Final Thoughts

I took another class called that focused on usability testing this semester and I found that SI548 fit in very nicely with the usability course in part because many of the same concepts of design were also covered.  The major difference was the emphasis between usability and learning goals.  It was interesting to walk that line between the two of them. 

Educational theory is nothing new to me.  I've been a teacher for a decade next year (how did that happen? where did the time go?) and I'm one of those people that always wants to know more.  Yes, I was that kid that always asked "Why?"  That said, while I was familiar with behaviorism and constructivism, cognitive science/intelligent tutors was something of a new idea for me.  Then again, my impression is that it's still relatively new in the field in general.  I think when we first started the project, we did kind of thing of our app, CityTutor, as something that would be like an intelligent tutor, perhaps almost Siri like.  That said, we quickly discovered that the logic that would need to go into creating such an app was just too overwhelming so we went with something a little more traditional. 

In terms of our app then, we did start off too broad and then we narrowed down a bit, especially when we added the language ideas.  Still, the idea behind the app is still a bit feature rich in places and feature poor in others.  We just didn't have time to fully flesh out every single thing.  That said, I think our basic idea was a good one and with the document that we put together, I think a design team could definitely have a very good start in building the actual app.

I'm not sure that we had huge failures in part because my team consisted of two HCI guys and myself.  Since we've all been in the situation that the app was aimed at and we have all taken the usability course (or in my case, in the middle of it), we all had a strong idea of how and what worked and what would not and why.  That said, we did go feature overboard there for awhile and had to quickly pare down what we were going to do in terms of things offered. 

The overall structure of the app and the features that are offered are pretty positive and do encourage learning of both the new city and the new language and in this way, I feel like we were successful. 

For me personally, I feel like I had a lot of these ideas in my head in theory and designing the app up through lofi mockups allowed me to experiment with bringing ideas about learning to the forefront.  I feel like I got a lot of practical application out of building the app with my team.  I also feel that my past experiences in instructional design and especially teaching online, really helped my group and our app because I was able to form more concrete ideas grounded in learning theory more quickly and with the help of the HCI guys, we were able to push those ideas into an actual usable design.

Overall, the course and the process of designing the app has been a good one and I feel like I got a lot out of the class.

Storyboards

Our storyboards/narrative document is due next week.  We've been working on creating wireframes for it.  We got a little sidetracked with creating a digital working prototype example because of expoSItion, and it was pretty cool, but now we need to buckle down and focus more specifically on this assignment. 

Our wireframes are half complete, but they should be done soon and then all I have to do is to write a narrative that goes with it.

After that, we need to work on the final paper and presentation.  I'm a little concerned about the paper because there apparently needs to be a lot more theory than I was expecting but it will work out somehow.

Design Summary

Today, we handed in our Design Summary.   This was the first real assignment for the group.  Before that, we threw ideas onto the forum boards to see what was sticky.  I'm glad that my idea made it!  The design summary was basically an exploratory document that looked at who is the target population, what is a potential scenario for the product, etc.  I was the principle writer for the group since it was my original idea and because writing is my strong skill, which is totally fine.  One group member was absent last week and this week another group member is absent so we've been working principally through googledocs and email.  It's been interesting.  

Other groups that I have been in have used googledocs and other collaboration software but never to this degree because people have been missing.  That's ok though.  It's been a fun experience.  We are a strong group and we are all in step for the most part so far.  I'm looking forward to the next assignment which is to flesh out the summary into an updated report that is half again as long.  I'm excited about thinking and discussing how to make the scaffolding in the app real.

City Tutor

My group has formed and we have named our app City Tutor!  The two guys in my group, A and K, are both Human Computer Interaction and at our first meeting we discussed further trying to define what the app does and so forth.  Both of them are really interested in doing competitor research and then they split off and were talking in jargon but what I got is that they are going to look at some apps and think about elements that are across apps and that might be useful/interesting to City Tutor.

Where does that leave me?  I'm the writer of course.  LOL  I'm not surprised and actually, it's a bit refreshing.  I'm in the usability class as well so watching A and K as they talk about usability and design is really helpful for my other class because I am getting a deeper insight into what all of this means.  I do the reading, but its helpful to see it actually applied. 

At any rate, I'm writing up the rough draft of our summary assignment and then we are meeting on Mondays to discuss our movement forward from here on out.  Should be fun!

Proposing a Project

I proposed a Learn a New City app, largely because when I came to Ann Arbor, though I was very excited, I found it very intimidating.  I had lived with my parents for the last 10 years and was used to driving everywhere and having very little free time.  I went from that to taking public transportation, many things being within walking distance once you were at a central hub, and not knowing where anything was including a laundromat or a grocery store.  It's not that I hadn't lived in foreign places before.  I've traveled very extensively.  I think it was more along the lines of I didn't even know where to look or who to turn to in an easy and accessible way.

My idea of this class then is to create an app that helps you learn a new city.  It's kind of a hybrid of Foursquare, Rosetta Stone, and some type of game to add some competition/achievements.  The idea is that it would be aimed at anyone who is moving to a new place, teenage and up, and would help them learn language and the place that they are in.  There could be preset paths for cities or the user could make their own path.