mishasadeemmahmood

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Evaluation

I have noticed that our group leaned on a couple of methods and techniques for evaluation. One of them is measurable goals because even though we’re all creative and think outside the box, we have to think logically about what could work in a creative, innovative way. Of course, we went from foster care to a common problem with Americans and found an enjoyable way to make learning about financial well-being exciting and engaging. It isn’t a common problem that Americans are not using healthy financial practices. We had to identify the problem, generate a question, and follow the creative prototyping to meet the criteria. I’ve also noticed we used formative and summative evaluation as well. We proposed a lot of questions in our group. For example, is the cause clear for people to understand, how interesting it is, is the design engaging, etc. We also noticed we had to make a lot of solid pivots with our crazy lives going on. However, that’s a part of the creative thinking process in stages. We got hyper-focused on designing, and after our discussion this week and before Thanksgiving, we need to lean into design thinking even though we have our designs mocked up.

I look forward to this last week and go team!

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Selection

In unit 11, we follow through with Ashley‘s Google Docs and Google sheets. The team decided to divide responsibilities. We had to research financial technology platforms to see what’s familiar and what is not shared. We discovered that technology enables the do-it-yourself mentality. We decided to create a forum on how we can use technology to make people learn financial literacy and feel good about money. We had to make an excel sheet and vote on the platform we think was best for our project. I made the charts in the maps to visualize what service is best for financial wellness. 

[mishasadeemmahmood]

I had to listen to this whole album to keep the creativity going and desensitize to the intensity. Wu Tang is the best whenever things get tough, but makes the tough time memorable.

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Listen to me, Morty. I know that new situations can be intimidating. You're lookin’ around and it’s all scary and different, but y’know … meeting them head-on, charging into ‘em like a bull — that’s how we grow as people.

Rick Sanchez is pretty much this week’s implementation.

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Implementation 2

I am super glad that Ashley prepared a guideline for us for this week. This is the most intense week of the project because this is a time where we have to demonstrate to the class the mock-ups. Plus, I have a graphic design and art background; I was responsible for making the computer screens, cleaning up two iPhone screens, and drawing the storyboard. I'm super glad my team does not mind calling each other and texting if I need some direction. I think this week, I learned to appreciate different forms of the complex. Ashley did her part and broke down the task for our team, and she gave us expectations about what should be done each day. On Thursday, all of us managed to complete our customer journey experiences. Friday, I offered to help Ashley out with the mood board. Saturday, I appreciated that Victoria knew what she wanted on the computer screens, and we worked together on the octopus website. Victoria did a majority of the information architecture, and that helped me get on to the designing. And the best thing about our team is that we all have very hectic schedules, and it’s tough to balance our personal, professional, and academic lives. Yet, we support each other through our crazy lives, making a big difference in this project. By the end of unit 13, we learned how to deal with the most unexpected consequences and think fast. Tommy and I ended up making a ludicrous but fun customer experience map. I noticed Tommy, and I found a unique way to integrate this week's intensity out on our group's person Elijah. This week's implementation reminded me of one of the videos where one of the designers talked about how he plans but the doing in action is so different from the planning. Even though there was a plan to follow through the step was very unexpected, and we had to learn to roll with the punches. Overall, I appreciate that our team takes the initiative and offers a hand in need whenever we are in trouble. I think we work well together is because we take the time to meet in person each week, and it makes a big difference in our work. 

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Implementation 1

After the selection process, our group decided to come up with a web platform that focuses on different life stages of the individual in regards to their knowledge about finance. We thought it would be unique to develop a platform that guides individuals throughout their lifetime and help them with their behavior towards financial wellness. Ashley took the initiative and laid out a plan that helped the team follow through. It was a collection of our discussions and what responsibilities we could tackle due to our professional background. She created a Google doc on what is expected to be completed by Sunday. This helped us stay on track with our tasks while we had our busy lives going on. After our meeting on Sunday, I was responsible for creating visual maps, mock-up screens of the phone, and services offerings. Our discussion on Sunday gave me direction on the appropriate colors, fonts, and typography needed for the platform to come to life. Victoria tackles down the necessary details and lists required to create the service offerings. Plus, she made a description on the document on the web platform’s expected to be. Victoria and Ashley‘s details helped me give direction on my design skills. Plus, I used sage green, taupe, and cognac as our color palette. That is a perfect combination of taking responsibility for your finances and analyzing your behavior towards your spending and savings. The whole intention is to make people feel good and less stressed about their approach to money. It focuses on growth and development rather than an aggressive approach. After finishing up the service offerings and mock-ups, I helped Tommy design the slides and showcase objects. And the slides include processes and interactions with the Financial wellness platform. After this intense and productive week, our team thought of naming our service Sensible. We are excited about the following steps to take to make our financial wellness platform come to life. 

