Reflection after Theme 5

This weeks lectures got rescheduled so it feels a bit divided and far apart. So now we've already read and handed in the 6th theme but we still have the last lecture for theme 5 (with Haibo Li) this afternoon.

First of, sadly I don’t know if I learnt so much from the first lecture. I was a bit disappointed actually. I think her texts were really interesting and I have talked a lot about them with both family, friends and fellow students. But the lecture was more of a recap of the articles, so it didn't really feel like it mattered if one had read them or not, and I didn't get so much further understanding of the theme from going to the lecture - it felt a bit redundant so to speak. But maybe it was my anticipations that were too high?

However, she talked about how the research design affects the research which I hope that Haibo also might talk a bit more about today! She sometimes had to train participants in her research for the tasks that they were supposed to test, so they were acquainted with the system before doing the task. But then she argued that they might need other participants for other tasks in the research and then they needed to give them some start up training in the system as well. The result will probably be different if using the same participants for all the tasks, compared to if using different participants for different tasks. Which method to use is of course then depending on the research.

Haibo Li’s lecture was really inspiring, as usual! He talked about getting from an idea to a prototype or product. To do this he had five bullet points:

• How to come up with an idea? 
• How to filter the ideas? 
• How to validate an idea?
• How to evaluate an idea?
• How to communicate your idea?

He also talked about problem solving, and that it’s equally important to define the problem as it is actually solving it. You can find much easier solutions with a good definition of the problem. However, we are often locked to our "usual" problem solving methods so it might be hard to look outside the box for the most simple solutions.

Finally, Haibo talked about that even when you have defined your problem, you have found a solution, you have validated it through proof of concept and evaluated some prototypes or so on. But then you need to communicate the idea! It is as important as the other steps and you then need to show that you care about customer satisfaction. You should be able to explain in what way your product do so as fast as the doors of an elevator opens and closes (the elevator pitch).

We also watched the first 3 minutes of this clip to get an understanding of what problem solving can be, and that there are several solutions to all obstacles.