My Class Project Journey

Lessons Learned

One of the key skills I learned from this course was conducting traditional research via a survey. For our project, my team decided to divide responsibilities for ethnographic and traditional research methods among team members. My primary task was to gain customer insights by creating a survey, gathering responses, and conveying the results to my team members. The first phase of this research involved brainstorming potential questions with my teammates. I found it very interesting to develop questions in order to elucidate the needs and wants of our persona; rather than, directly asking questions about potential products. A helpful feedback we received regarding the questions came from Mr. Stephens Walls himself. He informed us to not make the questions open ended and to give the sample population answer choices to choose from. This guideline helped us extract concise data for our project as compared to diverse set of data. The second step in the process was to actually create a working survey that was both effective and easy to use. This phase of the research allowed me to become familiar with various survey websites and the technical aspects of creating a survey. For instance, I learned about the different survey question formats that these sites offered as well as how to generate charts based on survey results. Personally, I had never created a formal survey before and hence this opportunity helped me develop a new skill.

Another beneficial skill I developed from this class was how to construct a prototype model for a project. To elaborate, my team faced a significant challenge of building a model for a complex product idea. A fellow teammate and I had the duty to accomplish this objective. First, it was a very daunting task for us to find the right material for our automated shelf idea. The advice we got from the prototype workshop class lesson greatly helped us in our search. We utilized the knowledge we got about different materials and supply stores to acquire the ideal supplies. Secondly, the most difficult aspect was to actually assemble a high fidelity prototype that incorporated all our ideas. To illustrate, our model had complex requirements such as a folding table, external shelves, a digital keypad, and a mechanism that could place boxes on different shelves. I spent a considerable amount of time and effort in completing the final product that met these specifications; nonetheless, my teammates were not fully satisfied with my creation. A valuable lesson I learned from this class was not to be protective and bias about one’s work. Therefore, I redid the model based on my teammates’ suggestions and my teammates were very content with the new product. Prior to this class project I had anxiety building even basic models; however, now I feel confident working with models due to my intensive practice and my enhanced knowledge.

Potential Improvement

Although I thought most aspects of this project were very useful, I did not see a concrete benefit to our final outcome from ethnographic research. I do acknowledge that this form of research could be valuable for individuals in the real world. Nevertheless, for this project, I did not think my group derived a lot of benefit from this research. To be specific, we used photo journals to gather data for our project. I believe that most of the pictures were varied and did not present a clear picture regarding the needs of our persona. The photos also did not have any direct correlation to the product we actually ended up constructing. I do realize that my limited knowledge of this research probably prevented me from fully capitalizing on our collected data. On a separate note, based on my understanding of other team’s presentation, I think other teams also had difficulty incorporating ethnographic data. However, I am glad we learned about ethnographic research as I found this knowledge very interesting.

Emotional Reactions

All in all, I experienced a score of emotions throughout the course of this project. First, this project relied on a lot of expertise that I needed to improve on; hence, at times I felt apprehensive. For example, I have mostly taken accounting and similar courses that do not encompass PowerPoint presentations and/or public speaking. Conversely, I soon realized that these challenges were opportunities to grow from and I was proud of myself for advancing my skill sets. Second of all, I felt encouraged during my interactions with the professor. To demonstrate, Mr. Walls advised my team to also pursue an alternative product idea that I had pitched to the group. It felt great to know that the instructor saw some substance or potential in my idea. Furthermore, I had a positive experience with my team while working on the project. My team consisted of strong individuals who always aimed for high standards. Conversely, my enjoyment was somewhat impacted by one team member who I thought could have been more flexible on their stance and way of thinking. At the end of the day, I still admired all my teammates for their work ethic and how much we accomplished together. Lastly, I am grateful to all my group members for helping me push myself as an individual.