Introduction

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.