Ian Stewart

The workshops were really helpful. My group was Jun, Zoe, and Zaida. They helped me focus in on one path to follow instead of being torn between two and encouraged me to focus on whatever aspects make me excited to do the project. I think I’m going to focus in on what makes big tech platforms more boring over time. Then, I’ll address some of those issues through my site design.

Also the end peer session was helpful. My computer died but up until then it was useful to sort out my production schedule and prototype 👍

Peer session was super helpful. I feel like I was able to sort out some thoughts about my project. I think I was trying to make this a bit bigger and “artsy-er” than they needed to be. Ultimately I feel like big tech has the opportunity to create really fun, unique interactions but kind of chooses not to. In the end a lot of big tech is just bland and a bit evil/unsafe/unapproachable. So I want to make something that’s fun and light and not taking itself too seriously. I need to dive a bit deeper as to why/how big tech has all of these issue with safety and fun and then find a way to address those issue through the project deliverable. Yeah, that’s a big ramble, but it’s kind of the direction that I’m going. Brian was super helpful in sorting out the thoughts, so thanks Brian!

Met with Sarah this morning. It seems like I’ve been too focused on the output and not enough on the process and research/thesis question. She gave some helpful next steps that I will try to tackle in the coming week:

• Watch some of the Thesis Journals
• Focus in on one/two question(s) to explore
• Dig deeper on those
• Worry less about the “product”
• Document more of the process

Peer meeting 1 was very useful. It was nice to hear where everyone else is in their thesis journey and get a bit of clarity on my journey. Brian also pointed out that we can do whatever it is that we want, so that we should choose topics that resonate with us. That was super helpful for me.

I found the meeting with Sarah to be really helpful. It provided a lot of clarity on the course objectives and ways that the project can be approached.

I’m still narrowing down a topic, but Sarah gave some great resources for me to look into for design and project inspo. She also gave me an assignment to think through a couple of the projects that I’ve made and envision their purpose. What would I want them to be? How would I want people to interact with them? Who’s the audience and what might be their expectations, motives, and experience?

Hey everybody! My big takeaways from class 1 were to stay open minded and follow my passions. I think the picking a topic side of things is daunting and a bit overwhelming, so hopefully I’ll be able to narrow down a topic and get researching.