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EVALUATION

After reviewing our initial selection document I feel our proposed travel planning application for the alternately-abled community addresses our problem statement rather effectively. Our solution statement of providing “a planning tool to empower alternately-abled people with the technology needed to travel independently” is satisfied by our application. Thus I would utilize measured achievements to frame this section of review. Proposed improvements are always on the table. In this case I don’t feel our solution removes the barriers facing our alternately-abled community members as much as re routes individuals around them. In future releases I would suggest we revisit some of our earlier concepts on how we may aggregate user feedback to proposition infrastructure repairs.

Polls, Voting & Ranking would be a valuable assessment of our solution as user feedback can be invaluable when attempting to initially appeal a niche user group. Formative and Summative evaluation would also have a place in our performance review. Learning from my peers is often a highlight of group experiences and I feel that occurred quite a bit during our project development resulting in a substantive outcome.

Imposing the proposed improvements method on each section of the creative problem solving model would probably be a valuable tool to refine our ideas along the way. The selection process would benefit form a measurable goals analysis to further ensure we are keeping our users at the center of our proposals. In hindsight it would have been nice to receive user feedback during our implementation phase thus I think utilizing the metrics and rubrics evaluation technique would provide value.

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IMPLEMENTATION II

Continuing to work on implementation this past week was quite the push. We have been utilizing class feedback as a jump off point for our revision plans which has been a helpful guideline. We continued to rework and refine our wireframes and UI ideations as well as the nuts and bolts like our business model and market analysis & positioning.

Each team member has somewhat nestled into their strengths, but we’ve all remained helpful and open to jumping in where needed. Our branding has really begun to take shape this week, which is an exciting development. We have had several fruitful conversations on our market positioning and profit structures, furthering us along as well.

As we are creating an application our prototyping is mostly taking place in Figma. Although I have little experience with the program personally other team members have been open to share their knowledge. I have been focusing primarily on our business model and how to develop our profit structure. Typically, I am more so in the design space so this has been a fun change from my day to day.

We have been holding biweekly meetings which do a great job of holding space for everyone to get their two cents in on each step along the development path. Our team dynamic has been quite flexible and respectful of considerations laid out in our team norms, which is refreshing. As a team we are quite an efficient bunch.

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IMPLEMENTATION

This week was a pivotal one for team Gryffindor. We were able to move the needle substantially on how our idea may begin to take form. After a group session hashing out how several key details may materialize, we uncovered a few gaps we had not previously discussed. We sifted through our market analysis and continued to reference back to our problem statement in order to get our idea on a convergent track. We then utilized these understandings to inform the inception of our visual identity and begin wireframing.

Seeing as we are creating a digital product, we began discussions on how to best utilize the skillsets of each group member for the prototyping process. Discussing the capabilities of each member allowed us to divvy up the workload rather equitably. We plan on further iterating our wireframe and creating some sort of motion graphic element for our eventual stakeholder pitch. As our team has a diverse array of skillsets represented, I am confident we will be able to create an impressive prototype.

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IDEATION

My group decided to first take three days to do independent idea dump brainstorming sessions. We then agreed to come together via zoom each with our three favored solutions and narrow in on our overall top three.

I didn’t feel I knew enough about our user group thus I decided to first do a bit more research to hopefully produce more substantive solutions. I watched a few interviews of persons from the visually impaired community describing their travel experiences and took a short train ride to see if I could further empathize with the other user categories as well. I then briefed myself on the history of the ADA and reviewed our original morphological grid line by line to further understand our user group. I began writing out my various solutions in sharpie on a spare piece of cardboard so I would have a bold visual of all my text. Hitting various mental blocks on ways to incorporate all differently abled communities, I decided to create another morphological analysis pulling from our problem statement. I placed our three inconsistencies on one axis and our pain points on the other. I had a hard time filling in the grid and referred to our original morphological analysis and research documents often.

The three ideas I ended up presenting to my group were a sort of patchwork from my idea boards. All three require the user to provide information about their impairment and service preferences ahead of time. In order of preference my solutions were as follows, Google Live View adaptation, a Real ID incorporation, and a personalized notification system.

When we came together each member pitched their three favored ideas to the group. We had several obvious overlaps including some sort of crowd sourced review process and a type of ID/Passport or identifying element. We merged each of our similar ideas in those categories creating our first two solutions. We then decided to add in one of the big sky or off the beaten path ideas centered around AR/VR for balance. We did a team check in to make sure everyone felt okay about where we ended up and closed the session. I felt our system of individually diverging/converging prior to doing so as a group streamlined our brainstorming session.

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DEFINITION 

 My team began the week with the broad topic of travel. As a common interest, we selected this category and began to narrow in on a specific direction by discussing various disabilities within it’s context. We created a morphological analysis grid on the topic, matching several specific impairments with various avenues of travel. We broke away to conduct individual research on how each impairment can experience various types of travel. Once our morphological gird was complete, we were able to visualize outliers and narrow in on common ailments experienced by these communities. We then developed our individual problem statements based on our research.

