Blog 8 - Project Reflection

First, the concept that I have grown to understand more is the idea of prototyping.  Entering the class I did not know much about business.  I have been an advertising student for a year and a half now and that represents the closest I have when it comes to business knowledge.  When doing creative work it is always important to write, and write, and write, and write again.  I was not aware that that process existed as it did elsewhere.  The fact that the Dyson vacuum went through so many prototypes was mind blowing.  The connection between designs changing through time and, something that is more applicable to me, the creation of things like new fonts was not obvious to me at the start although now I am completely aware and can appreciate it more.   I was in charge of making the app mockup for my group and as I’m sure was noticed; the app went through a significant overhaul between the first and second prototypes presented.  It was merely a matter of finishing the basic idea and then looking back on it and filling in any areas that I missed before as well as include new ideas that my group members had come up with.  I have now made a greater connection between business and advertising.  I also was able to appreciate the frustration of having an almost perfect idea that required more work still.

The next thing I took away from the course through my group was learning how to use codiqa.  I used this application in order to create our mock app and display it to the class.  I plan on expanding my knowledge of it and using it in the future.  Especially in advertising, the ability to visually show your ideas in a satisfying manner is important.  This can give you the edge when talking to a client because often times seeing is believing for them.  I was quite proud of showing my app and its various functions to the class.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would come away form this class with a new found skill and in fact, I hardly used any of what I already knew.  This is probably my greatest take away.

I struggle to think of what did not work for our group.  If I had to give a broad criticism, it would be to give options for what personas should be done.  There should be a slight level of difficulty that I believe varied from group to group.  That being said, my main issue with each group is that being able to pick a persona that some picking more accessible options made for less interesting presentations.  Is my issue one that makes the project worth changing? Probably not.  But I do believe that it would have given students a greater benefit if their persona wasn’t one that they could walk out the door and find on the street.  Once again, just me.  It is more of a personal issue than something that did not work.

My emotional reaction to my group is very positive.  It is especially so because I feel that my group members and I had a good dynamic that allowed us to work well together as well as distribute work evenly.  At no point during the project did it seem like any individual was doing more work than another.  Our work with the professor also left little to be desired.  He was attentive and insightful in class whenever the group would have questions.  Although I may be biased, I believe my group had one of the more unique personas in our Digimom.  He collaborated well with us in order to get a good focus on who she was and what we had to do to learn more about her for our prototype.  The entire process of the project was also delightful.  It was evenly spaced out so at no point during the semester did the class appear overwhelming.  Dividing the project up into five parts was an excellent choice.  The updates set the pace well and worked well as a way to give feedback on how the course of the project was headed as well as keep the group focused on individual steps, which would eventually lead to an easier to complete final presentation. 

Working with a group added to the enjoyment of the project for sure.  Every person brings a different skill set to the table and my group was quite diverse.   In addition, we had a responsible group that completed their tasks efficiently and on time if not early.  This allowed us to set our goals early on whenever we had a class project day, which meant that most of our time spent during these classes, was reviewing what we had completed.  Last but not least, working in a group allowed for everyone having the ability to bring everyone else up.  As I said before, my knowledge of many of these concepts was new at the time.  The length of my knowledge coincided with how many days since the class where it was mentioned was.  My group members were gracious enough to explain some of the terms and ideas that I was still relatively new to so that I could continue to keep my head above water as well as continue being a contributing member to the group.  For those reasons I found my experience with my group in concepts learned, skills earned, and overall dynamic to have been a productive and meaningful venture.