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Ideation

After class last week, we agreed to do a meeting to have a heads up on what was expected before our discussion on 24 October. We spent all the time brainstorming, so we had to make it mandatory to do the brainstorming ourselves to focus on the business canvas. We made a time limit on brainstorming and agreed to settle on ideas that would help us move forward. Interestingly, enough our thoughts we’re combined. We decided to finalize three concepts: a gaming platform, a web platform, and a cross-country campaign that capitalized on mentorship. With all the research done, I noticed that even though millennials have all the Technology to access information on financial literacy, Technology enables them to do financial literacy themselves. Our group, I believe, is striving to create a solution that can help people be more money-wise. We are hoping to find a way to make financial literacy exciting and not so dull to learn. Our Miro sessions, knowing what’s expected of us outside of meetings, and setting short-term deadlines are working. This helps us understand our similarities and differences with our research and knowledge. We end up having to find some common themes and functions that help us move forward. I feel confident that our group is excited about our three ideas. I look forward to what’s coming next with this project.

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Definition

For this week, our group came together and shared our research about financial literacy and youth. We heard a lot of feedback about many ideas on various ages and their approach to finances. We decided it was practical to focus on “Young Americans.” Financial illiteracy is a significant social problem that young Americans experience, causing the unemployment rate to increase and increasing dissatisfaction in the quality of life. Because young Americans live in economic inflation, it is harder for them to buy a house.

All of us defined our problem as:

Young Americans today are not evidencing healthy financial practices. How might we utilize technology to distill complicated financial concepts into enjoyable, entertaining resources users want, use, and benefit from?

This question we agreed on goes straight to why so many young Americans lack money management and basic financial skills. Even though there are so many apps, videos, and books to teach people how to be more financially literate, people still struggle to develop these skills. We hope to build a better and innovative way for young Americans to create better life skills. We want to understand, “where are people still struggling?” Our group hopes to develop a possible solution to help young Americans develop long-term wealth and struggle less economically. 

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Problem Statement -

Our group at first focused on foster care. We were interested in the idea of having a platform where these foster care children can have access to their photos because they experience too many transitions, and they often forget people who were important to them in their lives. We saw too many problems in the foster care system that we went into multiple directions. We would see abuse, lack of education, and instability in foster care. After hearing some feedback from the group and their interactions with Professor Lim, we decided we needed to take a step back and do a mind dump on Miro again. We decided to do a macro with social responsibility to give us some direction to move forward with this project. Most of us included popular topics such as environment, education, investments, and children. All of us I noticed still have an interest in youth, and we also noticed that millennials and younger generations struggle more with the job market than previous generations. We see an opportunity to develop a platform that can solve this common issue.

To develop the problem statement, I used my four-year-old brother as inspiration to create new ways “youth” can learn about financial literacy. He loves watching youtube videos, playing board games, and nursery ryhmes.

I did my research, and I saw that kids love playing board games such as the Budget Game, Monopoly, Payday, Act your Wage, and Catan. These games expose children to the rules they will encounter during banking and managing money as they grow up.

It would be a beautiful idea to teach children concepts about the stock market, however, it would be a little too challenging. I decided to switch my focus to 16-24-year-olds. I thought about my own experiences to focus on financial literacy. It is a common problem that adulting skills are not being taught in schools. Being financially responsible should be started at a young age. Also, I think young people should be taught the basics of saving and investing in preparing for when they are ready for the world entirely.

According to the research I did, it seems that young people tend to be “impulsive” and “want excitement.” I think there should be a platform that causes stimulation yet prevents youth from losing their money.

I asked myself, “Should there be an investing platform similar to Mimo? Mimo is how I built my coding skills. They have an interactive, fun game-based way to develop your coding skills. Mimo starts at level one HTML/CSS, but my coding skills go up to the next level once I pass the game. Should there be a fun-interactive game in investing where young adults can start as little as $1 but use the fun-game levels that help them “build” the concepts of saving and investing that increases their confidence?”

This led to a possible problem statement:

How can we develop a technological platform that engages young people to invest appropriately based on their devices? How can they bring into play this platform in their daily lives?

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Conjunction Statement

“My roller skates are all light blue and have a white midsole and contain pink and purple wheels. The interior is cushiony and firm and grips well to my ankles with lacing tightly. The sole is comforting and has great padding.” & “My roller skates are all light blue but have a white midsole. The midsole is all white but contains two colored wheels: one pink, one purple. The interior is cushiony but firmly gripped with lacing tightly. The sole is comforting but still has great padding.”

