This project is done with the intent of creating an assistive device for a client who faces certain challenges, and to start it off, an interview was done to help familiarize the team and client. This meeting was conducted in October 2021, with the purpose of Team Apricots, consisting of Peter, Evangeline, and Nathan, learning more about their client, Connie, and what sort of challenges their project could address. The meeting was held online through Zoom, with each individual in their own separate spaces.

Agenda:

In terms of setting up the meeting, a text group chat was created, and from there, the group was able to come up with an appropriate time for said meeting.

Meeting Agenda (follows the suggested agenda on the course website):

• Group member introductions followed by Connie’s introduction.
  • talk about her disability and what that means for her
  • ask about what she does for a living and her day to day lifestyle
  • share personal stories about interests/hobbies
• Overview of expectations for the final product that we will be developing
  • Non-professionals, all new to building devices from a hands on approach
  • Not intended to invent something completely new and scalable as a product
  • We are trying to build a useful prototype of an assistive device
  • Ending with a reasonably well done product at the end of the 5 week timeframe
• Discussion of daily tasks that Connie has trouble with and potential solutions
  • Start with asking her if she has any specific tasks that she struggles with
    • where do these problems come from?
    • what would need to happen for this to be solved?
    • how does she generally work around this problem?
  • Ask about hobbies that she likes doing at home
    • what are some struggles she has with these hobbies?
    • what are workarounds that she has found for any problems she has?
• Whiteboard initial ideas and drawings
• Make sure we share contact info, emails, phone numbers, best way to contact each other

Summary:

The interview began with brief introductions, and then, what specific disabilities Connie has. However, in terms of the bulk of the interview, most of the content of the interview involved the team learning more about what challenges Connie and people that have similar disabilities to her face in their day-to-day life, rather than brainstorm specific ideas to address said challenges. As the team learned more about Connie, it was more clear what sort of device we could build in terms of feasibility, as well as what things to look out to help make an assistive device that was not intrusive. For instance, because Connie does not have much hand dexterity or strength, it becomes difficult when it comes to activities such as cutting meat, unlocking her door, and gripping shampoo bottles. Other tasks, such as tying shoes or putting socks were difficult, and even on-market “solutions” such as sock aids were not that comfortable or easy to use. We also learned about more about the wheelchair she uses, and certain limitations that come with her wheelchair. Connie mentioned how her wheelchair has hooks located on the back of her wheelchair, but for Connie, the accessibility of these hooks is not satisfactory, and additional side hooks would also be helpful. In addition to problems specific to Connie herself, Connie also outlined more general issues for other people with disabilities, such as how certain products/services are hard to get or access because these people live in rural areas. If their products or services require external management or maintenance, then this becomes even more difficult and frustrating for people in more rural areas.

Peter drawing out image of an idea that could help with turning door knobs.

Image of some of the notes taken during the interview.

Reflection:

Looking back at how the interview meeting, it went pleasantly well, as some of the team felt a bit nervous going into the interview, but as it progressed, a good pace and ambience was established. We did not experience any sort of long lulls in our interview, and Connie was able to articulate clearly difficulties she had and was eager to answer any questions we had. While the interview did not go exactly as planned, the insights the team was able to obtain was conducive in ideation. If one aspect was lacking, it would have helped for Connie to have shown us her wheelchair and the extent of her physical strength and dexterity, but unfortunately, time ran out before we could get that far. What was perhaps unexpected, was how everyday tasks that we would do without second thought were not as simple for people with certain disabilities, and coming out the interview, this made a strong impression on us. Another point that stood out to the group was how some services and products’ accessibility was not equal across all populations, as rural areas have more difficulty.

We are Team Dates which includes, Ronald, Sohye, and David, and for our final project for intro to physical computing we are working with Kyle, a disabled person on making a device that could assist him in some facet of his life. We interviewed Kyle in order to figure out what he might need to make his life a little easier or better. The interview was held on November 2nd at 7:30 PM since Kyle couldn’t make it earlier in the day and all members of the Dates were present in the meeting. Kyle was a funny and charismatic guy which made the interview and easy to do but, coming up with new ideas for things he might want to get solved was a difficult experience.

Meeting Agenda

For our agenda, we decided to loosely follow the plan outlined on the website, with a focus on asking follow up “why” questions as the interview progressed. We felt that having our interview feel more conversant would better help us understand our client’s needs.

