8-Yonjae Lee

Since the beginning this semester, I have learned about "playing the whole game" of human-computer interaction design.  I have learned qualities of good designs, ways to test a design, the use of personae in HCI design, necessity of iteration process, team protocol for group project, and so forth.  I finished first four small projects, and the details of last and largest project is about to be revealed.  After working on four projects, I think I have learned that the more I exchange ideas with other team members, the better the outcome design is.
In the 4th project, I have joined two students who did not work with me for the previous three projects, because I was dissatisfied with my previous team.  I have spent a lot more time with this team compared to the time I spent with my previous partner for the project, and we exchanged a lot of opinions.  For instance, we discussed the story of our persona even to the extent of the persona's nationality and birthplace.  Sure, it might be dangerous to give too much attention on such detail, but it prevented us from creating a stereotypical persona.  After two usability tests, we talked about how to suggest users to use voice recognition system, how to make a button on the touchscreen look like a button so that users are more likely to notice and touch it, and so forth.  Since we spent a lot of time pitching ideas and debating pros and cons, I am sure that the outcome is more solid than what came out of my previous project, which was disastrous due to lack of such communication between me and my partner.