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Acceptance

Since this is the first week of the project, I'm looking forward to learning more about foster care. It is a very new subject to me on how foster care children can access their photos. From our discussions, I think all of us adore children, which is why we are interested in creating a platform that can help youth bring back their memories. I'm also learning that we are discovering some challenges about data privacy and who has access to the photos. I'm excepting that this is a very new opportunity and it will have its challenges. However, I believe my team is excited to go through the hurdles to come up with something unique. I am learning a lot about why foster children should have photos and why they need to keep them. This subject is out of my comfort zone. However, I became a designer to create visual content to improve the quality of lives of others. This is a whole new arena for me, but I am willing to do this project with my group:)

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Analysis

This week my team started with four topics: Climate change, foster care for image climate change, investment apps, and healthcare. It was so it could help us analyze what we can all agree with and work together on. We thought it was a unique and exciting idea to create a platform for foster care children to access photos with people they stayed with. We are using Miro as our brainstorming platform to give us direction. Google Docs is a way to keep up with our progress and track our research.

I decided to take responsibility for psychology in our group. As a graphic designer, I have to understand psychology and human behavior to conduct suitable visual materials. I learned a lot about how children in foster care barely remember people who are important to them in their lives because they have to move so much. It's difficult for them to feel a sense of attachment because they don't know if they deem it essential. And I also learned how photographs are crucial for memories and remembering intimate details. Children's memories fade at the age of three and remember a lot at age 3. Children in foster care are often told bits and pieces of their story but may be left with more questions than answers. Children lack an understanding of their foundation and feel a detached sense of self. Photographs can be a visual collection of memories. They hold sentimental and cherish value. Photography allows events to seem more real than photography to enable events to seem more real than merely stories. Children often feel rejection and low self-esteem by the foster care system. When children come from complicated histories, they may not have positive memories. Photographs are a reminder that they have people in their lives. Children need to know that they are essential and people out there who care about them.

After researching the psychology of children going through foster care, I see a massive opportunity with the group to create a platform to access photos. This looks pretty new, and there are some challenges we are going to face along the way. Still, we are looking forward to overcoming them because I think we all agree that people should take some more interest in children who go through foster care and how we can improve their psychological well-being. It will be a challenge who has access to these photos and who does not have these photos.

As we were doing the morphological analysis, we were trying to see ways to access photos without the invasion of privacy and how we could check in on how they're doing and if they're alive. In the beginning, we were spot on with ideas. When we were filling in the slots on the excel sheet, we were getting in-depth and noticing some challenges with the law. We, also, are having challenges with ethics and morals, but that's a positive thing for us because we want to improve the lives of foster care children. This pushes us to dig more into our research and be better problem solvers. The brainstorming session makes us wonder what a good balance between being creative and being practical is. I think what I learned from this first session is that we want to improve the lives of foster care children, but we do not want to make this project unethical. Overall, we do commit to deadlines and getting our work done.

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Team Norms Documentation

So far our rules and expecations are working. I like how realistic and productive these rules are for our group. It is also helpful that we group text, chat on Slack, use Google Docs, and Miro to execute tasks and collaborate.

Here are the expectations:

Mutual Respect

Everyone's thoughts have value

Timeliness

Loyalty

Transparency

Communication

Vulnerability

No Ego

Ethical decision making

Professional

Individual Ownership

[mishasadeemmahmood]

Interviews on Problem Solving

Introduction:

There are three people who I choose to interview because they are passionate about their creativity and embrace their entrepreneurial spirit. They kindly asked me to use their initials for privacy reasons. In

The first person is EMG. She is a business creative for an entertainment company in LA. She is in charge of tracking project milestones with her company, including managing project scope and undertaking project analysis.

The second person is KJ. She is a well-known makeup artist in Arkansas, but she has goals and desires to do make-up artist in film and entertainment. She owns a successful freelance make-up business, and the majority of her clients include brides, high school seniors, and working professionals. She does photography on the side.

The third person is SC. She works as a project manager for Coastal Custom Building. She lives in Florida. She’s also a very amazing artist. She is in charge of setting budgets and scheduling the design completion.

How do you generate ideas?

For EMG, she generates ideas by doing her research and talking to people. She analyzes the pros and cons of her environment as a way of identifying the problem. She brainstorms and reads the appropriate books she needs to find a solution. If she doesn’t know something, she will go on Google or ask experts in areas she’s not an expert in.

For KJ, She is inspired by things around her, from the smallest to the biggest. She is constantly observing my surroundings consciously and subconsciously. Color, texture, and pattern inspire her. People and their cultures, uniquenesses and varieties lifestyles inspire her as well.

SC’s inspirations come from historical figures and mythology. Those stories and specific objects become a cot stone in their story and what she wants to use in her art.

