#Design thinking methodology

[dbajaj48]

Leverage User Feedback As A Pillar Of Design Thinking

In the realm of product design, user feedback isn't merely a box to check—it's the driving force behind innovation and success. From shaping initial concepts to refining final products, integrating user insights is paramount to creating solutions that resonate deeply with their intended audience.

The Role of User Feedback in Design Thinking

Design thinking, advocated by IDEO and Stanford d.school, prioritizes a user-centered approach to product development. McKinsey's research confirms its effectiveness, with organizations seeing higher returns. By immersing in users' worlds and leveraging their feedback, designers gain insights guiding ideation and testing. This iterative cycle ensures products meet functional needs and resonate emotionally.

Integrating user feedback in design thinking leads to innovative products, exemplified by Apple's iPod. In today's digital era, incorporating user feedback is essential for adapting to evolving needs and driving satisfaction and growth. In summary, integrating user feedback isn't just strategic—it's essential for success in today's user-centric landscape.

Strategies for Collecting User Feedback

Continuous Feedback Collection

Modern product design emphasizes ongoing feedback gathering. Incorporating feedback mechanisms directly into digital products, like feedback widgets and pop-ups or automated emails, is crucial. For instance, integrating these tools in a mobile app could increase user engagement rates significantly, as per industry case studies.

Diverse Feedback Channels

Utilizing various channels, including surveys, interviews, and social media, enriches feedback diversity. However, centralizing this feedback is essential for coherent analysis. Tools like Productboard and Canny help consolidate input from multiple sources, enhancing the efficiency of the process.

Analyzing and Integrating User Feedback

Feedback Analysis

Analyzing and integrating user feedback is essential for product enhancement. Collected feedback undergoes meticulous analysis to identify patterns and insights, balancing positive and negative input. Prioritizing feedback based on its impact on user experience and business objectives is crucial, using metrics like user retention rates for guidance.

Implementing feedback through iterative design facilitates continuous product evolution, evident in sectors like SaaS experiencing increased customer satisfaction. Overall, a strategic approach to gathering, analyzing, and prioritizing feedback aligns product development with user needs and business objectives.

Challenges in Integrating User Feedback

Managing Diverse Opinions

Diverse user feedback can lead to conflicting opinions. It's crucial to balance these viewpoints to create a product that caters to a broad audience. For example, a study indicated that diverse user groups can have a 20% variance in feedback, which requires careful consideration and balancing by product teams.

Aligning Feedback with Business Goals

Not all user feedback aligns with the business's strategic goals. Product teams must ensure that user feedback integration supports the overall business strategy. A survey by Forbes found that companies that successfully align user feedback with business goals see a 15-25% increase in customer satisfaction.

Incorporating Feedback into the Iterative Design Process

Incorporating feedback into iterative design is essential for product evolution. User-driven design ensures adaptability and satisfaction, with methods reducing time-to-market by up to 30%, according to Harvard Business Review.

Real-world application of user feedback is vital for product success. Continuous testing and prototyping based on feedback lead to better-aligned products, resulting in up to a 40% increase in repeat customers. Overall, integrating user feedback into product design is crucial for user-centric solutions, helping teams exceed expectations.

Looking Ahead

The future of product design is bright, but it's also rapidly evolving. Predictive analytics, AI-driven insights, and other emerging technologies will undoubtedly play a role in shaping the products of tomorrow. However, one thing will remain constant: the importance of listening to your users and using their feedback to drive continuous improvement.

Conclusion

Incorporating user feedback isn't just a best practice; it's a strategic imperative. By prioritizing user insights, embracing iterative design, and staying ahead of emerging trends, Product Engineering Services Company can create solutions that delight users, drive business growth, and ultimately, change the world.

[smahavir29]

Empathy To Innovation: The Role Of Design Thinking In Product Engineering

In a world where products are not just built but crafted with a deep understanding of user needs, Design Thinking in Product Engineering emerges as a transformative force. Beyond a mere process, it's a journey into the minds of users, blending creativity, empathy, and practicality. This article delves into the profound impact of Design Thinking in shaping innovative, user-centric products.

Design Thinking Unveiled:

At its essence, Design Thinking is an empathetic and human-centric approach, a blend of creativity, logic, intuition, and systematic thinking. It goes beyond aesthetics, focusing on crafting solutions that feel right, seamlessly fitting into users' lives and solving real problems.

From Roots to Relevance:

Originating from design and architecture, the Design Thinking Methodology has evolved into a guiding light for companies, leading them towards more innovative and user-friendly products. It's a methodology embraced by startups and tech giants alike.

Design Thinking in Today's Product Development:

In the current product development landscape, Design Thinking bridges human experiences with technological possibilities. It redefines success metrics, emphasizing meaningful user experiences over mere functionality.

The Five-Stage Process:

Design Thinking unfolds through five transformative stages: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Each stage plays a vital role, from understanding users' worlds to crafting creative solutions and refining prototypes based on real user interactions.

Implementing Design Thinking:

Integrating Design Thinking into product development requires a mindset shift towards user-focused, collaborative, and iterative approaches. Case studies from companies like Apple and Airbnb showcase its effectiveness in creating groundbreaking, user-centric products.

Challenges and Best Practices:

Implementing Design Thinking comes with challenges, such as overcoming traditional mindsets and gathering meaningful user insights. Best practices include fostering a culture that values user empathy, prioritizing rapid prototyping, and encouraging cross-functional collaboration.

The Future of Design Thinking:

Design Thinking continues to evolve, integrating with emerging technologies like AI and AR/VR. The future lies in staying adaptable, leveraging new methods and technologies, and nurturing a culture of continuous innovation.

Concluding Thoughts:

The journey of Design Thinking in product engineering services is ongoing, challenging innovators to adapt to our dynamic world continually. As we embrace the future, the focus shifts towards ethical and sustainable design, global perspectives, and leveraging emerging technologies. The story of Design Thinking in product development services is not an end but an exciting new chapter, asking innovators within a product engineering services company to push the boundaries of creativity, empathy, and technology to create products that genuinely make a difference.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A fierce duel commences!

