Week 1

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Submit Team Information

Form a team of 5, then decide on a team name and a topic (e.g., B-1-1). Next, make a copy of the design notebook template, add all your team members as well as your TA to the notebook. Please note that if your team is not at capacity, there may be additional students added to your team later this week, in order to accomodate all the students in the class. Submit your initial team information using the Project Team Information Form by end of your studio lab. We will let you know what topic you are assigned through Slack.

Design Notebook Entry for D1

Describe your value proposition by answering the following questions. In your value proposition writeup, make sure you are NOT proposing a solution (i.e., not describing app features/functionalities); you are merely describing the problem and the outcomes if the problem is solved.

(1) What will you do? What is the high-level problem that you are trying to solve? To start, collect 10 news articles from trusted/reputable sources related to your chosen problem. Take screenshots of the 10 news headlines, and put them into 1 slide. Include a screenshot of the slide in the design notebook. In your writeup, describe the high-level problem that you are trying to solve, and concrete evidence/statistics from literature (e.g., news articles, reports, academic papers) that illustrate the severity of the problem. Take this opportunity to also describe what motivates you personally to work on this specific project topic. Please include the citations (or urls) to all articles, reports and papers used in your argument. (1 screenshot, 2-3 paragraph)

(2) Why you? What solutions (e.g., other apps, other non-technological solutions) currently exist for addressing the problem? How would your approach (e.g., what you will focus on tackling) be different and novel? (1 paragraph)

(3) Who is it for? Who do you envision to be the target users of your app? Name all the different user groups you imagine the solution to involve. (1 paragraph)

(4) How will it help? Describe what user needs you would be aiming to satisfy and the desired outcomes. (1 paragraph)

P1: Ethics Training

The TCPS 2 Core-2022 Tutorial Course on Research Ethics (CORE), also known as the TCPS2 tutorial, is mandatory for all researchers who intend to engage in research with human participants. In this course, you will be interviewing target end users. Before contacting users and conducting interviews, each student is required to individually complete the ethics tutorial. In other words, you cannot proceed in the course until you have completed this ethics tutorial. If you have already completed the TCPS 2 Core ethics training (e.g., for another course, or for a research project outside of courses), you can just submit the certificate of completion that you obtained previously. There's no need to re-do the training.

From the Welcome Page, click on the "Login to Core / Create Account" button on the right. Click "Create new account here" and fill in the required fields; make sure you register using your uwaterloo.ca email address. A confirmation email will be sent to the email address that you provide (check spam if you do not see it in your mailbox. Click on the activation link only once to activate your account. Once your account is activated, you can log in and begin the tutorial. It can take up to 3 hours take to complete the tutorial, depending on how many examples and activities you explore. You can go through the modules at your own pace; your progress is automatically saved, and you can log out and in again to resume your session. If you experience any difficulties, refer to TCPS 2: CORE Frequently Asked Questions. After finishing the online course, submit the certificate of completion with your name on it to LEARN under the "TCPS2 Core-2022 Ethics Training Certificate" Dropbox.

T1: Team Contract

The success of your project depends on your dedication towards teamwork. The contract specifies how the team will work together, and are considered to be agreed upon by all members of the teams. With your team, develop a team contract 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.

P2: Prepare for Next Studio

Before the next studio, each team member should independently develop a rough draft of a persona. 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. Complete this rough draft using this persona template. Your design notebook writeup should contain 5 screenshot/photo of the completed persona templates, one per team member.