What obstacles do you face, and how do you overcome them?

The obstacles that KJ faces are ways of combining my observations to express my thoughts, feelings, and visions.

KJ overcomes those obstacles by brainstorming and keeping a pen and pad to start and keep notes, ideas, and solutions while keeping and open, creative mind.

SC's obstacles are mostly trying to transform/transfer those ideas onto a medium that encapsulates what she is feeling within the architecture. Sometimes feelings are hard to describe. It takes deep thoughts, time, and trial and error to come up with a solution. She’s not afraid of making mistakes and moving forward, which is her way of overcoming obstacles.

The obstacles that EMG faces are physical and emotional burnout. She is surrounded by an environment where she feels she cannot be her person. She gets self-conscious because she thought that her knowledge was not well-versed. To let go of the negative emotions, she practices self-care. She needs to be around people that support her objectives, so she feels that she’s heard. That’s her way of feeling confident that she can handle people that think differently than her.

What processes do you use to solve the problem?

EMG uses a mind map to identify the problem. She looks for common words for her to see what the root of the problem is. This helps her develop factual data. She asks five times why to help her do appropriate research. She brainstorms ideas, asks for feedback, breaks them down into steps, and prepares for the execution.

KJ takes pictures and needs to look at color to solve her problems. She scrapbooks and starts writing in her journal her thoughts and feelings. Once her emotions are out in the journal, that helps her solve her problems and helps her find a solution.

SC takes the initiative, which is pretty bold. She believes that you have to rely on your judgment and think on your feet. The real world is messy, and you have to make quick decisions based on incomplete information.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I feel that my thought process aligns most with KJ. She takes photos and uses moodboards to stimulate her creative thought process. We are people that use journals to write down our feelings. It helps us organize our thoughts and we use planners to get the execution going. Also, like EMG I have to mind map and research in order to be better at problem solving. SC I get where she is coming from with being bold and taking initiative, however I am not a person who can just go with it all the time. I have to take a step back and think, so I can rely on my gut instincts. 

[mishasadeemmahmood]

I put extra gifs because my inspiration for my creative process comes from a mix of a lot of things. I grew up part time in Arkansas and California, my values are mix of the southern hostility and living the laid back California style. Also, you can see a bunch of rock music has an influence to my thought process. Also, the fact that my parents are Pakistani. I am exposed to the eastern values. You can see that I whatever sub-sector of groups or influences I hang out with. I experience a lot of dynamics and barriers. That is what makes me a creative person. 

The Process Journal

Creativity is the complex process of finding solutions that have not been seen before.

Creative brains tend to see a problem that non-creative brains do not notice when observing their environment and are curious about how to fix it. Whenever creative individuals see a problem, they know what they need to do to fix it, but they have to find their way to the solution because no one is there to guide them.

This applies to me personally as an artist and designer because I constantly find different methods to get to the result. Whenever I do professional and freelance projects, I know the objective, but “how” to get to the objective has no steps. You are the creator of the steps, and you are alone. The order is not linear. You daydream and listen to music that is not relatable but somehow makes it tangible to your creative thought process. The best ideas come at the worst time and when you least expect them. But once you have the vision, you have to jot it down on paper to give yourself order and direction. 

[mishasadeemmahmood]

The Process Journal

Creativity is the complex process of finding solutions that have not been seen before.

Creative brains tend to see a problem that non-creative brains do not notice when observing their environment and are curious about how to fix it. Whenever creative individuals see a problem, they know what they need to do to fix it, but they have to find their way to the solution because no one is there to guide them.

This applies to me personally as an artist and designer because I constantly find different methods to get to the result. Whenever I do professional and freelance projects, I know the objective, but “how” to get to the objective has no steps. You are the creator of the steps, and you are alone. The order is not linear. You daydream and listen to music that is not relatable but somehow makes it tangible to your creative thought process. The best ideas come at the worst time and when you least expect them. But once you have the vision, you have to jot it down on paper to give yourself order and direction. 

[mishasadeemmahmood]

The Process Journal

Creativity is the complex process of finding solutions that have not been seen before.

Creative brains tend to see a problem that non-creative brains do not notice when observing their environment and are curious about how to fix it. Whenever creative individuals see a problem, they know what they need to do to fix it, but they have to find their way to the solution because no one is there to guide them.

This applies to me personally as an artist and designer because I constantly find different methods to get to the result. Whenever I do professional and freelance projects, I know the objective, but "how" to get to the objective has no steps. You are the creator of the steps, and you are alone. The order is not linear. You daydream and listen to music that is not relatable but somehow makes it tangible to your creative thought process. The best ideas come at the worst time and when you least expect them. But once you have the vision, you have to jot it down on paper to give yourself order and direction.