The week of prototyping (Week 7)

Kate and I were feeling a little bit nervous, beside the lack of sleep that we had from the previous night. We had to put all our work together, and the work that the each member of group had contributed. I was amazed at the  creativity of the 4 personas and scenarios that each member had created and contributed to.

I really like Mariana’s website mock-up, it was very simple, attractive and to the point according to the research she had conducted along with her studies. Mariana and Lillian had been very descriptive and had described the use of the website and mocked it up for our tester.

I quite liked the presentation board that Lillian had come up with, when I look at it I felt bubbly and happy and also the green used represented several emotions within our group. In regards to our ‘Bargain Buddy’ application the green represented the environmental and economical aspects of the application and service provided, as it is all about being green for the bargain hunters.

Kate and I had worked over night towards this brutal death line. Being a very bubbly person, Kate had come up with a very simple and full of personality phone application mock-up and the description of how to use the application, along with our groups design layouts. Also during this I had been putting all our group work together to make the final mock-up report.

Finally at 4am we wrapped up the work and went to bed.  We set our alarms for 8.30, in the morning.The time just flew past; I felt that just five minutes had gone by. I had my blanket wrapped around me, than I heard this noise coming from next to my bed, I rolled over and turned the alarm off. I had to stumble out of my bed and start kicking Kate so she can get up to, we than and had to wait our turns to have a shower. Being brain dead I had to make the toast for a quick breakfast, while Kate got ready first, than it my turn to get ready.

We had a panic attack when we received a text message from one of our group members that she had left the work on the train accidentally. I felt very terrible for her, because I knew deep down she had worked very hard toward what she had contributed and also towards the prototyping day.

Then the happy news came along everything had been sorted out according to the plan. But the bad news was, we had missed our train so we are going to be late.

It was on the Wednesday morning at 10.30am, we were supposed to have our first tester come along. We had waited ten minutes, than Tania came along to inform us that she regretted that the first tester group had an issue with their set-up for their prototyping. So Tania had arranged 2 + 2 + 1 group to replace our potential first tester.The moment had come and we could see in the distance, there were two people coming towards us.

They asked several question about the general background of the ‘bargain buddy’, they also offered several suggestions to us, which we thought were good ideas and we thought they may be very helpful.

Add comment April 25, 2009

High Technology (Week 6)

I feel very lucky to be living and also be a part of high technology in today’s world. High technology has changed our attitude towards today’s modern living. I don’t know where to start, but there are so many cool gadgets that are available. Where you can simply go out and purchase something today to entertain you, for example when they invented MP3 players, although I still remember the days when the “CD WALKMAN” was one of the cool gadgets, you could have.

As time passes, with other new technologies being invented, for instance the new MP3 player. Companies and individuals are creating something new and improved every single year, I can never keep up.  I have highlighted these items as being part of high technology, because of how music interacts with the wider market. However imagine your life today without music, I personally listen every day to a bit of dance music, something hardcore to get me out of bed or to wake my brain completely, then I am ready for a new day.

Moving on, I will now talk about being very lucky to have such easy access to the internet. I am seriously glad as you can do so much and it also makes everything so much easier to gain access to information and keep you informed of what is going on in the world. In the past we were all depending on TV, radio, or newspapers to be able to keep us informed and up to date with what was going on in the world, and these were usually restricted to a specific geographic region or just one country. The internet does not just tell us about the world, it can be about the simple stuff, for instance what the weather will be for the day, or what movies are playing at the cinema. I am as much a user of the high technology today as I was in the past.

Also the increase of high technology in communication has been both a positive and negative aspect. I am very glad that people invented Skype, this application makes it much easier for me to keep in touch with my family overseas or even close friends. I cannot imagine actually living in 1945, where there was only very limited communication options that were readily available. I mean for instance the postman and the telephone were probably one of the hits of the time, I wasn’t to sure about it. But I could never thank those geniuses enough, who come up with these amazing inventions, I envy them.

Now I would like to mention about how our project can really help people like me to keep up with interactive world. I would like if in the future there is actually an application similar to the bargain buddy. It could be something completely different, and would be even more beneficial if there is an application or a piece of technology that could be installed into every car or phone in the future that can help people find things much easier. For example for your car, you can now purchase a GPS to help get you to places, imagine if you could have a chip installed in your car to help you find a parking spot, still would not help you at Christmas time. Or an application that you can install or subscribe to for your phone, which informs you about sales or bargains that are happening around you.

Add comment April 22, 2009

Team Work (Week 5)

As the project is progressing, it can be seen the difficulties that emerge when working in a group environment. Group members all have there own issues, concerns and day-to-day problems outside and inside of university. As we all know teams work more effectively with open lines of communication, and this is greatly improved if all members have an equal understanding of what the requirements are for the project, and what is required for each member. Also it helps greatly if they can relate professionally within the group and that each persons skill set complements the others.

When issues or problems arise in a group project, what I have found is that the best way to deal with them is to discuss them with the whole group. This way everybody can understand where each member stands on the issue, and if there are any external problems outside the project, they can be taken into consideration. As everybody has things going on in there lives that affect them.

On the brighter side, the values of teamwork are essential in these situations, the value of working in a creative team environment allows all members to grow and develop important skills that can be utilized later in the work place.

As a mature age  student and learning from my experience working professionally in a family business that specializes in Media Planning in Jakarta. I worked in media planning representing the agency in meetings with the potential clients or current clients internationally and locally.

Quite often I found there is a wide variety of mindsets or personalities out there that sometimes we just have to take any negative aspects and turn them into positive benefits for the business. At the end of the day the whole reason behind teamwork within university, is to prepare us mentally and professionally for the work force. Where you will deal with a wide variety of people, that you may find challenging to deal with. The main thing is that business is business and not to be taken personally.

Add comment April 21, 2009

Research for better understanding (Week 4)

This week we had to carry out research to help us better understand our target audience for our group assignment.  As part of this research we carried out some interviews and from these we are  learning  a few things that will help us for the better development for our  “Bargain Buddy”.

Through the interviews we were able to see that even with the current state of the economy people are still continuing to spend money. They are not waiting for sales, they just spend on a daily basis. Also through our research we discovered that there are already a number of existing applications for various devises to help customers save money. Regardless of our finding that people aren’t waiting for sales, these applications still exist which is a positive and negative sign in a way for us.

There is also a number of existing websites with the same goal, to help customers save money on items. Through looking through these websites we could easily see that they were fairly plain and unattractive, they did not really promote sale items as being cool, and the user may feel more negative using them rather then positive as the websites do not promote the items in a proper light, they promote them in a cheap manner.

Add comment April 2, 2009