November 2022

What would you do differently in terms of process or content?

For process: I think I would have tried to manage my time better. I spent too long on research and didn’t always seek out new information and instead found a lot of confirming information. I definitely could have adjusted my research technique to get more specific information instead of just broader details.

For content: I would try to add the ability to add a personal message with the postcard to make it more like a real postcard and have a better user experience. I also would add links to resources. I think having a blog or social media style area for people to share their personal experiences with fracking would also be an effective addition. 

What did you learn?

First, I learned a lot about the technical process of fracking and how gas and oil are extracted from the Earth. It’s a very complex process that involved massive amounts of water, chemicals, and a sand/silicon mix.

Second, I learned a lot about the damages fracking causes. From groundwater contamination, to earthquakes, water scarcity, methane emissions, carbon emissions from storage and transportations, habitat loss from infrastructure for transportation, human health impacts, chemical waste disposal, to more, fracking is extremely harmful to the environment. 

Lastly, I learned about aspects that make an effective postcard. It’s not something I ever would have looked into, but it was very interesting to sift through postcards and notecards to see which ones caught my eye and which didn’t.

What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

As far as the critique itself, I was nervous to present my project for critique. I’m still not as confident about my artistic skills, so I was wary to share my postcards. I’m glad that I did though, since I find embracing that nervousness is the only way to build confidence for future critiques.

I received a mix of feedback. Some was positive like the overall design was nice and the postcards were effective. I also received some, I guess negative isn’t the right word, other feedback about having more of a purpose or audience behind the petition aspect. I definitely think that future iterations of the project could be more geared towards a specific state or politician to have a greater chance of creating change.

What was inspiring? What parts?

I’m not sure inspiring is the right word, but I was very proud of the postcards I designed. I was also really proud of their overall design of the site. I think it looked clean and polished and had a nice interface.

How did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone?

Critical lens: I think my critical lens was pretty clear. I think fracking is dangerous and highly problematic. I think that came across in the website both in terms of the intentions and the feeling of the site.

Audience: My audience could have been narrower I think. I had intended it to be for anyone who was familiar with fracking or was concerned about the environment. Ultimately, I think that audience is too broad and is at odds with the petition aspect. Also petitions work best when they are targeted. An effective change might be to have the site as a Petition to Ban Fracking in (for example) Texas. That was it has a higher chance of success.

Tone: I think the tone was also pretty clear and effective. I was going for a mix of serious and satire. The postcard is poking fun at a very serious topic. I think the tone of the petition part definitely is more serious. 

How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from?

I spent more time on research than experimentation. I wouldn’t say one was easier or harder than the other. They were both important, and I enjoyed different aspects of each. I wouldn’t say I shied away from either, but I spent too long researching and should have cut that off earlier to start experimenting. 

• What did you learn?

First of all, I learned more about doing research; how to organize my thought processes; how to narrow down all my ideas to a applicable project; and most of all, how to design and express my thoughts through my project. From my research, I learned more about pedagogy, AI added teaching, teacher’s influences on students, etc. And I believe that for now, human teacher is irreplaceable .

• What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

Some negative feedbacks I received are the message I’m sending was not too strong; the questions and the game form is not very friendly for users who are not familiar with this kind of decision make game or game theory. I admit the message was not very strong if the user is only playing the game, but I believe by providing more background information and introduction to the game, my idea would be clearer to the users.

• What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

The coding part took me a long time, which led me less time for more thorough user testing. I spent a little longer time on realizing the functions of the game. If I might do it differently, I would spent less attention on the coding part. I would start user testing with simpler prototype, print the questions on paper for example.

• What was inspiring? What parts?

The most inspiring part was when I finally narrowed down my focus to AI and teacher – student emotional connections. Since the future situations of AI has not been achieved yet, so the professor suggested that I could try to create a setting to mimic this futuristic scenario. Not everything has to be realistic, we can also present the users a situation where they could have a peek into the future world.

• Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc… 

For this project, I think I followed along the original prompts. I have a critical lens which looks from the new of teachers, students, and educators. AI and other technologies have been taking over people’s jobs and affecting our lives, so how would AI affect education was my focus. The primary audience I have in mind was teachers, students and parents, but it’s not limited to them. Since education is a important part of everyone’s life, anyone could be a potential audience. The tone of my project is more sarcastic. Since AI couldn’t actually make emotional connections with people, so my attempt to use my own video for simulating AI responses is a stronger approve for this point.

• How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from

For this project, research is a little bit hard for me, since I had a hard time narrowing down my project topic. The more research I did, the more pressure I was having, since there were too many good topics worth researching and dig into. After deciding my topic, the following research and experimentation is easier for me.

• What did you learn?

From this project, I learned a lot about creating something physical and combining it with something digital. I also learned a lot about user testing, and applying feedback I received without jeopardizing my vision.

• What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on critique itself?

I received a lot of good feedback during my user testing about the usage of the app itself. One flaw I made before user testing was making a lot of assumptions about what the audience would know how to do. For instance, I assumed that all users would be able to easily figure out how to unsubscribe from their newsletters, but I found that it was not obvious for many people, or they didn’t have experience doing it.

• What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

I would have liked to have a working prototype to present, where the light in the planter would be controlled by the app mock up. That way, it would be much easier to present and give people a better picture on how the product works. I would also like to do more research on equating information given about CO2 emissions, so that users have a better idea of their impact on climate change.

• What was inspiring? What parts?

Creating the mock up was very inspiring, because it felt very real when testing it myself on my phone. Once I started making and testing the mock app, I got more excited about the project.

• Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc…

Looking back at the assignment prompt, I think I was able to be specific about what I wanted to research, which was how email affects climate change. I was able to show documentation on my experiments and practice. I had a lens that I looked through, which was from a users perspective, and I also had a clear audience in mind, which were average people with office jobs. My intention was to educate the audience on the need to manage their inboxes, and to criticize how corporations put the onus of climate change on the individual. The tone was to be ironic, and mimic a cheesy infomercial.

• How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from

While research was easier for me, I felt that experimentation was more interesting. The research came quickly, since I already had a clear idea of what the topic was about, and just needed evidence to support it. Experimentation was interesting for me, because its rare for me to get to build anything physical. I had a clear goal in mind, which was to combine the digital with the physical.

What did you learn?

During this project, I learned more about critical lenses and more about critical experiences themselves. I also learned while doing my research that many cultures do not realize that they are similar in so many ways, and that we can also learn from each other to change the future.

What feedback did you receive? Any reflections on the critique itself?

Change some of the wording in the prototype to make it more obvious what the whole idea is. Also, “I feel like it would be interesting to see ways in which existing weapons can be slightly modified for a nonkilling purpose similar to how there are those pistol-shaped lighters.”

What might you do differently in terms of process or content?

I would add more functions to the prototype in terms of adding buttons and information.

What was inspiring? What parts?

Learning about how weaponry advanced and is continuing to do so.

Revisit the assignment prompts: how did your project relate to the original prompts, in terms of critical lens, audience, tone, etc… 

The project did relate to my original prompts, however, I needed to fixate on one central idea, instead of the wide spectrum. My tone stayed the same in terms of keeping it light, I wanted people to be creative in their ideas for future weapons. My audience was paleoanthropologists (people who study human fossils), students, and cultural anthropologists (people who study culture). Those still stayed the same.

How did you balance research and experimentation? Which is easier for you? How can you focus more on the areas that you shy away from?

I did more research than experimentation. In my case, there was a lot of information I had to research in terms of history and evidence rather than working on the prototype itself. Depending on the project I think that experimentation would be more required than research.