceries: $30
Cook herself or eat out: Eat out all the time
What does she normally buys: junk food and home necessity
What he thinks of the current supermarket system: He thinks that it’s a place where he buys some toilet paper and household stuff, and some indo mee to keep him alive during the wee hours of the day. He goes to buy his necessity anytime , there’s no fix time.

3. INFORMATION USAGE:
Name: Alex Seeto
Sex: Male
Birthday: 11 July 87
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Hometown: Singapore
Religion: Free Thinker
Marital Status: Attached
Children: -
Income/month: $4000 (including rent and stuff)
Education: Film student in rmit
Hobbies: filming, going for gigs, hanging out
Favourite music: indie
Fashion Inspiration: indie style
Staying: In a one bedroom apartment in chapel
Work at: -
position: -

Place where he buys her groceries: richmond
Weekly spending on groceries: $40
Cook herself or eat out: cook at home most of the time
What does she normally buys: fresh food(meat,vegs), fruits, What she thinks of the current supermarket system: sHe rarely goes to the supermarket as the groceries there are a little more expensive than the small shops opened at richmond. Sometimes he feels that safeway’s seafood isnt fresh, and the sales assistants are kinda rude and useless as they dont help you very much. a little hostile.

I am absolutely excited to see the outcome of my group’s video!! We went to film it today, trying to get everything done asap. As we wanna make it perfect, give ourselves time to edit it.=) Now I understand why some kids are addicted to the game to Mario Kart! I went to Crown to play at the arcade..And I played Mario Kart to get a better understanding of what this game is all about. Yeah.

Anyways, everyone’s busy editing photos, drawing the graphics, making the short video presentation work!

Alrights, Im off to do the reminding graphics for the presentation and do my week 7 readings!

Thought:
Well, it’s been almost the end of week5 and my group have kicked off the brainstorming part for our video. We’re gonna have a blast doing it as well as editing it. But everyone knows that it’s gonna be a tedious process trying to do it perfectly. =) Anyways, I tried calling coles and the people there arent exactly as friendly as I thought they would be! I even called the headquaters but they rejected the idea of filming/taking photos in the supermarket. I later made a trip personally down to IGA(my favourite supermarket), I remember shopping at IGA for everything last yr! owells, those were the good old days. Ok, I shall stop side tracking..haha!! Well, IGA allowed me to take photos, however they do not have trolleys!! why why? cos it was IGA EXPRESS!! owells, I guess we need a group meeting to sort this out so that we can complete the vid fast. ONE WEEK LEFT people!! hurryhurryhurry!

Group Discussion:
Over the week, we’ve been msging and msning each other by means of advanced technology, and yes everyone did their part in our group..Writing personas, drawing the scenes, sketching stuff, calling supermarkets, doing the group photo, editing the mission statement, editing the wiki page, etc. GJ! See you guys tmr..

Readings:
Alrights, so here are my week 5 readings..There seems to be a few readings which I’ve read it before in week3 and week 4. And I’ve already posted my reviews on it.(go check under readings)

Lidwell_UniversalPrinciples:

I like the fact that this article speaks about the accessibility of objects/products around us. I agree that everything around us needs to speak with meaning and purpose, so that the users/audiences can perceive, use and understand the whole design.

Also, I believe that aesthetic designs are more user friendly than those products with less aesthetic purposes. This is probably due to the fact that a more interactive design would allow the users to enjoy the product more and also have the inclination to use it with the thought that it is a fun and interesting product to use.

Overall, this article is informative in the sense that it tells me the guidelines and factors that contributes to a designed product, or anything dealing with designing.

SafferPersonasScenarios_fixed:
This article helped me in writing up my group’s personas and scenarios, because initially I did not know how to create a persona, thus with the help of this reading it allowed me to understand the requirements needed in a persona. Indeed this is really helpful.

Scenarios:
This short piece of reading helped me to comprehend what a Scenario is all about. In short, I understand that in order to write a scenario, one must identify the problem and interaction needed to take place. Also, avoiding references to technology, while including all aspects of the interaction. After writing it, one must review and edit the written scenario. We must also bear in mind to not indclude any form of technology related things, while writing the scenario.

Alrights, that’s all folks!

DeBono_6ThinkingHats:
This article is really interesting as it tells us about our 6 thinking hats! (esp when it involves 6 different colours: white, red, black, yellow, green and blue.) It was fun reading this as it made me aware of how to pair my thinking hats together next time. the white & red, black & yellow, and green & blue. I am definitely going to try to use this thinking hats system. You guys should try it for yourselves too! I think it would be helpful to everyone in their form of developing their creativity and innovation ideas when doing our Studio I project.

Gosh, these few days have been pretty much intense for me. I feel sick and all..I really need to discuss with the group on where we need to head (fast). Right now it’s all ideas, ideass, and more ideas..I somehow think we need to have a direction and get things done..rather than just having heaps of ideas. I mean ideas are good way to start, but my group seriously need to move on into more important things, like categorizing the ideas, starting out with a purpose to drive us to the end.

I hope tmr’s group meeting would be fruitful.

Well, it’s close to the end of the weekends..Here comes monday blues when the sun is out..=(  Anyways, I’ve gave thought about how we can improve our supermarket system!! And the following are just a few ideas, I’ve been just pondering about.

 1. FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION:  This is used as a method of payment. Shoppers must have their fingerprint registered in the system, which directly logs on to their internet banking system. This is a quick method to pay, as customers jus need to place their finger on the scanner to complete their purchase. This could combine with the self check in system too, and we could have something to promote it. Eg. The computer fingerprint system would pick a particular shopper fingerprint, and load it up on the system. And, if the shopper shop on that exact day, he/she could be that lucky shopper of the day and walk away with a supermarket voucher (or something better!!).

2. GREAT DEALS ON TV installed in front of supermarket entrance:  This allow shoppers to view items and remember where to get them. It also attracts customers who are just happening to pass the place, and purchase those great deals on that day.

 3. BOILING POINTS: This is like the mtv show-Boiling Points. Where a group of sale assistants would just walk around in either plain clothes or in uniform, and play a prank on the customer. If the customer outdo the limited time, she could get away with like a discount of all her shopping items. This way, both the customer(s) and the employees would enjoy at the same time!

 Alrights, these 3 are my top 3 ideas, which I have been thinking about this past one week.

 I’m out, before the sun rises and I get those Monday Blues!