[prismbearer]

Do you think the idea of severance came from Harmony's own desire to be free of the grief and ties to the labor they endured at that Factory?

[plasmafrigate]

i disagree w a lot of this guys rankings but he described the feeling hoffman gives him as wanting to shave his head and join a monastery and not only is that hilarious but also i think i intrinsically understand

[pebblegalaxy]

Beyond Agile: Discover 10 Alternative and Effective Approaches for Product Development

While Agile is a widely successful and adaptable methodology, some alternative approaches or complementary strategies may be more effective depending on the context of the product, team dynamics, and business goals. Here are a few methods that can be considered more effective or tailored for specific scenarios than Agile: 1. Lean Development Overview: Lean focuses on reducing waste, improving…

[des302-capstone-blog-project]

20/07/2023

During this first week of this semester, I have started on creating my Miro board to plan out my projects and to get an idea what task I will be doing each week.

From the announcement made by Ayla about planning week 1 and 2, I have started in completing this list.

Miro board link: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVM1F4xZw=/

create your Miro board

choose a buddy or a group

define the specific methodology you wish to use and map the stages of the methodologies to a timeline.

think about what it is you might like to achieve by week 12 (just a draft)

add your to do list for week 1 on Miro board.

I have also started on the A2: proposal refinement and planning + ethics modules - 6 key "ingredients slide"

I have used the scope/limits I have made in Des300 project proposal for this project. I will be refining this next week and onto the coming weeks when the project has roughly finished its planing stage. I will be using the human centred design (HCD) methodology and the process that I will be using in this research is both qualitative research and quantitative and I will be using the design thinking method to map the stages to a timeline.

[friendlyloner]

So in love with stitching this. I love the color palette and the design's ability to transition through it with no confetti just excellent and deliberate color choices. Think I'll do an update when I complete each set of 10 rows. I'm such a nerd for tidy incremental progress pics.

This pattern is Phases of Change by @8pxl

Navel gazing and a backside below the cut

Thinking a lot about methodology as a stitcher this morning. Came up because the other cross stitcher in the monthly craft hang out has encouraged me to try out Pattern Keeper a few times and I've been resistant but unable to articulate why. So I've had a little think about it and my conclusion is there are two reasons, one simple and one complex that builds out from the simple.

The simple reason is I started working from PDFs of patterns before cross stitch tracking apps were widely available. I'd more or less already figured out how to make it work for me when they came along so it feels a lot like solving a problem I don't have. If it ain't broke...

The complex reason is that as a process not a product stitcher a big part of what I really enjoy about cross stitch is the little challenges of figuring out my methodology for each project. I like working on a variety of different things and have found that different pattern design styles usually work best with different styles of stitching. I like the challenge of tailoring my method of stitching to best suit the pattern. There's usually some trial and error at the beginning but when I lock in on what works the happy brain feels of finding the right workflow are intoxicating.

This also very much is why my backs end up being pretty tidy looking usually, as that is also a fun little brain teaser challenge for me.

Case in point:

All this to say, the mental work of thinking all this stuff through is a big part of what I enjoy about stitching and I don't want an app to do it for me.

If I really want to get up myself about it I would also bring in blah blah neuroplasticity blah blah societies increasing dependence on computers to think for us doom doom learned incompetence ai skynet end of civilization as we know it..

But I think we've all had enough of that.

[skaldish]

Alright folks. Here it is, my theory of what Ragnarok actually represents. It is very messy and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to actually convey my understanding clearly like I try with most things, because genuinely this is shit I would write a doctorate-level thesis on.

But we're going to try anyway.

So. After doing a lot to try to replicate animistic thinking, as well as taking a VERY deep read of the Norse myths, my theory is that Ragnarok is specifically allegory for societal collapse—the "end of the world" imagery and such is meant to convey what this feels like.

Recall what Odin says in Grimnismal. It goes something like this, since I can't be arsed to find the exact quote:

Huginn and Muninn fly over the world every day; while I fear Huginn ("thought") may not return, I fear Muninn's ("memory's") absence most.

When a society collapses, so does it's memory. It loses its technology, its methodologies, its paradigms, and everything it has learned about the world up to that point. Gone. Entire chapters of history erased.

What causes societal collapse is not always a conquering force, but is oftentimes the result of circumstances that a society orchestrates for itself. Think Rome.

People who have gone through societal collapse will probably develop an invested interest in figuring out how to prevent it entirely, so they don't have to start society all over again.

It's one thing to preserve the memory of "things collapsed and here's why" using a story. But it's another thing to do what apparently the Norse people did, which is cultivate a methodology for cognitively hardening their own society against collapse, using stories as a way to do it.

Like...I'm not kidding when I say they legitimately knew how the human mind works, and then built an entire system of stories and narratives that intentionally support the mind's freedom, cultivation, and agency. I can only convey a fraction of how this works in this post because the rest requires a deep-dive into behavioral psychology and neurological development.

All the tales leading to Ragnarok demonstrate various instances where the gods choose to follow their own agendas at the expense of the real people and forces in the world. All of these little things contribute to the magnitude of the event that is Ragnarok.

The tales represent these transgressions using allegories rather than literal events. This is because these stories were designed for children, who don't process information through a prefrontal cortex like we do as adults. They don't have them yet. But this gives kids an intuitive understanding for how circumstances of collapse feel, so they can recognize them in all their forms.

Loki is an allegory for the mischief we feel as children, and for the behaviors we demonstrate before we get to the age where we start valuing cooperation. In the myths, every time Loki causes mischief in ways that creates problems, the gods get mad at him and threaten Loki's life until he fixes his mess. Loki eventually becomes vindictive, kills Baldr in a jealous fit, and then is punished by being bound and buried beneath the ground, only to fight against the gods in Ragnarok.

The surface-level takeaway is a lesson in parenting: If we punish kids for their mischief, they're going to become vindictive adults, and these adults are going to have it out for the rest of society because they've been disenfranchised.

