Workshop & Thinking Hats

The workshop today focused on an activity that aimed to give us feedback on a rough concept that we had been working on. As I mentioned earlier I decided to receive feedback on the personalised spotlight idea.
The method our tables of six or so used was, 'Six Thinking Hats' (that looks like a dodgy resource but it simply explains the method for me incase I use it later). I have come across this method before and find it quite useful to get truthful feedback. I find it cuts down on the waffling/beating around the bush, but I've discovered I sometimes find it hard to be negative!

The response to my Personalised Trove Spotlight was as follows:

Red (gut instinct): The majority said they like it and one personal said that the idea wasn't original enough as they were familiar with pinterest. The question was raised why would someone use Trove Spotlight as opposed to just Pinterest.
Yellow (Positives): The idea is personalised and the table agreed that tailoring the features would encourage users to efficiently use Trove. Its a visual way to keep track of the resources you have used.
Black (Negatives). Is the idea better than Pinterest? Group members said that they don't like the concept of tagging the boards to find other users collections.  Adds another search element etc.
Green (Drive the idea forward): Attach icons or images to personalise the resources more. Have html spiders rather than a grid format or give the users the option to have a grid or spider. Use a swipe motion to remove resources from your board if you no longer need them or didn't find them as useful.
Blue: Liked visual aspect, explore icons and images, spiders vs. grids.

Based on this feedback I have noted that the idea is not original enough. However, I view the concept as taking an original idea and making it better and more specific to Trove. I certainly need to work out what I can change to make it more interesting! I know that I personally would use an idea like this as I am a visual learner/thinker and always forget what journal articles are about despite the title. The six thinking hats method was effective but I don't feel confident about my concept. I think I might explore some other avenues...

Until next time here are some of the responses to other ideas from the workshop.

Trove/What is it?/Concept Generation

As Ann and I missed the week one workshop session we figured that three brains would be better than one when figuring out what to do! Over a lengthly lunch, Akanksha, Ann and I heavily discussed what Trove is, who would potentially use it and how we could make it interesting. Quite frankly I was unaware of Trove before this the design computing studio course.

As described on the Trove homepage, Trove is a website that "helps you find and use resources relating to Australia. It's more than a search engine. Trove brings together content from libraries, museums, archives and other research organisations and gives you tools to explore and build".

After surfing through Trove and discovering what it was all about I deemed that it would have been extremely useful in my under-graduate degree. But that is water under the bridge! The types of other users that would find Trove handy are: students, photographers, historians, hobbyists, international students, academics, journalists, researchers...and the list goes on.

When we worked out what was on trove and who would use it, the ideas started to flow. We came up with plenty of concepts (however most needed to be fleshed out further). My top three concepts were:

1. Designing tote bags: Though a novelty and a gimmick, it would be fun to have a website where users can 'collage' their favourite pieces of Trove onto a tote bag. For example, you could mash up a lost letter, with a photograph from where the letter was written and a favourite quotation etc. This concept is already successful on a website I use to sell my own textile designs Print All Over Me. This would be a novelty way to spark interest in Trove and a simple marketing ploy.

2. Personalised Trove Spotlight: This idea came from the thought to personalise Trove Spotlight. A simple mash up of pinterest and spotlight to enable users to collate their own findings in one place. For example, say you were writing a piece on Frida Kahlo and you wanted to make a Trove 'board' where you could put all of that information. You could write a short description for other users that would then be able to benefit from your board! I know that when I write an essay or research paper it is easy to forget exactly what you found and so this tool would be ideal for organisation.

3. Teachers Landing Page: Similar to a personalised Trove spotlight this idea would be useful for teachers. A friend of mine says it is hard to come up with fresh material for teaching and that some teachers get protective of their resources. As such a teachers landing page would have the tools available for young teachers to use a Trove template and click and drag, information, photos, articles and add their own questions. Teachers could then upload the worksheet onto the teachers landing page and could 'like' other templates or worksheets that they found useful.

There were so many other ideas that grabbed my attention but these are the ones I'm going to focus on for now. Ann is going to cover the Trove DIY page that I simply love and so I hope that idea fleshes out!

I'm going to present the Personalised Trove Spotlight in the workshop!

**Note to self: Use codebeautify.org/view/jsonviewer shown in lecture. Easier to read than the one mentioned in the prac**

What I Expect and Hope to Learn

Based on what I know of this course I see Design Computing Studio 1 as an extension of design thinking and introduction to web design. The skills that I have been equipped with from these two courses have already helped me through the first two weeks! I respect how my way of thinking has been altered to encompass a more creative and out of the box approach.

I want to concrete my understanding of, and explore further, design and the design process. I hope that my ability to develop and implement a project will be faster and more efficient. However, as always I get a little bit worried about working in teams. This is something that I hope to improve on i.e. respecting the way other individuals work and not letting my head sink beneath the surface.

My overall expectations are that I will add more to my 'designers' toolkit and successfully surround myself with the skills for generation, refinement and implementation of design problems and solutions.