DES302 Blog 2:

Welcome to my second project update, this time covering weeks 3-5! For this blog I will be following the 'What? So what? Now what?' reflective module as shown by Rolfe et al (2001) . I chose to try out this module for the second blog as it has a simpler structure than the Gibbs Reflective Cycle with only three steps, yet allows for greater customisation to better match my recap narrative.

The University of Edinburgh (2020), helps further suggest question pointers for each phase of this module, which I will be loosely following. With that, let's dive into what I've been up to!

Rolfe et al (2001)

What?

What on Earth has happened from weeks 3-5?

For a quick context recap, I am creating my final capstone design project for class DES301, and reflecting/documenting for DES302! We have a 12 week journey in progress to create a prototype; the result of expansive research and refinement of a problem statement; mine being "How might we improve the wellbeing of students suffering burnout by using emerging technologies?"

I aim to provide a mobile app solution; where players join with friends as a group of heroes to progress through the storyline of a fantasy world, influencing events and defeating foes as a team. The catch is that all app activities and story quests are fuelled by players completing real life tasks to gain energy. Friends encourage each other to complete a range of tasks to lead a more balanced lifestyle to restore wellbeing not just mentally, but physically and socially too. Tasks may include reaching a step counter, spending time away from their phone working on study, cooking a meal, messaging a friend; all ways to rediscover the small enjoyments of life. This allows burnt out students to cater a healthier approach to study whilst maintaining care of themselves, reducing the risk of further burnout.

What work has been done?

Since week 2, I have done a big restructure of my Miro board, organising colour-coded workspaces under the Double Diamond methodology quarter stages of Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.

My Miro board (week 5)

This helps me sort out work done non-linearly into general categories, and I can keep track of components better. As tasks progress I will be adding further workboards under each stage, I suspect the Develop column will be especially busy with developments in the near future for art and worldbuilding.

In the meantime, I have worked through class ethics modules, created my own project ethics outline, and written my starting questions for my student survey which I plan to roll out next week. 2 presentations describing the outlines of my project were created. While it sounds repetitive, it did help me properly put into words exactly what I wanted to achieve; explaining the problem context, project introduction, outlines, goals, and how I would achieve them.

I have also moved screenshots of my Pinterest inspiration board to the Miro board, breaking down key elements and what I found the inspiration was successful in achieving. A start has also been made at listing key app components needed for navigation, and also laying down game mechanics I would want in the game such as character customisation, map progression, or levelling up.

And that's about it for the work I have done so far. I was hoping to achieve a bit more work in these initial weeks, but have felt quite overwhelmed at where to begin. I guess that really enforces the necessity of creating your own timeline and structure to follow along, but I also need to just get started with the develop stage components as soon as possible. Creating the ethics document, going through the modules and creating the two presentations while essential - felt like they ate up a lot of my time, but I also could have spent my own time more wisely getting a head start on tasks.

So What?

What does this tell me about my experience? What went well, what didn't go so well & why?

Overall, I did get some decent progress out of the way, and am basically ready to dive into the Develop stage as soon as the survey goes out. What didn't go so well is I didn't achieve as much work as expected by my own timeline. Going into week 6, this should be the turning point from the Define to the Develop stage, except I still need to finish the survey and get results from it as soon as possible.

Sometimes I feel a bit stressed and lost as what to focus on as I have all these big tasks to complete such as casually creating a whole world and story for the app to follow, and all the art, and being able to showcase the concept effectively in time.

Now What?

What do I need to do to to handle these problems better in the future?

To help relive feeling lost or overwhelmed, I can work on breaking down tasks into smaller pieces that seem more approachable. Working on just getting started, avoiding procrastination, and building work momentum in order to power on will be essential

One step I still need to achieve is discussing my proposal with Aldo; the game expert from the Fab Lab for some helpful pointers on what to focus on for my prototype, and also fellow students working on game prototypes. This will help me better weigh which components are essential to showcase my prototype, and working with others to stay on track and keep each other motivated.

What are the next steps in the project?

My gameplan for the next couple of weeks will be finishing creating my survey to gain insight into people's views of student burnout. I can then use this data to refine the player tasks used to fuel app gameplay. In the mean time however, I will get started on worldbuilding and concept art. A name for my project will also help with direction I want the world to go in. For the art direction as well, I want to focus on a more detailed pixel art style, with bold colours; somewhat similar (but more refined) to existing art for a similar AFK app concept I created in 2022:

Art by Yours Truly (2022)

To quickly come up with showcase characters as well, I will look into asking permission to use art designs I created for my friends' D&D characters; turning them into pixel art and (attempting) to animate basic movements for my app showcase. That however is a future task, worldbuilding and basic environment creation comes first! Since it is coming up to week 6, we will have a 2 week mid-semester break that I intend to use to get a proper head start on these tasks from week 7.

And that has been my weeks 3-5 project update! Stay tuned for the next one...

References:

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

The University of Edinburgh. (2020). What? So what? Now what? The University of Edinburgh. https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/what-so-what-now-what