But it doesn't just end here. Consider how we punish ourselves for our own sense of mischief, beating ourselves up for having "problematic" thoughts and trying to bind and bury those thoughts in the depths of our mind.

These thoughts come from a place our mind known as the limbic system, which is focused on avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, and—most importantly—does not understand the world or make decisions using logic and reason, but in terms of what feels enjoyable and what doesn't.

We tend to call this system our inner child.

When we punish our inner child, that child starts doing exactly what Loki does and resorts to malicious and petty tricks. We can hold this behavior at bay until something causes us to "snap" (like Jörmungandr's tail does) and out comes the malice of the disenfranchised inner child, which creates a terrible cascade of social consequences for us.

Now, if we were to listen to these stories as kids, we would naturally be very upset whenever Loki was threatened of punished, because we think out of the limbic system at that age and Loki is meant to represent us—specifically, the state of being a kid. We would see what comes to pass, with Loki being imprisoned and fighting the gods against Ragnarok, and it would become clear to us that there's consequences for punishing mischief AND also causing too much of it.

Now I don't know about you, but I was very motivated by a sense of justice as a kid. Hearing Loki's arc would have inspired me to learn how to be friends with my sense of mischief while also learning to use it in ways that were cooperative and social, because this would have been how I could right the wrong I felt was done to Loki. It would also mean my own limbic system will not fight against me in the future, but be a modality of thought I can always access. (This is the beauty of the way the Norse myths are crafted; they are designed to instill knowledge of the world using mechanisms that reinforce one's own sense of agency and competency, so rather than being told the moral of this tale, it sets me up to run right into the conclusion it wants me to draw, but in a way that makes me feel smart and therefore inspires me to value it.)

The binding of Fenrir serves a similar allegory. When we become explosively angry in the way that Fenrir represents, it consumes our wisemind the same way Fenrir consumes Odin during Ragnarok. But this only happens if we bind Fenrir/our anger. By demonizing this nature of ours simply for existing, it will not only refuse to listen to us, but also turn against us. Remember that Fenrir was willing to socialize and cooperate with the gods before his betrayal.

(Honestly, I believe this is why ulfheiðnar existed the way they did. Even though the animalistic rage of ulfheiðnar was too terrible for domestic society, it was not demonized, but instead given a social function. People would learn to understand and partner with their own sense of rage, and I'm guessing this is also how they were able to keep their sense of reason and priorities straight even while going berserk from psychoactives.)

These two examples serve to illustrate how societal collapse stems from binding or punishing our own natures. But also fearing our own nature as mortals factors into it.

For example, Naglfar. This is a ship constructed of dead people's fingernails, and its completion is part of what signals the beginning of Ragnarok. But as the story goes, we can delay Naglfar's construction by trimming the nails of the dead before we bury them.

Naglfar represents "neglect for the dead," and this is significant because the act of no longer viewing the dead as people is sort of like the canary in the coal mine for no longer view each other as people...and no longer seeing people as people is what defines Ragnarok.

A society is at peace when its people have no fear of death, and having no fear of death comes only by incorporating death as a normal and familiar part of life, just like we do with birth. Our relationship with death is a litmus test for our relationship with our own humanity—if we fear the dead and cannot see them as human beings, then we are always going to fear a part of our own humanity, and be at war with it. The simple act of keeping the nails of the dead well-groomed because it stalls Naglfar's construction was a way to remind people why such a simple act was profoundly important.

And these are just the things that I can think of off the top of my head that are the most obvious examples. There are—and I shit you not—multitudes of these things laced within the Norse myths.

(I haven't even gotten to the part about how the Norse creation myth uses what the womb feels like to characterize it. Telling this story to very little children helps them establish a sense of familiarity, belonging, and secure attachment with the entire world from the get-go. If they learn the world is everything they've already experienced, then their bodies will never be afraid of it, because nothing about it will feel unknown or unknowable. Like, how fucking dope can you get.)

So here's where we get to the really dense irony of all this: Why we don't pick up on all these nuances as Westerners and have so far missed this entirely.

It is for two reasons.

The first is because our society values the things that the Norse people identified as contributing to societal collapse—namely, the act of conquering/competing against other forces and conquering/competing against our own natures. The transgressions of the Aesir are not things we register as problematic because to us they're normal.

The second is that we don't think animistically. The way we are taught to convey, interpret, and transmit information is designed PURELY by and for the prefrontal cortex, with neglect to everything else (if you ever wonder why Americans look weird in how we behave, this is why). But because we only prioritize communicating this way, we're missing out on all the context added within the Norse myths. These myths function the same way Old Norse kennings did, in that they are designed to speak to ALL areas of the brain at once and in tandem, but if we only engage with it using one part of the brain, we're only going to get a small piece of the picture and the rest is going to look weird.

(Little experiment for you: Try to logic something out in your mind or think through a complex problem without using words or sentences to do it. Use any other kind of thought-process besides language. I promise you that not only is this possible, but it yields a completely different kind of experience and conclusion than you might otherwise reach.)

Honestly, I don't even think Snorri himself fully understood what he was looking at when he was recording the Norse myths. I think he was just writing them down according to how they were told, word-for-word. But his cluelessness is our good fortune now, because he not only preserved the cultural stories, but also what I consider an entire cognitive technology.

And every time I look at it, I can't help but think about the generations of people who sat around the fire in the dead of winter, weaving, crafting, and figuring out better ways to fortify their society, raise kids so they became fine and truly fearless people, and conserve information. This is, as far as I'm concerned, real magic.

They knew some shit.

[andorappreciation]

There have been times where the struggle seemed impossible... Together, unrested, daunted by the lack of news or trailer, we have waited…and waited…

But the day has finally come when all these edits and drawings, these metas and fics…will help the Andor fandom countdown to the Season 2 premiere!

Sunday, April 6th to Thursday, 17th (ahead of all the Star Wars Celebration excitement) @andorappreciation will be hosting 12 Days of Andor: a fandom-wide event celebrating our resilient, creative, talented community and the long-anticipated return of our favorite rebellious show.

