Interview Documentation Team Pomegranates with Brenda

Introduction

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.