This assignment was a fulfilling experience, true, it was tiring and frustrating at times but what is left now is a deep sense of achievement for me and I believe for the others in the group. When our first iteration failed with the users, our heart sunk; back to brainstorm and drawing sessions again, and again, and again, and again, but progress was being made, we saw that evolution coming every time. Every click in the right button was a cause of celebration.
I consider myself lucky with my group, I believe we had a good balance. We worked a lot but we had some fun in the process. Rachel moved the team forward, her passion to learn motivated us all to keep going further, she organised our meetings, set goals and deadlines. Richard is very curious, he questioned everything (and I mean everything), he is extremely patient, his research was meticulous, even when we were told we had enough, he wasn’t satisfied. In the middle of the process he had a baby girl, and even then he was a key contributor to create the screens for each iteration.
For my part, during the data gathering part (problem identification, user research and personas) there was a big learning curve. I felt overwhelmed at times to navigate these areas. Sewing together these sections was not very clear for me at the time (I often asked what I would do with all the data we had gathered). Now at the end, I understand the flow and data requirements between each part of this blog. On the second part (sketches, brainstorming and iteration) I felt more at ease, these tasks are part of my current role in the company I work for. This reflected on my largest contributions: user tests, analysis and brainstorming sessions for the new designs.
I would like to thank my wife and best friend, Marie. She had the energy and patience to keep everything under control even with projects of her own. Thanks for taking the time to review my texts, without you I wouldn’t be able to finish this project on time. Love you!
Note: the header image comes from the movie “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”, that’s how we felt at times during this project: connecting items, sketching, looking at the wilderness of data in front of us.