Team Fornax: Interview with Jeff

Introduction:

This interview was conducted by team Fornax, which includes Ethan, Frances, and Gia. We interviewed Jeff on Tuesday November 1st, at 6pm. Our team went into the meeting with the intention of learning about Jeff’s daily struggles effected by his disability, and what he wants to add in his life. However, we also wanted to let Jeff know our intentions and limitations, and make sure he didn’t have any questions. Our hope was that after the meeting we would have a few ideas on how what kind of assistive gadget we could create to make Jeff’s life better or more convenient.

Agenda:

Before the interview we wrote out a bunch of questions and follow up questions that we planned to run through. We didn’t plan to use it as an exact format where we went down the list. It was more so just to make sure we had enough questions to get a solid interview. I think we went through almost every question.

We also wrote up an outline for an introduction to make things clear with Jeff so he knows where we are coming from. It was mostly based on the outline Zach gave us.

Here were the list of questions:

Say: our names – our backgrounds

Ask client to introduce themselves: name, interest in participating in this

Say project goals:

• Trying to build prototype useful devices (making a convenience machine/ gadget)
• Engaging in an iterative design process, including gathering formative feedback around the midpoint of the process
• Taking about seven weeks to go from this meeting to a reasonably high-fidelity final product (explain timeline)

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 (say limits of Arduino)

Ask client if they have questions about process

Interview Questions (follow up questions in bullet points)

Are there any Daily life activities that are frustrating/difficult? You can list it or go into detail about a few?

• Can you group your problems into a couple big categories
• Can you demonstrate it?
• What makes it difficult?
• Is there a product you think that can help mediate this?

Is there something you use to enjoy doing that has become harder over time?

• • Is there any creative ideas you have to help this issue
  • Is there a way to make it somewhat easier again
  • What would encourage you to do this activity again?

Could you narrate or draw your daily life?

• • • What’s the typical routine?
    • Common emotions throughout the day?
    • What do you look forward too?
    • What do you not look forward too?

What do you care about?

• Why is it important to you?
• How would you want to implement it more into your life?
• What ways can you think of that would bring this into your life more?

What do you need that maybe you don’t always get?

• What hinders you from this

How would you improve your resources and tools now?

• Ways to add on or subtract?
• Is a completely new device needed? Or add on to what you have now?

Tell us some story about inconveniences that come up in your life?

Meeting Summary and Major Takeaways:

Before we could design a unique device for Jeff, it was important for us to understand Jeff’s hobbies and interests. The meeting started with us asking Jeff about his daily routine. Jeff highlighted that his favorite parts of the day are playing video games with his best friend, recording and watching YouTube, and sitting on back porch. Jeff informed us that he decided to participate in this project because he: “likes the invention of new technology”. After getting to know Jeff a bit more, we then began to explore possible avenues in which a device could assist Jeff in his daily life.

At an earlier point, Jeff mentioned that he works as a receptionist at CLASS for a couple days of a week. We asked if there were any little annoyances that he may experience due to being in a wheelchair. Jeff told us his only pet peeve is wh

en the receptionist working the previous shift doesn’t cleanup after themselves. We decides as a group, that this in an avenue we don’t want to further explore. Naturally we then talked more about Jeff’s life at home. We learned that Jeff has a two-year old nephew, who occasionally leaves their toys out on the floor. We asked Jeff he deals with this situation, he told us that he would always get someone else to clean the toys up. This striked us as a possible avenue that we could explore. We also learned that Jeff sits on his back porch because his front porch is at a slight angle. Jeff emphasized to us that he is always nervous about being on the front porch without someone behind him. He said if he would feel more comfortable if he knew that he would be okay by himself.

Towards the end of the hour, we talked to Jeff about his YouTube channel. We learned that Jeff likes to make reviews about music albums. We asked Jeff about how he records his videos. We discovered that his setup was very minimalist, he simply records only using his computer in one take.

 

Post Interview Thoughts: 

Our interview did not quite go how we expected. Jeff was quite satisfied with how his life functioned and it was a bit difficult for us to ideate some ideas for how to improve his experience. It was difficult to get the conversation started, but slowly but surely, we discovered more and more about Jeff’s life. The agenda we had come up with was definitely not adhered to, as we came up with a lot of follow up questions that we didn’t ever get to. 

I think part of the reason that our interview was not quite as successful as we wanted it to be was that we came into the interview assuming that Jeff would have suggestions on what he thought might be a good gadget. Though he was very receptive with ideas that we suggested, it was difficult to get him to complain about his own life. 

In hindsight, our team wished that we asked a little more about the details of the wheelchair itself, as a lot of our ideas were built on improving the wheelchair. We could have asked about the dimensions or the braking system, which might have been good jumping off points for possible ideas. The ideas that we came up with were quite mechanical, and were grasps on the parts of Jeff’s life that we thought we could ease even more, but not necessarily the most achievable and reasonable ideas. 

That being said, I think our interview served its purpose. We got to learn more about the life of Jeff, and we came up with several possible project ideas that we can build on.