1. Introductions/Icebreaker
   1. Introduce ourselves, give fun fact (10 min)
   2. Describe our reason for doing this (5 min)
      1. We’re here to make your life easier. We’re not professionals and we’re not getting paid to do this, but our hearts are in the work and we genuinely care about helping.
   3. Begin Conversation (40 min)
      1. What do you do? What are some things you enjoy doing?
      2. Picture yourself doing those things. Is there anything you find uncomfortable or irksome?
      3. If you could have anything in the world, what would it be? Why?
      4. How are you doing today? Is there anything you can think back to that may have been an inconvenience? Even if it was little…
      5. What are some things that make you happy? Why?
      6. Tell us a few stories.
      7. Could you show us an example of…
   4. Conclude (10 min)
      1. Thank Kyle for his time.
      2. Possibly plan a follow up meeting.

Meeting Summary and Major Takeaways

Through our meeting with Kyle, we learned about Kyle’s hobbies and his passion for his youtube career. Kyle already had an idea in mind of what he wanted before even meeting us, and he was so passionate about this project. He told us that he wanted a camera mount that would be comfortable for him to use to film his youtube videos. We thought this would be a great idea until we ran into some problems. Kyle did not actually have his camera yet but is hoping to get one during the upcoming holiday. He was really excited about this idea and so were we until we thought about the many difficulties that would follow, such as meeting up with him in person to measure the wheelchair, not knowing what kind of camera he would be getting, the fabrication and the feasibility of this idea. We wanted to brainstorm and discuss other possible ideas however Kyle was really adamant about the camera mount project.

After the meeting was over, we talked and brainstormed together about how this camera mount might look like, what kind of functions it will have, and how it would interact with Kyle.

Early sketches of the adjustable camera mount

Even though Kyle was really adamant about this idea, we wanted to come up with other project ideas. We started thinking about having a camera stand mounted on his computer or monitor that he can easily control. We also came up with an idea of making an art piece, a kinetic art that is unique to Kyle and he can put up on his wall or in the background of his youtube videos. We came about this idea after thinking about how Kyle mentioned his interests in art, and how he wishes he could have done something more artsy in college. However these ideas were developed after our meeting with Kyle, therefore we had to schedule another meeting to discuss our new ideas with him.

In our second meeting with Kyle, we talked about our thoughts and approach on the adjustable camera mount. We also introduced him to our new idea, the kinetic art project, and he seemed to really enjoy this as well. Because of the unsure feasibility of the camera mount idea, we are leaning towards making a kinetic art piece that is unique and special to Kyle.

Thoughts after Holding the Meeting and Discussing

At first, we were torn between building a camera mount or building a piece of kinetic art. He seemed very dedicated to having the camera mount, but we saw a lot of problems that might arise if we had gone with it. We had to schedule another meeting with Kyle and share our more-flushed-out ideas to get a better understanding of where Kyle’s head was; we didn’t want to coerce him into accepting something he didn’t want, but we also didn’t want to be forced into accepting a task we couldn’t handle. We spoke with him again however and he seemed to really love the idea of a kinetic art piece.

Now that we know what our project is going to be, we have to do a lot of flushing out. We have a great deal of creative liberty on this device, so we have to step back and think about the direction we want to take it. Specifically, we have to figure out what sort of aesthetic we’re going for (but more importantly, what kind of aesthetic Kyle would want), and what sort of assistive functionality we should give it.

We’re feeling excited to take on this challenge, especially since automated, kinetic art is new territory for all of us. It’s going to take a lot of thinking, planning, and prototyping, but we’re confident in our collective abilities to tackle this problem.

The objective of this project is to design a product for a client with physical disabilities. We (Team Prunes) set up a meeting with our client, Dave, to better understand his needs and learn about his ideas for the product. The meeting took place at 12:30 pm EST on Nov.2nd. All team members (Bella, Emily and Noel) were present at the meeting, along with our client Dave.

Agenda

• Casual Conversation

Start the meeting with casual chatting to allow both parties to get to know each other better. The team members can introduce their fields of study and interests. It would be great to know more about our client – his interests, his passion, his careers, etc. This would help us know more about what his general everyday life is like, which can help us design a product that pertains to his needs.

