Having reached the half-way point in the semester, I have finalized the product’s design (blog post here), produced a physical prototype and set production goals for the next few weeks. Constructing a physical prototype not only assisted in realizing what form the object will take, but also gave a sense of the feeling it evokes when in use.

Bringing the project to physical form also greatly helped demonstrate progress for the second desk crit with David Carroll. The points he brought up were very insightful and I will need to significantly change the way I present this work to others. A few major takeaways include:

• pitch it like a product to make it more understandable, do not spend so much time saying this is my project this is what I made
• could do a better job of telling the user story to justify how it could be effective, figure out a way to understand it as part of a routine and how it plays upon our own susceptibilities when you’re thinking about your day
• look towards the car industry and how they are designing displays and adding features that encourage cognitive behavior change

I documented the construction process and final outcome of the second prototype which can be found on my thesis blog here and here. By the end of the process I felt like my documentation could be improved, and I think I got caught up in building as opposed to being more conscious of how this will be visually explained later, another area I plan to improve upon.

Below are images from the construction and final outcome.