Prompts

April 6th, Day One: Networks Either Change or Die Dive into the interconnectedness of this complex narrative. Find the ties that bind characters, factions, and plots. Parallels, theses, and themes… obvious or unhinged, make your case!  Alternate Prompts: Symbolism || Elements

April 7th, Day Two: Everyone Has Their Own Rebellion Themes, politics, messaging--there were many reasons for Andor’s success, but chief among them was what the show had to say, both about our world and the world of Star Wars. Examine Nemik’s Manifesto, or offer your own treatise on Luthen’s methodology, but whatever you do, don’t lose your nerve! Alternate Prompts: Underrated Quotes/Dialogue || Sacrifice

April 8th, Day Three: I Show You the Stone in My Hand, You'll Miss the Knife at Your Throat Mon Mothma was speaking for more than just herself here– dualities and split identities are a throughline in Andor. Whether it’s Vel Sartha playing as the spoiled rich girl or Lonnie Jung literally posing as a double agent within the ISB, explore the world of deception and the webs of lies that hold the Rebellion and the Empire together. Alternate Prompts: Underrated Scenes || Ambiguity

April 9th, Day Four: Kill Me, Or Take Me In The last words of the first season, uttered by the show’s protagonist. With this ominous bargain, we were all left to speculate wildly about the upcoming second and final season. Here’s your chance to share those theories and predictions, from the most sound hypothesis to the crackiest wish fulfillment!  Alternate Prompts: Penultimate Moments || Death

April 10th, Day Five: They Don't Even Think About Us But we bet you do right? Everyone has their own rebellion, yes, but everyone also has their very own Glup Shitto. Are you a Time Grappler Stan? A Blue Noodle boy? Show your love for your Andor Shittos!  Alternate Prompts: Underrated Side Characters || Nature

April 11th, Day Six: That's Just Love...Nothing You Can Do About That Just like with every good story, the relationships among the characters are what draw us in and keep us hooked. Whether it’s a fraught love story or a complex connection between mother and son, Andor is rife with intricate interpersonal relations and, ultimately, a hell of a lot of love. Share your feelings about the relationships you find most compelling!  Alternate Prompts: Doomed by the Narrative || Echoes

April 12th, Day Seven: We Are Healthcare Providers Are you fascinated by the crushing bureaucracy of the ISB? The ponderous gears of the Imperial war machine? Do you simply love Dedra Meero and think she's neat? Share your thoughts about the Empire and the unique way that Andor explores the banality of evil! Alternate Prompts: Character Arcs || Morality

April 13th, Day Eight: "Pilgrim" Are you the biggest Nicolas Britell fan ever? Have you memorized every interview with Denise Gough? Have you watched everything Diego Luna is in? Show your appreciation for the incredible cast and crew that make this show come to life!  Alternate Prompts: Favorite Quotes about the show || Behind the Scenes

April 14th, Day Nine: Pockets, Piping, Some Light… Tailoring From the rich costumes to the lavish sets, Andor gave us some truly sumptuous designs to sink our teeth into. Explore the details of costumes, sets or both!  Alternate Prompt: Hidden Details || Colors

April 15th, Day Ten: Peezos… The Greenie Green Ones Run up to Arkie’s and pick up some shit posts! Just make sure you don’t look like ‘you’re a part of it’. Alternate Prompts: Favorites (episodes, characters, etc) || Humor

April 16th, Day Eleven: You’re My Ideal Reader Have a fic that you just love? A gifset that you stare at until your eyes water? A manifesto with not enough circulation (in your opinion)? Spread the love and recommend your favorite metas, edits, fan art, podcasts, gif sets, fics, whatever you’d like!  Alternate Prompt: Alternate Universe || Time

April 17th, Day Twelve: ONE WAY OUT!  You’re free! Hopefully you can swim! AKA: Dealer's choice || Free Day

How It Works

We have included multiple prompts for each day to provide optimal opportunities for fan work creators of all kinds. Pick a prompt and create to your heart’s content! When the day arrives, post your work!

Feel free to tag us @andorappreciation! We will also be tracking #12DaysofAndor2025

Do’s & Don’t’s

DO

Have fun, be creative and follow us for all the glorious content!

Please reblog!

Pop some peezos. The greenie green ones!

DON’T

Repost work that is not yours or work without credit

Post work without proper tagging/warnings

Post offensive material including non-con or bigotry

Any questions, concerns, or clarifications can be submitted via ask.

Sincerely,

@andorappreciation

ALL CREDIT FOR THE INCREDIBLE CASSIAN BANNER AND B2 DIVIDERS GOES TO LOVELY MOD @ninsletamain

[zineobiology]

Welcome to the Zine O’Biology Vol.2!

A multi-fandom Star Trek Zine.

Whats New? This time we are organizing the artist/writer partnerships like a bang! We want to avoid some confusion from last time and think this will be best way to do that.

Do you have strong opinions on Vulcan fra’als, Cardassian tails, or how the heck Trill symbionts reproduce? We want to hear from you!

The Zine O’Biology is a fictional comparative xenobiology academic journal set in the Star Trek universe. If you’ve always wanted to wax eloquent for up to 3000 words about your theories on alien biology, welcome to your new home!

We want all your theories about all your favorite aliens! This is a friendly but competitive academic journal where the content of every paper is a little bit suspicious (is this paper based on rumor or fact? What is the methodology?) and some competing authors leave snarky comments on one another’s work. So just like a real academic journal, except ours features the Great Green Anthurium.

We welcome xenobiology articles on all Star Trek aliens from all series!

The final format will be a PDF that you can scroll at your leisure or print at home in order to have a physical copy of the Zine. (This way there is no money involved.)

--SEEKING SUBMISSIONS FOR--

Alien biology articles

Alien biology artwork

In-Universe advertisements

Letters to the editor

ALIEN BIOLOGY ARTICLES

How do Andorian genders work? Are Cardassians actually lizards? Why do Klingons have so many redundant organs? What’s the biological purpose of Bajoran nose ridges? What’s the best cement mix for emergency surgery on a Horta?