• Explanation and clarification about the project

Briefly reiterate the scope and goals of the project and the general timeline of the whole project process.

• Understanding the Needs

To better design the product, we should know more about the condition of Dave’s physical disabilities. Specifically, we would want to know the medical condition, how does it affect his daily life, and what particular challenges he faces. Knowing these challenges can help us come up with some product that can target these problems that he faces regularly, and thus be helpful to his everyday life.

We would also want to see his living environment if that’s possible.

• Discussing the Client’s Ideas

Before coming up with our own ideas, it would be great to know if our client already has some designs in his mind, and if so, what they are. If they’re within the project scope and are achievable given the timeframe, it would be great if we can build something that Dave has in mind already.

• Ideation process

Based on the information we’ve gathered, we can start brainstorming on the potential ideas for this project, and discuss them during the rest of the meeting.

Summary/Takeaways

Meeting Dave gave us a good grasp on the kind of things he wanted help with from us. Even though more than half of the meeting was more banter than interview, we were able to learn a lot of useful information.

Initially Dave mentioned the best candidates he could think of for an accessibility device; architecture, genetics experiments, and carpentry.

He expanded on these and told us which of his physical limitations got in the way of the things he likes to do. Primarily, his worry was loss of mobility in his left arm. With only one agile arm, normal tasks like carrying potted plants, holding work pieces, and opening hydraulic doors became difficult barriers.

“My arm doesn’t work anymore, neither do my legs or my back, so yeah, I’m basically down to my right arm and that’s it.”

“My left arm doesn’t work anymore. I’ve torn the muscles out in my left shoulder from not having a 150-million percent accessible apartment – I mean, my apartment is but the building is not. And not having an attendant because everyone keeps quitting. I go through attendants like tissues because they’re essentially single use. ”

On of the first things we learned about Dave is his variety of hobbies and interests, which was a great way for us to learn more about him and brainstorm possible points of intervention for us to help. It was clear that he had been thinking of some of these common occurrences before which helped us identify what specifically got in the way of him doing the things he loves:

“I really like baking! I’m a pretty good cook, if my arms or legs work, which they don’t really anymore. So being able to get into and out of the oven without injuring myself would be great.”

“I’d like to be able to do genetics stuff with trees because it is way easier than you think, but I need to be able to get down to the ground without injuring myself or throwing myself out of my wheelchair.”

Another major aspect of Dave’s life is his computer. With four monitors total, he spends a lot of his time on the computer and enjoys multitasking with them, even mentioning to us that the only thing stopping him from having more monitors is the amount of power and desk space he has.

Dave showing us his ideal PC setup of having many many monitors to multitask with.

Looking at his PC setup, we were quite impressed but were also able to see some things that Dave keeps within reach for frequent use, like a towel.

“I have a towel so that when I have hot food from the microwave, I can put it in my lap and not burn myself, since I can’t hold it with my hand.”

Dave’s PC setup, along with the towel he uses to help him eat food without burning himself.

We closed our conversation with some specifics about his situation. We were able to see his powered wheelchair, and saw some of the limited use he had in his left hand.

“Before I used a wheelchair, I used a walking stick, but before that I even had trouble walking, so having a chance to sit when waiting in line and then instantly get back up again would be really helpful.”

Dave’s apartment, with his electric and manual wheelchairs that he uses to get around.

“Half the reason I lost my ability to drive was when I collapsed since I was waiting in line for so long at the DMV that they said I wasn’t able to drive”

Q: “What position is most comfortable for you to be in, like sitting and relaxed?”

A: “None. I have to move a lot. I have a lot of spine damage – I can’t really sit without moving for too long.

Q: “Which one is your favorite idea that we’ve discussed so far?”

A: “Probably the thing that would be most useful to me is the the thing with the oven _ I mean, I’m Italian, so the only way I know how to make people happy is by making them as fat as possible. And that’s not super easy to do if I’m not able to bake. If I’m having a really bad day, the best way I know how to fix my bad day is if I become generous to somebody else – so I do that with food.”

Q: “What is it about the oven that is preventing you from using it as of now?”

A: “I can’t open the oven door with my wheelchair because I hurt myself more leaning forward to use the oven that I have to stand there on my own, but I can’t use my walking stick and the oven since I only have one hand, so it’s like, okay, this is how things are.”

