Client:

Monica

Project Goal:

This is the final project of the Physical Computing course. The goal of this project is to create an assistive device for our client, Monica. We interviewed her through a Zoom meeting on March 18, 2024, in order to find specific and personalized needs or wants that she may have that we can address. 

Monica very enthusiastically expressed her wants to us, which we will cover the specifics down below.

Introductions

We had a few questions set up to ask Monica put here below:

1. Introducing our names and where we come from

2. Explain why we are here

3. A fun fact about each other

4. If you could have an endless supply of food what would it be?

5. If you were an ice cream flavor what would you be?

6. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?

7. Describe yourself in three words.

When we got into talking with Monica, we noticed that it was very easy to converse with her and enjoyed speaking about her general life experiences and hobbies. We mainly talked about who she is and what she does for work as a nurse.

Project Description

1. Describe our main goal concisely.

2. Explain that we are not professionals and have limited scope and resources.

3. Understanding needs and thinking of possible technological interventions.

4. Think about two approaches: (1) building on positive experiences; (2) turning negative experiences into positive ones

5. Consider the small details for the purpose of personalization and customization

6. Creating a prototype based on the client's needs and wants

7. Make a device that is helpful for the client's needs and wants

Other Questions to Ask the Client

1. How would you prefer to communicate? (i.e. writing, drawing, speaking, hand motions, etc.)

   1. • Are there other needs that you would like to address before we start asking some questions?

      • Is there anything I can do to help you adjust within our conversation?

2. What hobbies or interests? Favorite activities? (e.g. favorite artist, music, color, etc.)

3. What do you enjoy doing when resting?

4. What gets you excited?

5. What is your day-in-the-life routine?

6. Where do you like to spend time in the facility?

   1. • What does that look like for you?

      • How do you feel about the time you spend in that space?

7. Where might there be some tensions in your routine (minor inconvenience to large catastrophe)?

8. What is something you would like to improve in your quality of life?

   1. • And why that improvement specifically? (think about the origin of those desires)

      • Why is that important to you?

9. Is there something that you struggle with in your daily life?

10. Which family member, friend, or assistant is important to you?

    1. • If you have assistants: We were wondering how the assistants help you.

11. If you are comfortable sharing: Could you share a little bit about your disability and how you got it?

Project Based Questions

1. How would you like the product to be designed?

2. Where do you want the product to be placed?

3. Do you want something that is stationary or mobile?

In the first minute of meeting Monica we knew she would be wonderful to interview. She was very enthusiastic from the very beginning. We learned she is a tech geek, but pivoted her life career to become a nurse. She works with other adults with her same condition of Spina Bifida. We learned she enjoys gardening and was a curious person.

Monica talked about how she used to code with hole punch cards, which was a very central interest of hers before she became a nurse. She expressed how much futuristic technology interested her, leading us to talk about her interest in Star Trek. Unfortunately, though, not many women were in computer tech while Monica was growing up, pushing her more towards becoming a nurse rather than a computer programmer.

Continuing, we talked about how her life as a nurse can be difficult sometimes due to her environment not being always wheelchair accessible. She also talked about how didn't have other nurse coworkers with needs like hers. She also described how her case of Spina Bifida helped her reach out to others with the same condition, making it one of her main reasons for becoming a nurse.

Some other interests she had were gardening and cooking, which she already has technologically tuned to her needs. We thought that it was very impressive how she is such a problem solver. Additionally, Monica seemed to know what she needed, which was a timer for her Catheterizing process. That helped our team decide much more easily how to ideate on what kind of device to create for her.

We then talked about some of Monica's interests in order to gather some design choices. She described her interests in 80s rock music, like Journey and Bon Jovi. Along with these interests, we decided that it would be a good idea to consider adding some musical choices for the alarm sound as well as a Star Trek logo and design.

We were all a bit nervous when we started the interview with Monica. Those were swept away with her open book attitude toward any question we threw at her. Over the course of the interview we felt we had a good  understanding Monica's needs. She graciously told us many story's of how she lives day by day. We got to know Monica's difficulties and joys. We chose to go off track to learn something new about Monica and her interests. But all the conversations and questions were relevant to understanding Monica. 

Evan thought Monica was a joy to talk to. She was open and friendly. He felt that the agenda was a bit restrictive and often used our agenda as a starting point but chose to go off our path. He would pause to give others some time to ask a question or if others wanted to chime in.

After the interview, we discussed about the interview and notes to reflect on and analyze important key information. After processing the information, we were able to sketch out our product. Through product development ideation, we were able to find more questions to create the product to be more personalized and effective so we emailed Monica. 

Questions We Thought of Afterwards:

1. Could we have a picture of your wheelchair? What model number is the wheelchair?

2. Do you enjoy wearable devices?

   1. • Are they comfortable?

      • We are thinking of having the remote be like a bracket with a button.

3. What are your favorite plants and foods?

4. Do you have a specific sleep schedule or daily schedule?

   1. • Is it a strict schedule?

      • Or do you want that to be customizable for the device?

5. Are you left or right-handed?

6. Would you like to have any specific designs on the device?

   1. • Do you want your face, family image, and/or partner’s image on the device?

      • Would you like any other kind of images or icons?

7. Would you like your phone number, and email on the device in case you lose it?