MINOR PROJECT
_
23/08/2021 - 30/11/2021 (WEEK1-WEEK15）
MInor Project
This week, Mr. Mike briefed student about the projects that we are going to deal with. Students are to work as mixed groups of multidisciplinary skills to present an innovative concept that introduces unique social, cultural and/or economic value to the intended target audience. Stuednts are to conduct research on your target audience from a human centered perspective to understand their needs to form insights into their actual problem. Empathy research with analysis reports on product or service functionality and effectiveness, technical innovations and challenges, aesthetics and design appreciation are required to support the new project proposal. The proposed solution must address the need that you have discovered from your research on the target audience.
Summary in class:
In today’s class, Mr. Mike covered the first lecture - Design Thinking.
We were asked what we think design thinking is, and had to input our answers on menti.com.
A designer is curious, observant, and always asking questions.
What is the problem? What can change? Etc.
Curiosity leads to questioning.
Designers collaborate.
Design is about creating something that offers value, as well as solving problems.
What is design thinking?
Design thinking is human-centered.
The 5 stages of design thinking: Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test.
3Is: Immersion + Ideation + Innovation.
We also watched a video by The Explainer, titled “Design Thinking”.
Design thinking is human-centered, iterative and user-oriented.
Design Sprint (used by Google): understand, diverge, converge, build and test.
Multi-disciplinary.
Task: Empathy Research
Pick a group that is not working on the same project as yourself.
For empathy research, always start with broad/general questions (getting to know/ice-breaking).
Interview: verbatim + observe body language.
Identify what the person feels.
Compile the interview questions as a group.
The contextual secondary research is to be done individually on Miro, and should be done based on the project you are to work on for the Minor Project.
In the contextual secondary report, include articles, videos, websites, etc.
This week, We started doing research in class. We allocated the parts that everyone needs to do and started research. In order to better understand the topic, I put all the information I found in Miro's personal grid for analysis and simplification.
Specific Feedback:
Good job!
Compile the information from all the boards into an A4 sized board and organise the information into simpler categories. That will be your contextual report.
The scale we are focusing on is more for personal consumption; not commercial usage.
You grow your own food. It is not to sell. Growing your own food is the priority.
Micro-scaled food growing.
People start selling when they have more than what they need to eat themselves (i.e., when there is a surplus).
For now, we are mainly focusing on people living in urban areas, with limited space.
The product is meant for individual consumption.
Practice filtering information.
Compile all the information together.
After that, you can move onto creating personas.
For now, compile all the students’ research in one report.
This report will be used on Monday, for the (creation of) personas.
Excellent! Good job!
General Feedback:
We are not focusing on gardening. We are focusing on farming. It’s about growing food, whereas gardening can be planting flowers and other plants - not necessarily food.
Once you identify your personas, you will know what questions to ask.
Be mindful of the flow of thoughts and questions.
Next Course of Action:
WEEK 3 - 06/09/2021
Summary in class:
Lecture on personas.
Going through assignment progress and receiving feedback.
Creating draft personas.
Updating the contextual report.
We added produce that is usually used in Malaysia to our research.
Specific Feedback:
The age-group should be 55 at most.
Mr. Mike mentioned that he does not think people above 60 would go for options like hydroponics. Instead, he believes they are more likely to opt for more traditional forms of planting.
“Plants that grow well together” - good. You’ve included the source of the information as well.
Need to do more research on the psychological aspect (eg: enriching, therapeutic, good for mental health, people feel satisfied to see something grow (especially during the ongoing pandemic) and when they can eat something they’ve grown).
Contamination of water/soil is not really relevant. Since the water supply in Malaysia is not contaminated, it is just a matter of doing it properly. It’s all part of the learning curve/process of gardening/farming.
Instead, you can say: Lack of confidence/know how.
- You can also talk about competitors/existing companies in the contextual report.
WEEK 3, Day 2 - 10/09/2021
As a group, vote for the personas, to finalise the personas, and go through the interview questions. We also refined our personas after hearing the ideas and suggestions provided by the group’s newest members. The points that were used by our group for persona building are demographics (age, gender, occupation, income), needs, pain points, personality, hobbies, motivation, user environment and scenario.
Next Course of Action:
After completing the current research, we are about to prepare draft personas. We extend a warm welcome and happy to the joining of new team members Mokshana and Zi Yi. With the help of the new members, we gained two fast-brainstorming minds and quickly complete the personas and go through the interview questions. I found out that teamwork is more efficient than individuals, and can get more opinions and different answers.
Fig 3.1 Draft of personas
Fig 3.2 Finalized personas
For the survey, you need to look at how the participants will view the survey.
Don't use jargon, use layman's language.