While we thought that our direction was quite set in the direction of the oven, as we talked over some of the technical considerations of the device, we learned about a different problem that had been effecting Dave. He said “I can’t use my own shopping cart because the door to this building is very hard and heavy and closes very quickly. And like, I have to use my wheelchair as like a battering ram just to open it. That’s how I destroyed my arm is trying to hold the door open, and that injury has lasted over a year now.”

Another photo of Dave’s apartment, showing his shopping cart that he hasn’t been able to use.

“I can’t add the cart to the end of my wheelchair either because it lengthens it, and my wheelchair gets stuck in that door anyway. So at the same time that an arm attached to the wheelchair sounds like a good idea, I need to make sure I’m still able to get in the door.”

Hearing how the door in his building had already severely injured him and also prevents him from living life how he’d like with his shopping cart, we felt like this may be another avenue for a way to help.

Reflection

Our conversation with Dave was mostly productive and allowed us insights about some of his hardships with plentiful context. A significant amount of the conversation was ‘off the rails’ but we were always able to refocus and talk about the project. The conversation started off with a back and forth about animation and video games which set up the rest of the conversation to be comfortable and relaxed.

In the next opportunity to speak with Dave, we feel it would be in our best interest to have specific questions ready to share. This way, Dave is able to quickly address our most important questions before we talk about broader contexts. We don’t want to miss out on any information that could help us deliver a better suited product.

From our initial conversations with the professor and TA we constructed the following questions to share with Dave in our next exchange:

Can you comfortably position your wheelchair adjacent to the oven door when lowered? In terms of physical space and reasonable temperature.

What are the reasonable dimensional limits of a removable wheelchair attachment? At what weight is the accessory not manageable?

Is fine motor control, like that required to change batteries, a barrier for you?

Do you prefer a closed, safer device, or a more open, repairable device?

• Introduction
  • Go around introducing ourselves, what we do, give some background into the class, why we’re taking the class, and into what we plan on doing
  • Ask the same of the client + insight into their motivations for volunteering for the project
• The project itself, from the notes: 
  • Trying to build prototype useful devices
  • Engaging in an iterative design process, including gathering formative feedback around the midpoint of the process
  • Taking about six weeks to go from this meeting to a reasonably high-fidelity final product
  • Documenting our process
  • We are not:
    • Professional technologists who are experienced in making polished products
    • Planning to build something that will be sold commercially
    • Constrained by any practicality outside of usefulness to the person we’re designing for
    • Likely to invent a totally novel piece of electronics (we combine many existing available components in new ways, but don’t make components)
• Timeline: 
  • This meeting as an introduction between us, figuring out what your needs are and what you would like
  • After this meeting, we’ll talk about our options, decide on a path that seems feasible, and then start drawing up sketches and prototypes
  • The next few weeks will be a process of prototyping something, figuring out what works and doesn’t, and then working on refining and polishing that design until we finish up in early December. 
• The actual meat of the interview:
  • Starter question: directly ask if there are any activities in their daily life that are challenging or difficult for them to do that might need assistance
  • Follow up questions: 
    • ask them to go through a day in the life of and about their usual routine
    • ask them to demonstrate anything or pantomime parts of that daily routine (observe for any difficulties we might be able to help with) 
    • ask about any hobbies that are challenging
  • Afterwards if capable, follow up with sketches or our ideas for designs in order to solve these solutions 
• Afterwards: 
  • reiterate contact information and timeline for the project

• Meeting summary and major takeaways:

We learned that Justin has been blind since birth, and much of our collaborative (between all four of us) ideation surrounded finding ways to adjust to that impairment. Justin came in pretty prepared, and proposed ideas such as a:

• Device that makes coffee in the mornings—some type of device that tells whether a cup is full or not (don’t want to just put finger in the liquid so it doesn’t overflow)
• Digital scale that is able to read to him (making turkey, reads out “4.5 pounds”), including a tare function
• Meat thermometer that can read him the temperature
• Braille display
• Light in room detector using pitch to reflect the level of light
• Guitar tuner helper device

Along the way, we discovered his love for music (and his YouTube channel!), especially guitar, and our conversation came around to the idea of a device to help tune a guitar, that might be able to interface between a set of external speakers. This would be a physical, easy to use alternative to digital applications or more visual-based tuners.