You’ve been pondering alien biology for years. This is your chance to infodump all your favorite theories to an eager audience of your fellow nerds!

Articles will be separated into two categories: reproductive biology or general biology. Yes, we also want all your theories on what every species is packing downstairs…and how they use it.

Journal articles should be fun and engaging, but also written in your interpretation of a pseudo-academic style, since this is a highly respected Federation xenobiology journal. If you want to keep things more lighthearted and less academic, check out the section on Letters to the Editor.

ALIEN BIOLOGY ARTWORK

If you have independent illustrations about alien biology we would love to see them! If you would like to provide illustrations for one of our journal articles, we will open up bidding so that you can find the perfect article for your ideas!

JOURNAL ADVERTISEMENTS

Even in a post-need future, academic journals will need a little extra funding. Submit your ads for Ferengi Oomox Creme, Self Sealing Stem Bolts, Gently Used Federation Technology, and, of course, “reproductive aids.” The weirder the better! Have fun with it!

All art needs to be printable at high resolution

ART Sizes:

Full page: 4.5"w x 7.5"h

Column: 2.21"w x 7.5"h

Half Page: 4.5"w x 3.75"h

Square: 2.21"w x 2.18"h

Banner: 4.5"w x 1"h

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Do you have a great idea, but it’s not enough to fill out a 3000 word article? Submit it as a “reaction” to a previous journal article. Feel free to lay into a mythical researcher who does NOT understand why their biological theory is wrong and yours is right!

Max length 1500 words. Enjoy making these plenty frothy!

WANT TO GET INVOLVED, BUT YOU’RE NOT A WRITER OR ARTIST?

WE NEED:

Graphic designers to help with Zine layout

Social media promoters

Alien art and article wranglers (ie: get your fannish friends involved!)

--HOW TO GET INVOLVED--

Fill out the Art or Writing Google Form letting us know your interests or reach out to the Editor in Chief at zineobiology@gmail.com

DEADLINES:

July 15, 2025: Last date for writer applications

August 18, 2025: Last date for Artists applications

August 30th: Writer drafts due. Claims begin.

October 30, 2025: All art, advertising, and journal submissions are due

We hope to have the Zine O’Biology ready for your enjoyment by New Year’s Eve 2025/2026. We all have full time jobs and lives, so that date may change depending on the volume of submissions.

FAQ can be found here.

[transmutationisms]

lrb i don't think we're harsh enough on New Criticism honestly having been forced to do it for four years straight. the difficulty making this case is always that NC masquerades as a pedagogical programme but (like all such attempts) is an ideological one; the exclusions that it makes (of context, of history, of political import & consequences, etc) are described on 'pure' methodological grounds but are defended on consistently reactionary ones. because to read a text as 'timeless' in this manner is to deprive it of what makes it matter or speak at all. it's classroom solipsism, it says nothing of import to anyone by design, it's defensive position #1 whenever someone wants to discuss racism or misogyny in a canonised work. the claim so often rests on some version of "let the text speak for itself" which is of course artistically nonsense and politically obscurantist. everything is ideological; you can't strip this and if you ignore it then all you've done is espouse whatever ideology is dominant & therefore invisible to you. which is ofc not always or exclusively the same as the Author of whom Barthes speaks, but more than incidentally there is overlap

[boxturret]

BMOP: A history of the Abandoned Koro

Now that things have all come out, and the project is well and truly over, I thought I'd take a moment to talk a bit about something I worked on in the game, the "Abandoned Koro" area, now that there's video footage of a playthrough I can easily reference.

I suppose as a quick primer, I was with the BMOP team from around March of 2021 to November of 2022, serving as both 3D art lead and Level design lead for a time. There's a post out there about my experiences with the leadership of the team that I mostly stand by still, I do feel bad for how the project ended, and I have come around a bit to remember the positive times more than the negative, but that doesn't erase what happened.

So to begin, when I came on level design was a fairly inactive sub channel of the game development discord, some ideas got tossed around occasionally, but not much seemed to be happening, before I'd joined there was a rough map drawn up by the then current level design lead.

It was very basic stuff, there was a version of this map in engine that had been extruded a bit to make it a kind of playable space, one area had some trees on it and some random platforms.

One area that interested me greatly was this part in the south, the so called "Abandoned Koro"

The rough idea being that it was the Le-Koro seen in the GBA game Bionicle: Quest for the Toa, that had been abandoned in favour of the one seen in the browser game Mata Nui Online Game and the cancelled PC game Bionicle: Legend of Mata Nui, as the one in QFTT had a lot of wooden structures while the one seen in the other two was more like a woven nest.

At the time I was just a 3d modeller, and had never really done any real level design, but the concept just really inspired me, so I went off and in blender sketched out a possible level layout for this area.

I made a bunch of renders and wrote out how I thought the level could work, which can be seen in this document HERE.

For a quick overview, the idea was you'd enter the area, the bridge would break, you'd have to clear a river to activate the water wheel on a large mechanical tree that would allow you passage upwards, and then navigate through the Nui-Rama infested ruins of the village before coming to a cave.

The tree was something I poured a lot of time in to, its worthy of its own post at some point in the future.

Now I'll be honest, I was super nervous about releasing this document to the team, I thought I was overstepping my bounds. I was just a relatively new 3d modeller on the team, I didn't have the right to be talking about level design, but to my surprise people were really receptive to it, and I very quickly got added to the level design team¹.

I ended up doing a rough blockout in engine. This was back in the time before Lewa had been chosen to be the main player character, so it was still Tahu.

This was the first time I'd ever touched Unreal, so it took a while. That's why the sky is black, I didn't know how to add a skybox.

I never got in to level scripting, but as a proof of concept, I think it was successful.

You can see that in this version of the level it had already progressed, now there was the idea of using the Pakari to break the dam, so finding it was the first task on the ground.