Mention monthly. What is your household monthly income?
Which district do you stay in? Mr Mike said it is better to use a text box instead of listing down all the districts.
Since you want to ask the type of area they live in just ask if they live in urban, sub urban or rural. If they don't understand, use wordings such as - do you live in a city like KL?
1.6 is not district. Ask something like - which area do you live in? Eg: KL, Penang, Georgetown. The big cities.
(About) 30 mins drive from the city. Very far from the city. Give 3 options.
1.7: no need for the line that says "You don't have to be a corporation ..." + are you sure that is the best definition of urban farming. The within and around cities part excludes people who live in suburbs or around areas like Subang Jaya, and some people don't realise PJ is a city.
Mr. Mike searched up a definition of urban farming from a Malaysian context. News papers are usually a good place to search for because they speak in layman when required to and do accurate research. Layman's language is what the general public can understand; no jargon.
2.5: maybe you can put in brackets - volunteer work
2.7: I think you need to be specific - what is your reason for answering "no". Put the word no in "".
2.8: not sure if people will know the english names for the veggies/produce, because a lot of people are familiar with the names in their mother tongue
2.10: where is the part about it being too
expensive. I think you can replace the cleanliness part with affordability of materials. Some people don't mind the mess
2.12: This is good to ask. Be consistent - all your RMs need to be capital
2.14: replace space needed with "enough space" and type of plants with "right choice of plants"
2.15 and 2.16 - why not combine both questions? No need to have them separate.
2.12: The question is so weird. Replace with "If you are interested in urban farming, but couldn't do so, what is the reason?" Use normal, everyday language.
2.9: replace for low cost with "with low cost" 2.6: second source of food? (I think we can write "secondary source of food" or an additional source of food) Just write adding greening of the house
Double check if you covered all your personas' needs in the survey questions/ options
Serene: the compost part does not include your urban farming.
Can settle already.
Interview Questions: Elaborate more on the district (eg: Cheras, PJ, Subang Jaya, etc., and type of property).
Okay. Fine. Start. Start with the interview. Then you can move onto ideation next week.
General: Ask questions that will provide answers you are looking for and answers that will help you. Otherwise, when you get back the answers, they might not be what you are looking for, which will mean that your effort and time ends up being not beneficial/ wasted.
Fig 4 Draft request post survey form
At least 50 responses are needed for the survey.
Mr. Mike suggested organisations and Facebook groups that we can contact to hopefully get more responses for our survey:
DIY Parties and Fun - Malaysia
MOVE
Me.Reka
Me.Reka Belia
This week, Mr Mike gave detailed comments and opinions to our surevy. We made changes to surveys according to Mr Mike's instructions, and then everyone was assigned to contact or send surveys to different organizations and Facebook groups. During the period, my message was ignored by several organizations and Facebook groups, and no response was received. Therefore, I found more Fb groups and the good news is that they all agreed to help promote the survey form. This helped my group a lot.
This week, we prepared presentation for update our progression to WBU students. The whole presentation took more than 30 minutes, which actually surprised us, but at the same time we also learned to have a round of rehearsal before the presentation to ensure that there was enough time. In the process, although there are some language barriers with WBU, we can still have a pleasant discussion in the end.
Specific Feedback:
Mr. Tomás Chochole said that he did not expect our presentation to take longer than 20 minutes, but that it was interesting.
The WBU students also expressed that they find our research interesting.
Ice-breaking activities were held by WBU to help us familiarise ourselves with each other more.
Dr. Tomás gave a short presentation on teamwork and curiosity.
Next Course of Action:
At this stage, we worked very well with WBU students. We discussed product ideas with Ms. April, and she gave us a good suggestion that the product materials are environmentally friendly materials. I am very excited to see this special material and hope that environmentally friendly materials can be fully utilized.
Next Course of Action:
WEEK 7 - 04/10/2021
This week, everyone was assigned their own tasks to complete the customer journey map. At the same time, we also need to create a gantt chart, the purpose is to make everyone's progression in track. I think the gantt chart will actually get me confused, because we need to make a lot of changes, the actual dateline will always be delayed, but I also understand that it is just a reference. In addition, I also started looking for references for final presentation space. Although this 3d space is not in a hurry, it is always good to take precautions.
Fig 7 Journey Map
Fig 8.1 Research on 3d
Self-directed Learning Week
WEEK 9 - 18/10/2021
Fig 9 Shoplot
Fig 9.1 3d Shoplot
Consultation with Mr. Mike
Instead of calling it an offline store, refer to it as a physical (brick and mortar) store.
Store sketchup is very rough at the moment.