As the meeting progressed, we discovered that many of these devices are actually already available on the market, but exorbitant pricing posed a barrier to Justin purchasing some of them. Additionally, we learned the scales for blind people that are on the market aren’t really that accessible—despite reading out the number of pounds of an object, the buttons didn’t have braille markings on them, making different functions basically indistinguishable. As a result, we considered trying to build a low cost alternative to some of the already available designs.

After the meeting, we fleshed out more ideas for the potential devices, such as using an ultrasonic ranger for the liquid detector, pasting a braille strip that says “for Justin” on our final project for a touch of personality, or getting clips of numbers being read out for the digital scale. We also ruled out the braille display, as it is very complex and out of scope for our resources/time, although we did note other kinds of detail that braille could add when working on designs (such as having buttons marked with braille).

• Your thoughts after holding the meeting and discussing as a team:

We went totally off the rails from our agenda as Justin had already thought pretty deeply about what might make his life easier, immediately bringing up his own ideas that he had already prepared. Conversation was pretty smooth after the initial bumps of getting everything set up, and we all enjoyed talking to him and figuring out collaboratively what devices we could make that he could also use. We were even able to refer back to our initial meeting agenda after we had gone through his prepared ideas, being able to come up with even more by asking about his hobbies and if there was any way we could build something to aid in those. Although it would have been good to get a precise idea or a specific one that Justin is looking for in particular, Justin reassured us that he would be  happy with whatever we would be able to provide. We were ultimately able to come out of the meeting feeling far more secure in the kinds of things that we’re going to be building for Justin due to the conversations we had.

Some of the questions we have for Justin now is regarding his preferences with the user interface of out design, such as what size should braille letters be.

We are Team Pomegranates (Matt, Serena, and Alice) taking Intro to Physical Computing. For our final project, we are working with our client Brenda, a person with disability, to create a device that would be relevant and useful for her daily life. To start off, we scheduled an interview with Brenda to get to know her. The main purpose of the meeting was to learn about what her daily lives are like, and from there, to be able to generate ideas and directions for the project. All team members met with Brenda on Tuesday Nov. 2nd at 9:45. 

Meeting Agenda

Introduction

• acknowledge the atypical circumstance of conducting this meeting remotely
• How are you
• Names (“fun fact”) + years / majors
• Their name, “fun fact”, what drew them to want to participate

Ask for permission to record

Explanation and Clarification about Project Goals

• Time frame: 5 weeks; 18th prototype due; 

• We are:
  • Trying to build prototype useful devices
  • Engaging in an iterative design process, including gathering formative feedback around the midpoint of the process
  • Taking about five weeks to go from this meeting to a reasonably high-fidelity final product
  • Documenting our process
• We are not:
  • Professional technologists who are experienced in making polished products
  • Planning to build something that will be sold commercially
  • Constrained by any practicality outside of usefulness to the person we’re designing for
  • Likely to invent a totally novel piece of electronics (we combine many existing available components in new ways, but don’t make components)
• Any questions?

Understanding Needs

• Any activities in their daily life that are difficult, frustrating, or otherwise seem like they could use an intervention?
  • Willing to demonstrate a daily task or a series of tasks to you on the call? 
  • Anything used to enjoy doing, which has become harder over time for any reason? Are there creative ways to make that thing easier to do now?
  • narrate the action and do the drawing yourself in a way that’s visible to the group. (map, a sequence of cartoon panels, more abstract form)
  • Ask if she’s comfortable using a shared drawing-surface tool? → ask the client to draw a map or cartoon of their daily life

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1s5Rxv3rxq0p4oE7c4sLhxYmTp92bzYberSlI7clN7xU/edit?usp=sharing

• Ask ethnographic questions: “why is this important to you?”
• Once you’ve asked some of these guiding questions, use materials you might have on hand (play dough, household building materials like toothpicks, tongue depressors, tape, etc.) to mock up solutions to the story you’re telling, and show these to the camera
• Make sure they are a part of the process as much as possible
• Discuss and establish some categories for “problems” to narrow and refine the conversation
• Think of this as making a “convenience machine”, one that reduces one of the little annoyances we all have, maybe call it a “gadget”? Language is important.