This version wasn't in the actual demo map, because as I said before the demo wasn't really very fleshed out at the time. One thing my map showed though was that the demo was way too big. The level design lead at the time had decided the size based on how long it took to get around the map as a perfectly flat plane with no terrain, at max run speed, with no obstacles. This is a very flawed methodology to say the least. Having an actual level with things scaled to the character really started to show the holes in this, and eventually, once I became lead, the demo area was massively shrunk.

Here's a version from just a month later. The version is now part of the new, more compact demo area, but its mostly barren at this point.

This version was actually completely rebuilt from the ground up because it had been decided to try out voxels as a basis². They were a pain to deal with and this was overturned eventually. I'd say in total, including the 3d sketch I did, I re-built this map maybe 4 times.

One benefit of voxels was it was trivial to have caves, so this is where the idea of the pakari being found in a cave started to emerge.

As I continued to play and refine the demo it became clear how much the movement systems would need to be tweaked. There seemed to be this idea in the team that everything could be done separately and bolted together later, so character moment was all handled by someone jumping around on some big blocks in a test map whereas level design was off doing their own thing, but it really wasn't working. So while the movement felt good in a vacuum, actually putting it in context really exposed a lot of issues. You could easily jump over any enemy you could come across, as said earlier maps had to be huge in order to make the world seem big while you were running at full speed, and after about 3 jumps you'd be 20 metres in the air.

At this point the idea still was to have the entire island of Mata Nui be one large open area you could freely explore, so the sheer size of the maps resulting from the over powered movement was a major issue. I lobbied very hard to have things pulled back and eventually they were.

its a bit out of order, but here's the demo area from closer to when I left. Its a fraction of the size of the original map

Here's another video from a month later.

As much as it pains me to say it, this is basically it in terms of meaningful development. By this point Lewa had been locked in as the playable character, and the movement had been dialed back to a more reasonable degree, so I was able to really start trying to refine the area. This is where I ran in to a fatal issue.

No one else wanted to play the game.

And what was worse barely anything worked.

The level is still in what I would call a grey box state. I used a couple tree trunk assets I'd made here and there, and put in a big canopy asset from one of the many asset packs we had for a bit of ambience, but it was all still very basic geometry, easily changed or modified.

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do for playtesting your own area. You built it: you know where everything is, what's supposed to happen, where you're supposed to go. You can try to pretend to play it as a new player, but that only gets you so far. I was hoping people on the team would play it and provide feedback³, but outside of maybe one or two people a handful of times⁴, trying to get any really feedback was was a futile effort.

The thing was that this area was very complex. If the demo was a vertical slice of the game as a whole, this area was itself a microcosm of the demo⁵. It had platforming, puzzle solving, combat, mask powers, the lot. Now unfortunately for me, barely any of those systems actually worked.

As an example, this long ledge was for a long time a stand in for vine swinging, then rail grinding⁶, then was ultimately just replaced by a platform.

So things had kind of hit a wall. I couldn't properly design areas with combat in them until combat existed in a more stable state, I couldn't design platforming sections until platforming worked in a consistent way. I couldn't even adjust the overall flow of the level because everyone else basically refused to give feedback.

But the unfortunate thing is, in August of that year they'd released a teaser trailer.

And that trailer had gotten hundreds of thousands of views.

This is where the whole development of this game really went off the rails. Now there was this push to get things in a presentable state, start set dressing and making final assets so things could be shown off.

But I refused. Everything was too up in the air to commit to set dressing, this is why block out exists, if the jump changes height its no big issue to grab the couple cubes an area is made out of and shift them up or down, if combat is found to need more space its easy to make things bigger, or add or take away walls. If something is confusing things can be shifted. Once set dressing starts now you're dealing with dozens to hundreds of objects being scattered about, even the smallest tweak can lead to a mess.

Not to mention set dressing raised its own series of issues, from plants triggering the IK on the toa's feet, making their knees go up to their chin when walking through a bunch of ferns, to collision volumes being oversized or offset, meaning that big rock face they just added has now created a massive invisible wall in another area. Once the addition of some plants caused all ledges within a wide radius to no longer work⁷.

It was a miserable state of affairs. My mental state rapidly deteriorated as I fought against this, I became very short tempered and irritable, and eventually near the end of 2022 I was kicked from the team. It was such a relief honestly.

I think the tragic thing is, set dressing is actually quite a fast process. The starting area went from looking like this to something quite like the final in about a month?

But you can't show off the first screenshot on twitter⁸.

I guess I'll spare a quick moment to talk about the final version seen in the video.

Its at 46 minutes in if the link doesn't work

Its...fine? The assets they've made are all good, though I think they lost the QFTM inspiration along the way. The thing that stands out to me is just how...little its moved on from 2022. Just look how much progress was made in like 3 months, compare that to now, 3 years later. Temporary platforms I placed are still in the exact same spot. I do find the addition of a matoran with a key for the cave to be a not great addition, if only for the fact that you need to find a tiny green man in amongst the overwhelming greenery to proceed.

One part I found quite amusing was the final enemy encounter. It was supposed to be this large hut, probably Matau's, that had been completely overtaken by a hive, and Nui-Rama would spawn constantly from it until the encounter was over.

There were a lot of concepts drawn up, but I guess it just...never happened. I also don't know why there's waves of fikou there either, that was after my time I think.

So that's really all I have to say about that version, it looks okay. Its still clearly unfinished. It kinda works more than it did when I left, but its shockingly not that much different, outside of some new assets.

I'll be honest, I did intend this to be more of a happy, reflective post, but when watching part of the developer commentary a quote stood out to me.

"Traditionally you would kind of have really basic blockout for an environment and play test that to see how the level design is working. Because of the the situation we had we were kind of forced to just go ahead with set dressing and prettying it up and everything so if it were in a perfect world I would have loved to have gotten to do some more play testing early on but we did what we could with it. And I mean you basically had to just blindly trust the process because many systems weren't working at the time things were designed." -AN UNKNOWN BMOP DEVELOPER (2025)

And I just fundamentally disagree. This was a fan project, there were no deadlines but those that were self inflicted. This process they blindly trusted just lead to a thing that on the surface looks okay, but is still riddled with bugs that were well known for years. I've seen some people on the team say the game was 90% completed, feature locked, just 3 more months of polish and it would have all been working, but from what I've seen of the game I really doubt it. They say themselves in the commentary that there's bugs they've been fighting for nearly a decade still rearing their head.