Is it a shop lot store, not a pop-up? (Answer: Yes)
Maybe you might need to apply your design/sketch to a shop lot to visualise it better. Look into local Malaysian shop lots and apply your rendering or 3d into a local scene to visualise better. The current references are not local.
How many shops? Maybe you can say in every big city, you will have one shop. Mention that your design will be standardised and franchised.
What kind of services will your store offer? Eg: order online, self pickup, buy from the store, etc.
This week, my progress is a bit slow, and I haven't completed the modeling of shoplot yet. But I am very grateful for the efforts of other team members to improve the progress of our team a lot. I feel a little guilty, so I worked harder to complete the draft of shoplot and 3d space. At this stage, we started to have some communication problems with WBU students because they did not reply to messages.
Fig 10.1 Some social media post
The results and progress of this week have been very successful and have been appreciated by Mr Mike. After Mr Mike confirms that the art direction of the teasure post is correct, I can start designing the task of story design and product post that assigned to me . During this busy period, I have seen the hard work and dedication of all the team members, and learned a lot of different knowledge from them. During the consultation, I also received interesting opinions from Mr Mike, which opened my eyes.
The space is not properly utilised in the floor plan.
You need not have your shop in a Malaysian shoplot.
Your design also need not be Malaysian.
You can just use the Spatial models.
It’s Spatial; you don’t need to have your showroom in a building. You can even have it in a garden.
For the shop interior, you can photoshop images.
You don’t have to create a 3d model.
Hopefully by Friday, I can see stronger concepts for Spatial.
I think you still need to polish up your product designs, right?
Ask WBU students for a universal file format for 3D (glb, gltf, fbx, obj).
If they can pass you the 3d file, that is better. That way, you can capture the product in any angle you want.
Fig 12 Sketch of spatialFig 12.1 3D spatial
WEEK 13 - 15/11/2021
This week, the modeling and design of shoplot finally got the approval of the team members including Mr Mike. Mr Mike said that I need to make more views for the interior shoplot. The spatial design that I discussed and helped with the team members also passed. In order not to waste time, I have started to put the model into the spatial, but encountered many problems and no solution was available on the Internet. There are almost no spatial tutorials on the Internet. I started to feel very confused and stressed because I didn’t understand the reason and kept failing in uploading model to spatial, which made me extremely irritable. In the end, I discussed with the team members and helped each other to successfully put part of the model into the spatial. Here I discovered the importance of the team again, and I am very grateful for their help.
Physical Store:
Yeah, this looks more like it.
Is this the only space you have? Do you have any other views?
The staff room at the back, is that when you are taking care of some plants?
3D Space/Spatial:
You want to show how you want to use your products in different spaces, but your space is also a flower pot - did I understand that correctly? (Answer: Yes)
This week, the team members are progressing very well. About the spatial design, Mr Mike think is too tight, bacause this spatial need to invite all classmate into it, the space might too small at this point. In consulting with Mr Mike, He also idicated that the texture is disappearing in spatial because the textures are not baked. I am very grateful for the help of Mr Mike, but after several hard attempts, I finally successfully put the complete grey model into the spatial. After discussion and agreement with the team members, The problem of losing the color and texture of the model has been solved. I felt grateful when encountered problem we can work as a team to achieve the result.
Fig 14 Product in Spatial
3D Space - why is the space so tight?
Provide walking lanes in between the different spaces because right now it is tight.
The texture is disappearing in spatial because the textures are not baked.
The textures are not needed, you just need a grey box.
Firstly, we have to identify the size.
The grey box has to be exported to Spatial, and everyone has to go in.
For me, it looks tight.
You don’t need it to look exactly like a condo.
Just like Ikea showrooms, have lanes to walk, for people to move around.
Right now, if people are inside the space, how will they see what is on top? (We answered that we were thinking of making the ceiling transparent, so that people can see the plant on top.)
Why is that plant important? (Because our concept is a flower pot.)
Since your concept is a flower pot, I’m thinking - why are you not using one of the pots designed by the WBU students?
Why don’t you follow that design? That is your pot.
In the rendered view, there are objects that are huge, which are unnecessary. For example, the coffee table, those take up a lot of space. Just use the simple, blocky/mesh-type objects.
Right now, the wall tiles and all are polygons, not textures.
The file size is so big in obj. Have you tried to export as fbx.? (Answer:Yes, it is still large.)
It’s just simple objects - how come the file is so large?
Yes, remove the unnecessary large objects, export and check the size of the file. How big is it now? (Answer: It’s still 400.)
Try to take out the shop lot model and try again. If you want to keep it, it should be really low-poly.
I suspect that it is the shop lot model that is adding on to the file size.
Fig 15.1 Final presentation
Comments
Post a Comment