Week 3: Needfinding

STEP 1 OBSERVE

I chose to observe my friends in managing the due dates for their school assignments. I want to improve this because I know the experience of being caught off guard from remembering at the last second the deadline of an assignment. I want people to always be informed about things like that since there are usually very important to remember.

Denzel: His system of remembering due dates is like a word of mouth system. He usually asks his peers in the class what is due in the class and what day it is due. Also if he is nervous on whether he has anything due and his classmates are not around, he looks at the syllabus that the teacher provided.

Denzel texting a classmate about an assignment

Positives:

• A constant reminder of the assignments from classmates
• Never has to personally remember it because of classmates

Negatives: 

• When not around classmates (ex. weekend), if assignment is due next class, possibility of forgetting deadline
• Can possible suffer when the assignment requires a lot of time

Bijan: The system that Bijan uses is writing it on a whiteboard in his room. When an assignment due date is announced, the assignment is written on the board. The assignment is taken off when the assignment is finished. The board is located right next to his bed.

Bijan checking his board for any assignments

Positives:

·         A constant reminder on the board and at home

·         Can organize it and prioritize assignments based on due dates and workload for each assignment

·         Writing it on the board is another way of keeping it in your mind

·         Board allows for changes and additions

Negatives:

•  Is most effective when at home, when not at home possibly of forgetting
• Still has to write the assignment down in class so that it can be easily  transferred to board at home

STEP 2 BRAINSTROM

1. An app that gives reminders every day of assignments due for the week

2. An app that is like a board where the person types or talks in the assignment with due date

3. A calendar app that is takes the idea of a white board display for each week

4. An app that lists all of the assignments due for the week with a number rating on the amount of time required for it

5. An app that does a countdown for assignments in a list

6.  An app that has classmates’ information for each class, so that one can get in contact with people from their class

7.  An app that is like a student planner

8. An app that lists the assignments in chronological order and as the assignment gets closer to the due date, the screen starts to get a red tint to it and as the date gets closer the tint gets more saturated.

9.  An app that does a type of notifications symbol that appears in the corner of the phone’s screen like on Facebook.

10. An app that anytime the user unlocks their phone, the app will prompt like a dry erase marker on glass across the user’s phone with the list of assignments that are due this week.

STEP 3 INSPIRATION

1.       The calendar apps in that come with phones. I understand that every phone comes with this, but sometimes they get confusing and are not simple.  I want the user to go into an app like the default calendar and be able to right from the start be able to create due dates and delete them with little to no effort.

2.       Facebook event tab. The layout of the event tab on Facebook allows the user to see all the events going on in the week in chronological order or in a calendar fashion that way the user can see the entire month.

3.       Actual class syllabus. I want to give a student a syllabus that they can access on their phone, organize, and have constant updates.

4.       Wix.com. This website helps people who do not know HTML code very well and it allows them to create a site. The steps in creating the site are very easy with Wix.com and the user can add and subtract things from the site without frustration.

5.       PDAs. I want to make my phone like a PDA since I always have my phone on me at all times. I want people to have their information at their finger tips.

Video with Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-_OKlc22Zs