Designoholics HCPD

Building of the prototype took place in TUT language center were we captured one big table for ourselves and spread all our things. We started with taking measures of our test persons (the dolls) and fixed the part drawings to match this size. After this we decided that everybody should do one proto and after finishing we could choose which one is the best for user evaluation. So, we went to work by using milk cardboard and different size of packets, glue, tape, wire, scissors and box cutter. Everyone took a different route combining the parts for the chair (parts represented in last blog post). It was fun and we discussed on the way if someone had hard to add next part in their design. The hardest thing to do was the turning from the chair to the treadmill. We had a lot of discussion and ended up with three different ways for the idea. When all was finished we compared the designs. We were happy with all but chose one to be our main prototype that could be used in...

Hi all! The next part of our project was the prototyping! We were very excited of this because now we can make our idea of the Smart Chair come life. We started with planning how and from what material would we make the prototype. First, we played with idea of making a real size chair but we quickly discarded that because it would take way too much time and material to make. Then we came up with idea of making it doll size so it could be tested in a way. This got support from everyone in our team and we chose to with that. When we had confirmed the size we are working with, it was time for actual plan of the what would the prototype look and what features would it have. The basic features should be that it is chair were someone can sit and that is can be turned in the treadmill. We also decided to add the table feature because these three will showcase our main idea. After long discussion we decided to make the proto from cardboard. It would be the easiest material to work w...

Above you could see our presentation about the proof of concept and MVP testing. Testing was done to achieve proof that our idea would be supported by user and it would fix the problem we chose. As explained the MVP test was done with the storyboard comic and open discussion about the idea. We asked few opening question for the conversation to start like "What do you think about?". People we interview were all very open minded and very talkative so it was easy kept feedback. We showed the comic to the 4 students (university, vocational school) and to 2 adult students (Adult education center). They were from age 21 to 32, 4 women and 2 men.

Scenario we come up for the product.

In this workshop we started with User testing vs. Usability testing. For this we used our classmates and found that we need mobile app for our smart chair project to be designed. It enables some user values such as Functional Value, Financial Value, Social Value, Psychological Value etc. All these values are important but the functional and psychological values are the most important here that we considered. While we were performing pain and gain proposition we found interesting values in our project such as our product brings mental and physical satisfaction and ensures a healthy and balanced life while educating oneself. We found that that pains are: laziness, less motivation, concentration, busy schedule, bringing materials to the lecture etc. are the main pains and the gains are: healthy mind and body, strong concentration, strong motivation, flexibility etc. Here is a full picture of value and concept proposition and its canvas fully desined. Figure 1: Concept and va...

We had opportunity to visit Futurice office in centrum of Tampere. When we first arrived there, we were amazed how cool the public part of the office was. They had different kind of sofas and chairs and also a swing! During the visit we got a lot of useful knowledge for the project and for the future working life. Considering the project, the most interesting thigh was the explanation of the Lean Service Creation which can help when designing product or service in a user-centric way. We also got books that show and explain idea of using different kind of canvases as a part of the Lean Service Creation. But what was weighted the tools are not the main thing but the outcome. So, e.g. the canvases should be used as a aid not as obligation to perfect outcome. We have already used few of the canvases in the workshops to help us guide process so it was very useful to hear the whole story behind them. Picture from: https://futurice.com/