1. Lectures
Watch the week 2 lecture videos.
2. Reading
Choose 1-2 of the videos or articles from the reading list this week. Enter your reading reflection (250 word max) into the week 2 entry of the design notebook. Put your full name in bracket after the reading reflection paragraph. More details are available under Deliverable 1.c.
3. Set up your Design Notebook
Please fill in the first page of the design notebook, and start working on the team contract and week 2's entry.
You should also configure the access to the design notebook: (1) add your team members individually + your TA to the google doc and give them each “editor” access, (2) add your buddy team members individually to the google doc and give them “commenter” access, (3) turn off link sharing (under "Get Link" -> change to "restricted") so that the google doc is now limited to the people who are added only. DO NOT change link sharing from edit to other modes (and with no one added explicitly), because that would lock you out of being able to edit the document yourself!
One important note -- there is a "contribution" section for each week. Make sure you individually declare what you have done for the deliverables that week. At the end of the term, we will review each team's design notebook, to see if there are particular team members that fail to contribute for many weeks. Your individual grades will be adjusted based on the amount and consistency of your contribution to the team.
4. Create team contracts
With your team, develop a team contract (details are available under Deliverable 1.b) by answering a set of questions about how your team will function this term. Write up your team contract in the "Team Contract" section of the design notebook. Get in touch with your buddy team and draft a similar contract; see the "Buddy Team Contract" of the design notebook.
5. Describe your value proposition (design activity)
Describe the value proposition of your future product by answering the following questions: (1) What will you do? Describe the high-level problem that you are trying to solve, and observations that led you to identify this problem. How can your project address this problem? Take this as an opportunity to describe what motivates you personally to work on this specific project topic. (2) Why you? Describe the potential value your solution can bring, above and beyond the solutions that currently exist. (3) How will it help? Without coming up with any solution yet, describe what user needs you are you satisfying and the desired outcomes.
Note that the project topics are broad, so you can interpret the topic in your own way and find a specific angle to focus on. In your value proposition, make sure you are NOT proposing a solution; you are merely describing the problem and the outcomes if the problem is solved. Write up your value proposition in the week 2 entry of the design notebook.
6. Create 3-5 distinct personas and empathy maps (design activity)
Create 3-5 distinct personas of your future application (behaviour should not overlap). These personas are your best guesses about who the target users are, and represent the type of users whom you will interview and observe throughout the term. Your design notebook writeup should contain, for each persona, (1) a persona description, written in paragraph format, (2) a screenshot of the completed persona template, (3) a screenshot of the completed empathy map. It is up to you exactly how you want to complete the persona templates and empathy maps. You can print out the templates and complete them by hand. You can also fill in the templates digitally, using a PDF or other online tools that provide similar (or ideally, the same) templates. In the end, you just need to include a screenshot of your persona template and empathy map in the design notebook entry.
In general, your writeup describe the demographics, goals, motivation and pattern of users' behaviour that each persona represents. Here is an example of persona descriptions (see section 3), persona templates and empathy maps (see appendices).
7. Connect with your buddy team and get their feedback
Connect with your buddy team using the private Slack channel. Review your buddy team's value proposition, personas and empathy maps, and provide 5 recommendations to your buddy team on what can be improved. The receiving team should describe which recommendation they find useful and might incorporate. Details are available under Deliverable 3.d. The writeup should go into the week 2 entry of the design notebook.
Due Friday (May 21)
● Design Notebook Entry (1.c, 3.b, 3.d) - the entry includes your attendance to team meeting, your individual reading reflections, documentation of your design activities (including value proposition, persona and empathy maps), and feedback from your buddy team about your value proposition and target users.
● Team Building (1.b) - your team contract should be entered into the "Team Contract" section of the design notebook.