I‘ve interviewed one non-expert and one expert. The non-expert is a designer, and the expert is a biology Ph.D. from NYUSH.
Interview with a non-expert:
- I first let him introduce himself and his experience in biology. He is a system designer in the IT area. He likes biology and participated in the school’s biology competition. He gives up studying biology after entering the university because there are too many technical terms that need to be remembered. Then I asked him did he ever heard the word “Fenestra”. As I expected, his answer is no. After explaining what it is in words, I asked about his feelings, thoughts, or any other thing he wants to ask or talk to me about. He first sympathizes with me having such a topic to work on, then he mentions some similar structures in the cell. He said when he first learned how those small openings can help support the whole body, he is truly shocked and realized each human being is a well-designed system. No matter how small a structure is, it contributes to the whole system subtly. And then he said this reminds him how a city works. Small installations in the cities are not been noticed but the city cannot function without them, like the roadside sewers which help balance the water level.
Interview with an expert。
- I finally got in touch with her this Friday. The interview with the expert is not finished yet (09/25) due to her time limitation. We just discussed it for about 10 minutes, and we will have a more extended interview in the coming week. Before the discussion started, I generally explained this course’s background and what I will do. I first asked her: do you know fenestra? And surprisingly, her answer is no. She then started to ask me questions about fenestra. After I showed her the information I researched, she immediately got the general idea of this structure and showed me some biology examples with similar functions. She said she would search for more information before our next meeting, and I also need to look at the examples she brought out to make more interview questions next time.