MEMORY PEN
/ Interaction Design / User Research / User Testing

Overview
As part of my Interaction Design course, we were tasked with completing the CHI conference's annual student design competition. For this, we were to study a group and design an interactive device to strengthen their social bonds. Our professor requested it not be an app or website.
We chose the political volunteers for the Liberal Democrats of Teddington & Hampton Wick as the group we would study.
User Research
I drafted a user research plan and met with the others to fill in the details. Our goals with this document were to design our study and create a shared understanding of the project and its scope.
Our research plan initially consisted of semi-moderated interviews and direct observations. However, due to the difficulties we encountered in observing political volunteers in action during our course's timeframe, we decided to complement our interviews with a survey instead.
Problem Definition
Our research identified challenges around consistent participation, incentives, and a general disconnect from the work's impact.
So, we wondered, how might we incentivize political volunteering in order to encourage greater group cohesion?
We used our research to develop personas and current user journey's.
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Ideation
We utilized several ideation techniques (e.g. brainstorm, lateral inspiration) to imagine possible solutions, evaluating our best ideas against the artifacts we developed.
Initial Solution
Our initial idea was to create a Bluetooth-enabled smart pen that would allow them to record written notes about their experience while volunteering.
These notes would be wirelessly transmitted to an online server where all of the volunteer notes from a single event could be reviewed by an editor and compiled into a letter after an event along with a map showing the routes volunteers took or other impact statistics.
The letter would then be printed and mailed to the volunteer's homes. This would serve as a tangible reminder of a volunteer's impact and not just be another unread email.
Prototyping
Once we came to a consensus on a potential solution, I designed a diagram and schematic of our solution, the memory pen. Later on, a teammate improved upon the drawing (seen at top).
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