I created a miro board to organize my notes on the thoughts and feelings experienced by these groups. First I began to document common pain points that stood out to me across the remaining four impairment categories. I then grouped these pain points in to four separate sections. Next, I took a moment to categorize my audience & distill down their experiences in order to find a common challenge. I extracted navigational ailments from this grouping. Utilizing that specific pain point I considered navigational challenges within the disabled community my primary focus. I then asked myself how I might begin to approach this issue personally. The first thought that came to mind was how to be supportive of this community and recruit others to do so as well. The problem that presented itself to me at this stage was the various points of friction these communities experience while traveling. My research led me to couple this friction with general inconsistencies within the travel sector.

My group mates often highlighted inconsistencies in the various travel sectors as a main pain point as well. We narrowed in on three specific inconsistencies, personnel training, general awareness and physical environments. Next, we eliminated local travel and decided to focus on out-of-town trips as that is where we found the most contention. We concluded that the amount of preparation needed to have a friction free trip was significantly more imperative for these disabled groups than for the general population. We all found that to be of particular interest and decided to round out our statement with that sentiment.

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ANALYSIS

Covering US citizen traveling abroad, I decided to start my research on US government websites. Working from my existing knowledge of international travel, I began my information search on travel.state.gov. Whenever I am planning an international trip I check the risk assessment on this site first. That led me to various covid related informational resources. Our team decided to frame our research within three categories before, during and after covid.

Keeping this in mind I began looking for global tourism statistics. I ended up on travel.trade.gov which lists market research on outbound travel from the US by year. I came across a profile detailing a variety of tourism trends such as departures, spending habits, destinations, traveler residence, trip purposes etc. from 2000-2019. This information led me to search for comparative data from 2020 as well as projections for 2021. I found a source claiming international travel spending fell a staggering 76% in 2020.

In searching for projections on how the industry may bounce back I came across a variety of sources highlighting post-covid travel requirements such as vaccination passports like “CommonPass.” Apparently these ideas are not far from what was required for some international travel in the 1970’s.

I am interested in looking further into how health clearances were orchestrated for travel in the 1970’s & what challenges the system had to overcome versus present day challenges. I also came across a fair amount of verbiage centered around the circular economy and how pre pandemic air travel was impacting climate change. I am interested in broadening my scope to include proposals that highlight making international travel more environmentally sustainable as we incrementally move closer to pre-pandemic travel figures.

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ACCEPTANCE

In preparing for this assignment I went through various stages of mental inquisition. I knew we were going to have a group project in this class and was eager to learn of its constructs. As the description in the syllabus appeared intentionally unconfined I was originally a bit scatter brained on where to go with it. Once group members were established I felt more at ease as I now had comrades to convene with. Having the benefit of getting to know my classmates better through a communal exercise is an exciting idea to me.

Once acquainted it became obvious we would have to find creative ways to get to know each other better in order to proceed. Creating visual and written personality synopses of each team member led us to recognizing our mutual affinity for travel. Navigating five schedules has proven to be a challenge but I feel all members have shown dedication to making the assignment a personal priority. Creating a communal calendar to visualize our schedules has helped us locate overlapping availability.

My greatest hurdle to acceptance will be self-control. I often have a hard time setting boundaries with coworkers, friends and family members leading to severe burnout. Being firm in my declarations for time blocking will be pivotal to my success in the project. In addition, prioritizing my meditation practice will further assist me in avoiding distractions.

Traveling has been in my peripheral over the past year due to the pandemic halting most available travel avenues. As I am quite fond of international travel specifically, I see this project as an opportunity to broaden my understanding of the topic overall. I am eager to begin traveling again and look forward to diving into our subject matter to inform future ventures.

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Cheesy one liners aside, growing up, creativity filled my idle time and as an adult I’ve tried to (more often than not unsuccessfully) summon it upon command. Commentary on a correlation between one’s increase in age and decrease in creativity is well explored. You could argue this within the frame of the nature versus nurture debate. If you are reared in an environment encouraging of independent thought and ever revolving stimuli, you may grow to approach new environments and ideas with excitement and curiosity rather than skepticism and fear. I can then arrive at the idea of a strict and isolated upbringing resulting in more stagnant or close-minded individuals. Of course, this is not always the case hence the ongoing nature versus nurture conversations.

This idea of gaining creative characteristics as you move about life is a testament to the notion that creativity can be both innate and acquired. As a child I had little control over my environment thus I had no choice but to entertain myself with what was available. Children often fill idle time with play and often unbeknownst to them, problem solving behaviors. As they grow these experiences inform their decisions. As adults our idle time can be less frequent, so it is easier to lose sight of the opportunity in front of us. If we utilize some of that down time strategically, we are more likely to cultivate creative thought when needed.

Like meditation being exercise for your mind, play is exercise for you creative psyche. Creating can throw you through a series of volatile emotions. From frustration, angst and defeat to optimism, excitement an accomplishment. I like to gage my creativity by the questions google cannot answer. If my train of thought is leading to places with few prefabricated resolutions, I feel I am on the right path. Back to the cheesy one liners, trust the process. I often find myself most creative under confines, ironically structure can birth the most unique solutions.