So yeah, its not exactly a happy tale. I'm quite proud of the work I did, I learned a lot, and met a lot of people I'm still friends with to this day. Its a shame the project had to end this way, and I'm sad everyone's work has gone to waste, but I'm also not going to pretend this was some amazing project that was struck down right before achieving greatness.

But most of all: Fuck you lego.

If you're interested in seeing a few more of the things I worked on in my time with BMOP, go HERE. I may post more publicly about some of them in the future, who knows. I have a post about the regional Kini temple I designed and built for the game HERE. Also some renders I did for some of my game design reports HERE.

¹-I say team, it was maybe two other people who were barely around. ²-I'll be honest here: Some people wanted to have the entire map destructible so that they could have Bohrok dynamically destroy it. For the post game DLC after we'd finished this Zelda sized free fan game⁹. ³-💯👍👀 isn't helpful feedback at the end of the day. Its supportive I'll give you that. But sometimes you need more. ⁴-One person on the team even outright refused to play the game until final release, to "save their first reactions for their stream"... ⁵-idk if its clear at this point but the "demo" is, was, and now always will be the entirety of the existing game. Oh there were ideas for other things, but nothing concrete ever materialised⁹. ⁶-You know, like Sonic⁹ ⁷-The ledge's over sensitive detection for something blocking it is one of the most frustrating things about the game's development for me. ⁸-You absolutely can show off real development stuff, there are lots of people who find that fascinating. ⁹-This game was nothing if not ambitious.

You see that kind of mop is called a "Bee Mop", because of its sponge's resemblance to honey comb.

[lacunammmm]

Do you think UA is really the so called best school for heroes or they just surf on the fame of their big name former students like am and endy (and others)?

UA is a school written by an author who didn't have much interest in the academia of MHA. MHA is a story about escalation and it puts the story beats of where the author is headed above organic storytelling. Example: UA doesn't like Izuku's habit of hurting himself. Aizawa has seen this multiple times now. -The entrance exam. -The quirk aptitude test. -The battle trials. -The USJ where he saved All Might's life. All of these resulted in the guy breaking something and needing to see Recovery Girl. Organic Storytelling: The teachers don't like this, so they address the problem head on: If Izuku breaks bones in the sports festival he really wants to do well in, he's out. So, he won't break his bones. But, this would go against the author's goal to show Izuku competing and hurting himself. So despite the fact that these people have his education and career in their hands and can dictate any command to him and he has to follow if he wants to remain a student there, they just complain after he does something.

As far as UA being the best school? Let's say...yes. The others aren't relevant. They do nothing. Shiketsu is allegedly as good as UA is and is its rival, but Shiketsu is only a handful of names characters. Where was Shiketsu and it's army of graduates when hero society fell? We saw what UA was doing: saving the country/the world. Shiketsu? They sent some guys to help during the final war arc. So by default, since the rest of the schools are non entities or do nothing, UA is the best. Is UA good? No. UA is a comical failure as an educational institution. It's a school where despite having the alleged best educators around and experts in their fields, the student's growth and development is entirely attributed to themselves. Aizawa repeatedly deflects any credit for his student's growth. He's a hands off teacher. He provides them exercises and training methods and the burden of doing the work and improving is on the students themselves. While this makes the class look more bad ass in the eyes of the audience, it asks the question: what are they here for? I think the principals behind UA's methods are very interesting. WHY do they do this? The answers are fun. So, you know how we get Aizawa and Shinso saying how unfair the entrance exam is and how it favors a certain type of quirk? My take is that this is 100% intentional and this mentality informs most of UA's methodology. They only teach students how to hit harder. Technical quirks or abilities that require effort to master can't easily translate into MORE POWER, so they prioritize people who will be top level heroes. Anyone who has a quirk like Endeavor's could be a top hero. The goal is to find as many people like him as possible, teach them to become stronger and hit harder. And teach them restraint and non lethal capture via sparring matches with their classmates. The constant fighting with their peers shows them how to hold back so they only use the exact amount of force needed in the field. As a factory to produce a very specific kind of hero, UA does a very good job. The school is just calibrated to creating a hero who succeeds in All Might's era of hero society. A self reliant hero who is used to doing things by themselves mirroring the solo and highly competitive nature of heroics. By definition, this strategy will exclude a lot of good eggs. So, we have the back paths: -Rescue points, enabling people who can't beat robots to score enough points to get in. Since the teachers are the ones who score this and they assign the points, Nezu could ensure anyone he finds interesting passes the entrance exam. -The Sports Festival, where those who do well and impress the teachers have a chance to move up to the hero course. This is designed to market those powerful hero students and get their names known even before their debuts. It doesn't matter for powerful heroes if people know their weaknesses and how they fight, because they're so strong that they simply obliterate all obstacles and opposition. Is this the intended reading of UA? That Nezu designed the entire curriculum to cater to people like Bakugo and Shoto and ensure they succeed because people like them are the most reliable and viable heroes you can create? Probably not. The author likely was just focused on escalation and making cool scenes. But when you look at it, this all makes sense. I wouldn't call this "good" but it's crafty and it speaks to the world it exists in. It's a fascinating system that's immensely cynical. A microcosm of the MHA world itself.

[orym-blossoms]

You know, I think C3 ended up in the weird, discordant, ultimately sweet but empty place that it did because it settled into Matt and the players' very specific weak spots. C2 is such an outstanding piece of collaborative storytelling that even though the cast were pushed outside of their comfort zone quite a bit, they were still able to lean into the Yes-And-Also mechanics they are so excellent at.

Anyone who has done devising work, or contact improv, or long-form knows that it is absolutely possible to create cohesive, well-executed narratives collaboratively using group improvisation as a tool. However, the group has to agree on the framework and methodology. You can't start building a piece until you've decided exactly how much planning and scaffolding you're going to create ahead of time, and then once you're on your feet you have to know the method you're using together.