• Conclude
• Thank your client for their time
• take any final documentation images/drawings/notes you may need to wrap up before you sign off.
• Reiterate the overall project schedule if you feel it would be necessary to clarify before leaving.

Meeting Summary and Major Takeaways

Brenda came into the interview with her main idea already in mind. Before we could even introduce ourselves, she explained how she wanted us to develop an automatic retracting device for her umbrella that would be attachable to her power chair. While it excited us that she had already found an idea she was passionate about, we slowed the conversation to dig a little deeper and learn more about Brenda. 

First thing first, Brenda was adamant about changing our team name from the raisins. Instead of the dried up fruit, we decided to change our team name to the pomegranates, a much more exotic fruit.

Next, we wanted to learn a little bit more about Brenda’s disability. She told us that she has trouble using her left hand and uses her right hand to drive her power wheelchair. While she is able to do simple functions with her left hand, such as pushing a button or flipping a switch, it is hard for Brenda to juggle multiple tasks while in her power chair. Some examples she gave were carrying her coffee from meeting to meeting, making a phone call on the go or simply holding an umbrella in the rain, which was the basis for her idea. Brenda even expressed difficulties taking her shoes on and off without having to wait for someone to help her with the task. Since Brenda spends “90 percent of [her] day” in the power wheelchair, it is frustrating for her not to be able to multitask during her busy schedule at work. 

This conversation really motivated us as a group. By taking us through different things she finds difficult, Brenda was able to convey just how important her idea of an umbrella holder and retractor would be to her. As a result, we were excited to know more about what exactly she was looking for and what would best suit her needs. She would like our design to: 

• Mount on the back, left side of the power chair
• Be able to open and close automatically with the flip of a switch or
• via connection to the Bluetooth module in her power chair
• Retract at least 4-5 inches above her head
• Cover her whole power chair
• Utilize an umbrella that is colorful so she is easily seen in crowds
• Be easy to dismount from her power chair when not needed. 

Based on this information, we came up with the following sketches and used our Jambord link to show Brenda what we were thinking to confirm that we were on the same page as her. 

Early sketches developed from Brenda’s description of the chair and what she was looking for.

With these specifications, we needed to learn a little more about her wheelchair and the beach umbrella she likes to use. While she attempted to show us how her wheelchair could put her in a standing position, she wasn’t able to manipulate the camera angle so we couldn’t really get a clear picture of what was going on. Brenda assured us that she would give us pictures of what it looks like raised and lowered, as well as general pictures of the chair that we can use to see what area on the chair we have to work with. Unfortunately, Brenda has not gotten back to us since our interview, and we were unable to get any pictures to include here showing the power chair, its design or how it works. We had to make educated guesses when performing ideation and sketches. Furthermore, Brenda has not gotten back to us about which umbrella she uses or how it works specifically. We are eagerly waiting for her response and plan to look into purchasing a similar umbrella to test and construct on. 

Thoughts and Discussion

The meeting did not follow our agenda, but that’s not to say it wasn’t productive. Before we even had a chance to introduce ourselves or begin our icebreaker, Brenda started off with explaining her idea, and why she wanted it. Since this removed the need to probe for aspects of her life which could benefit from an assistive device, it allowed us to further explore the idea of her automated umbrella retractor during our meeting. This was a benefit, as we were able to ask clarification questions about her chair, as well as learn more about how we could possibly integrate Bluetooth functionality into this project. Conversation flowed really naturally throughout the entire meeting as we brainstormed and asked questions. Next time, we would opt to ask her more directly if she could point out other ideas we could fall back on, or just adjacently consider if her primary idea doesn’t seem feasible as we start to draft our solution. 

After our meeting, we realized that we didn’t get a good description of the umbrella she uses in detail, which made it a little challenging to begin the brainstorming process, but we’ve opted to just purchase an umbrella for testing and prototyping purposes. In addition, we realized we each had different understandings of what Brenda wanted from our project— either it being just an umbrella opener/closer, or just an umbrella elevator/retractor, or both. However, after discussing it within the group we were able to come to the conclusion that it was likely Brenda meant for the combination of features. Overall, we all though that the meeting went well, but wished we were able to obtain details about her umbrella as well as the power chair more quickly— Brenda has yet to reach out with her follow-up information.