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9/21 Mona Center Trip 1

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This week was a lot different from past weeks. We went back to the board to review what we learned. We drew out a character, conflict, event, and resolution curve to help us recap how we went from the user to the specific solution. We drew an additional curve to walk though how we arrived at the solution: we thought; so we tried; we learned; which led us to... We also thought back to our user and their needs. From there we tried to describe how our prototype will address those needs and the impact it may have on the greater community. This week was particularly helpful for me because I am a very visual person- drawing out our design thinking process helped me really see all our analysis, brainstorming, and testing come together. This week also got me thinking about the presentation and how to best present our user and our prototype. It made me think about how much detail we need to include and the story we need to tell to draw in our audience.

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This week challenged our group to come up with tangible and not-so-tangible solutions to address our community member's needs. After looking carefully at all of the concerns of our person of interest (JIM), we decided that we wanted to come up with a solution that addressed cost, community engagement, and nutrition. The solution we came up with was a farmers market. This is a perfect way to engage the community by inviting local businesses and restaurants to participate. We also need to think about possible considerations to take into account when pitching our product.

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This week was a lot of fun. We started off by playing the drums and learning about the history of the instrument. This was a really fun and engaging activity as it helped us express ourselves through music. It was really fascinating to see everyone playing together to make some pretty good music! Afterwards, we continued to put up facts on our map/recreation of the area surrounding the Mona Center. This activity is particularly helpful for me as I like to be able to visualize things when brainstorming ideas. I am excited to see how it all comes together in a couple of weeks.

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This week was challenging because both of my group members weren't able to make it to class. I am new to the 'how might we' questions but found it very helpful in better framing and addressing the concerns of the community members. I am excited to learn more about the brainstorming process and to start thinking of real-world, tangible ways to address their concerns. When we all had a chance to go around the room and share our findings with others, it was really interesting to find out that many of my classmate's picked up on similar concerns/comments in talking with the community members. I really enjoyed mapping out the people on the board and connecting them according to their commonalities as I am a very visual person.

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It was helpful to debrief this week after our trip to the Mona Center. We were able to profile each of the people that we talked to in the community. We were also able to talk about what surprised us about their responses, what they seemed to care about most, and what would be a gamechanger for that person specifically. I really enjoyed this exercise as it forced us to really think about the people that we interviewed; to put ourselves in their shoes and try to understand why they responded the way they did. I found the "this makes us wonder if..." statement to be most helpful as it made our group think about the motivation behind their responses. Next week, I look forward to mapping out and recreating the surrounding area to see if there are any patterns in people's responses based on where they were approached and interviewed.

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I really enjoyed this week's trip to the Mona Center. Though it was very challenging, I learned a lot from this experience. Going out into the community and asking about their healthcare concerns and needs was much harder than I had anticipated. At first, I was unsure how to approach people and introduce myself- and I got rejected a few times. Eventually, I was able to break the ice and have some really good conversations. It was a challenging experience, but more so a valuable one. It forced me to go outside of my comfort zone and speak with strangers. That's not something that we do oftentimes, but it was great to hear some of the input they had. This is one of those things that once you do it the first time, it becomes much more comfortable and familiar the second time around. No doubt next time we go out into the community around the Mona Center, I will be able to better interact with those I am interviewing. Once we got back on the bus, it was really interesting to hear about other student's experiences; the people they talked to, the conversations they had, and the problems they encountered. There is certainly a lot to learn from one another.

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This week challenged me to be more aware of the types of questions I was asking when interviewing students on campus. Before, I was asking questions that were designed to get short bits and pieces of information. After learning about when to use leading and non-leading questions, I found myself more conscientious about the way in which I was framing the questions. This week, it was much easier for me to get a lot of information out of people- even information beyond the answer to the question being asked. I saw the question 'when I say breakfast, what comes to mind' as an ice-breaker: a way to get the conversation started. From there, I could spin the conversation any direction I wanted. What I found most helpful during this week's exercise was the critique by the other two students in my group. They were able to pick up on things that I did not. They gave me constructive criticism on what I did well and what I could improve on the next time I am interviewing others. It was also helpful to observe my classmates interviewing students. In some cases, I was able to say 'oh I like how she asked that question' or 'okay now I see why it was good to use a non-leading question in that situation'. Overall, I found this week's exercise very helpful and feel as though I am one step closer to becoming a good interviewer.

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The first week of HLSA484 was a unique and interesting experience! I found the team-based work particularly valuable as it was a good way to interact with others and meet my fellow classmates. Through the exercise of helping to create a product that improved my classmates' Mondays, I learned a lot about the brainstorming and overall user-centric design thinking process. It is a process that is new to me, but also one that I am excited to learn more about as the semester progresses. At first, it was easy to think of ways to improve Mondays. But as the professor began to add limitations to the ideas, it became more challenging and required team brainstorming. Overall, I enjoyed the class' first meeting. It was a good way to meet those I will be working with this semester and a great introduction to the type of thinking I will challenged with as we begin working with the community health center.