For my grad school capstone project, I worked with Kidsteam to research what excited kids about reading and how we could improve digital books to draw in avid readers as well as more reluctant ones. One of the biggest recommendations my co-designers in Kidsteam had was to make the story and bright and colorful as […]
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Follow my path through grad school (or rather, my progress through the HCIM program so far and my vision for the coming months)! A journey map is a visual look at an experience from an individual user’s perspective of his or her relationship with a product or service over time. Plotting this journey helps organizations or companies […]
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Last week, I attended the 2016 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the largest gathering of women in tech in the world. Thanks to the support of the Maryland Center for Women in Computing, about 50 University of Maryland students and I were able to meet with some of the most successful and inspiring women (and […]
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Yesterday, I attended the Code(Her) Conference 2016 in Washington, D.C. and had an awesome time connecting with women in the local tech industry. I found out about the conference through Hear Me Code, a community of hundreds of women in tech learning and growing together, and got my friends Alex and Rachael to join me. […]
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Prompt: Consider how someone could access the internet and perform common internet-related tasks using only an inexpensive cell phone that supports voice and SMS. Rather than sketching three different options to support the same functionality as you do most weeks, this week choose three common tasks that you perform on the internet and sketch out one design […]
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Prompt: Design a tool that allows young school-aged children (5-7 years old) to create short presentations, for example, to learn about a favorite animal for class. Beforehand, list out what functionality you think a child of that age would want to have–would they want to enter text, paste in our take pictures, draw, what? Then, try to create three […]
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Prompt: While some older adults are quite comfortable with desktop and mobile computing technologies, others are not, for example, due to lack of experience, lack of confidence, concern about “breaking” the technology, etc. The goal this week is to come up with designs to help improve an older adult in their 80s to communicate remotely with […]
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I observed how people use and interact with technology at a Capital Bikeshare Station in the Washington Metropolitan area. I defined two broad tasks for my observation — check out a bike and return a bike. GOALS Understand how users perform a well-defined task using technology via in-site observation Reflect on what makes a technology […]
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Prompt: Design a wearable device or mobile app that provides information about sounds in the environment via haptic and/or visual channels to a person who is deaf or hard of hearing. Before starting, write down what kinds of sounds you want to support and why. It’ll also be important to ensure that your design doesn’t provide an overwhelming […]
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Prompt: A single switch (button) is sometimes used as input by people with more severe motor impairments. Imagine you’re working with a young participant who uses only a single switch to control his or her smartphone. Can you redesign Angry Birds (or another popular touchscreen game that you’re familiar with) to work with a single switch? Just […]
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Prompt: Think of what difficulties someone with low vision (20/70 to 20/200) might encounter in going grocery shopping at a new store. Come up with a mobile app or wearable device that helps make the shopping experience easier. Feedback from classmates: How successful is the object recognition? Could it tell apart an apple and an orange? Hand camera […]
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I’m really excited for my class this spring on designing and evaluating prototypes for inclusive user interfaces. Throughout the semester, we have to sketch ideas on solutions to specific design problems. Then, in small groups, we share our ideas and give each other feedback. The first week’s assignment was to design a basic fitness tracker (which at […]
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