Update on final deliverables

[Emily Q]

I am pretty much done editing.

I am on the plane now and have internet (!) but it is very slow so I can't attach the presentation because it is too large for slow internet. I will mail it out when I get home tonight.

In the meantime, I need a little more from everyone: Lessons Learned:

·       for the project (everyone add lessons from the sections they wrote above)

·       for the team (anyone with ideas, write them here)

You can just email them to me if you don't mind.

Thanks,
Emily

[SiSi Shan]

for the project: 

- people regard energy as not just electricty, but as resources generally (from interviews) 

- people are creatures of comfort and habit

- although people are energy concious, they do not go out of their way excessively to save energy if it is unprofitable/super uncomfortable for them

- most people regard themselves as energy conscious, even if their habits do not reflect what they think about themselves  

for the team 

- be clear about your expectations and divide up tasks with deadlines 

- communicate frequently so that everyone is on the same page 

- meetings in person are more productive than meetings online 

- keep meetings with an agenda so you don't waste time 

thanks emily! i uploaded the demo video to the final deliverables folder already. and i will put the other before and after videos there. 

--
SiSi Shan 

University of California, Berkeley

Mechanical Engineering M.S. | May 2013

Mechanical Engineering B.S. | May 2012

sisi.t...@gmail.com

[Emily Q]

Sorry, one clarification:
the lessons learned for the project are the things that we learned about executing the various stages of the project. Like for evaluating user needs, a lesson could be "interview questions need to be constantly reevaluated as our project specifications change."
Make sense?

[SiSi Shan]

mission statement 

- constantly under revision. i think it's better to have a broader mission statement so that we can explore more ways of satisfying it 

customer and user needs 

- interviews face to face are mores useful. record your interviews and listen to them later for more insight. 

- listen for what people mean as opposed to what they say

- if you know them, you can also take their background into consideration 

concept generation 

- be as insane as you want, as potentially there are crazy ideas that can be toned down into good ones, but it's harder to elevate a bad idea into a good one 

concept selection

- have a clear audience and goal in mind. this makes concept selection a lot easier 

prototype feedback 

- observe people interacting with the object itself and take into consideration what you and see and not what you hear alone 

- observe peoples attitudes in addition to what they say 

[Caroline Karmann]

• Product design is an iterative process... our user needed to be redefined many times and new concepts were permanently appearing 

• It is important to push concept further and try to make a prototype (physical/virtual) out of it in order to understand some limitations. That was for example the case of the Disordered Cube that we kept long with us without going into its details

• Concept selection has specific methods and it is important to follow them. 

• During the concept selection, it is very useful and very important to get feedback. 

• Team members needs to well coordinated with the rest of the team