Critical Role is fantastic at this! However, as people have already discussed, C3 didn't start out with an agreement on structure or method. And because that agreement wasn't there, they were trying to figure it out on their feet. This led to cast members working *against* their instincts, which is the last thing you want in improv!

I am inclined to think that C3 was not designed as a big Philosophical Statement campaign. But because of the friction between what the cast all expected to do and what the campaign asked of them, they settled into a circular pattern of Talking and not Doing. Matt had a singular plot focus but was waiting for his players to take the lead. The cast were playing disparate characters with little natural stake in the central plot so they were waiting to be told what to do. Of course I have no idea what actually happened behind the scenes, but a lack of groundwork in collaborative creation leads to things like this.

I just don't think that the intention from the beginning of the campaign was to question the very nature of the gods because that came out of the aimless wandering that happened after the Solstice. It was the one rabbit the players chose to chase that was related to the plot, so it became the thing that led them to the ending instead of being the intended ending all along.

[phoenixblaze1412]

i saw the father Dottore fics that you wrote and honestly loved them! would you be willing to write about father!Dottore with a kid who has ADHD/Autism or sensory issues?

Of course^^ and yes you can be 🫧 anon

The laboratory was always a place of order. Every instrument had its designated space, every experiment followed a precise methodology, and every result was expected to be recorded without deviation. Dottore thrived in this structured world, where logic dictated every decision and unpredictability was a flaw to be eliminated.

You, his child, however, are the embodiment of unpredictability.

At first, he had thought it was simply a phase—an inability to focus, an aversion to certain sensations, an inexplicable resistance to what he deemed perfectly reasonable expectations.

You fidgeted constantly, your attention drifting between his words and the unseen world in your mind. You would recoil from certain fabrics, cover your ears at loud noises, and refuse to make eye contact for prolonged periods. Your interests were deeply fixated, but not on the subjects Dottore had hoped you would inherit.

No matter how many times he introduced you to the marvels of biology, chemistry, or engineering, you simply didn’t care. Instead, you were drawn to colors, textures, and shapes. You would spend hours sketching, completely immersed in your art, but the moment he placed a scientific text in front of you, your focus dissolved.

Frustration grew between the two of you like an unspoken wall. Dottore tried to enforce structure, believing discipline would instill the focus you lacked. It didn’t work. The segments had mixed reactions—some found your unpredictability amusing, others were visibly irritated. Pi, ever the perfectionist, struggled with your chaotic energy, while Gamma found you fascinating, often sitting beside you as you scribbled away with reckless abandon.

The tension came to a breaking point one evening when Dottore, in a rare lapse of control, snapped.

"You need to learn discipline," he said, voice sharp as he snatched away a piece of paper from you that is covered in vibrant, swirling colors. "Art is a hobby. It will not serve you in any meaningful way. You must focus on what matters."

You froze in place, expression unreadable as you got up and abruptly stormed off. You didn’t yell or cry. You simply left, your small hands balled into fists. That night, you refused to come out of your room, even when the segments tried coaxing you out. Eta, the youngest segment, who often acted as a bridge between you and Dottore, shook his head solemnly. "You hurt them."

Dottore had spent his life dissecting, analyzing, and manipulating the human condition, but the realization that he had hurt his own child in a way he couldn’t immediately fix was a foreign and unwelcome feeling.

It wasn’t until he spoke to Beta—one of his more observant segments—that he truly began to understand.

"They don’t think the way you do," Beta explained. "Their mind works differently. What you see as distractions are part of how they function. You can’t force them to be like you. You have to adapt, or you’ll lose them."

Adapting was not something Dottore did often. He demanded the world shift to his design, not the other way around. But the idea of losing his child, of pushing you so far that you no longer trusted him, was unsettling.

So he changed. Slowly. Awkwardly.

He learned that you needed noise while working—so he allowed you to hum or tap your fingers against the desk while drawing, even if it grated on his nerves. He learned that certain textures made you uncomfortable, so he adjusted your clothing accordingly. He learned that eye contact wasn’t necessary for communication and that sometimes you needed to move around while talking to him. He stopped trying to force you into rigid routines and instead built flexibility into your days, allowing you to take breaks when your focus waned.

Most importantly, he began to acknowledge your interests rather than dismiss them. When you drew, he studied your work, asked you about your techniques, and even provided you with higher-quality materials.

One evening, he found himself watching you sketch a complex diagram of the solar system, eyes alight with excitement as you explained planetary formations in a way that rivaled any scientific explanation.

“You like astronomy,” he mused, watching as your pencil danced across the page.

You nodded enthusiastically. “It’s like… science, but with colors and movement and so many possibilities.”

Science, but with possibilities. That, Dottore could understand.

The segments adapted as well. Gamma became your willing test subject, letting you doodle on his arms with ink. Eta took to making up stories about the things you drew, turning your creations into fantastical narratives. Even Pi, who had once been the most resistant, learned to engage with you in small ways, challenging you to replicate complex patterns in your art.

One day, you timidly approached Dottore with a new sketchbook in hand. You hesitated before handing it to him. “I… I drew something for you.”

He opened it to find an intricate illustration of his lab—meticulously detailed, yet softened by artistic flourishes. The test tubes shimmered, the machinery gleamed, and in the center, surrounded by all his segments, was him, drawn with an unfamiliar gentleness.

Dottore stared at it for a long moment before finally speaking. “…It’s exceptional.”

Your face lit up, relief evident in your eyes. “Really?”

He nodded. “Really.”

From that day forward, your world found an unexpected harmony. Dottore still didn’t fully understand the way your mind worked, but he no longer tried to force you into a mold you weren’t meant for. Instead, he learned to meet you where you were, to build a bridge between logic and creativity.

And in return, you flourished.

Because while you could never be the scientist he had envisioned, you were something just as brilliant—his child, in all their chaotic, artistic, and endlessly fascinating glory.