Channels & Prototypes

Announcements

• Midterm break next week – no class
• Make sure your Design Notebooks and Project Canvases are up to date
• Next meeting 10/20/2015 where we’ll discuss ROI and continue refining our prototypes

Design Notebooks

Let’s take a few minutes to review some of your Design Notebooks.

Links

• Food + Tech Connect
• Browsing the Web in VR
• Media Queries Level 4
• Google Material
• Small Data: Why Tinder-like apps are the way of the future
• Yelp API 2.0
• Patent: RFID system and method for tracking food freshness

• Designing touch surfaces to help the visually impaired operate home appliances

Channels

Let’s take another look at the Project Canvas.

• LinkedIn – Which LinkedIn Groups should you join?
• Twitter – Who should you follow?
• ACM SIGs – Which SIGs? Graph, CHI, Music, MM, TVx, etc.
• Github
• DeviantArt
• Behance
• Steam
• Gamasutra
• BandMix
• ReverbNation
• YouTube
• Vimeo

What other channels are out there we should be aware of?

Exercise

• Take a few minutes to list all of your current professional organization/community profiles.
• Are there any memberships or accounts you should have but don’t? Make a list of memberships or accounts you need to create to effectively target your early adopter audience(s).

Prototypes

Let’ take a few minutes to tweak your paper prototypes:

• Think about one example user
• Think about one task that user should be able to accomplish using your project
• On a separate document or sheet of paper, list out the steps necessary for that
• Create a paper model demonstrating that list of steps

Exercise

Now that you’ve prototyped your users task, let’s beak up into groups of 4 or so and try out each other’s prototypes. Make notes on any questions or alternative uses that show up.

Assignment

Channels

LinkedIn

• If you don’t already have a LinkedIn account, register one.
• Log in a create and/or brush up your LinkedIn profile.
• Include your Education, including your focus and special interests.
• Include all your internships and/or employment history, emphasizing your experience RELATED to your focus and special interests
• If possible, link in to your internship and/or employer supervisors and request endorsements for each position

Focus-specific Community

• If you don’t already have one, create an account on one or more professional communities related to your area of interest
• Polish up your account, making sure your profile is complete, including an avatar image other than the default – try to make this consistent across all your professional accounts
• If the service supports portfolios (Behance, Github, etc), select your best work, polish it up, and share it publicly – only share your best work – quality over quantity – even if it’s just one or two pieces at this point. Keep everything else private until you can bring it up to your best standards.

Project Canvas

Update the Channels block in your canvas, listing all the professional communities in which you intend to share your Thesis Project in order to target your best employment and/or customer prospects.

Design Notebook

• Create a new slide in your Design Notebook and title it “Channels”
• Write a brief paragraph describing the kind of people you would most like to see your Thesis Project (are they your Early Adopters?)
• List the professional organizations/communities you have created accounts for, along with links to your profiles

Prototypes

• Continue iterating on your paper prototypes, try creating digital versions of your paper prototypes to begin transitioning from your paper to your functional prototypes