KYLIE CLARKE

Third and final year blog for Bachelor of Creative Technologies. 

[kylieclarke-bct]

Final Weeks of Studio + Entire Semester

The last three weeks have flown by so fast! I am sitting here, coming to the end of the last week of uni - with mostly of my work done. The only stuff our group needs to do now is to set up our studio - add all the extra bits we have needed to complete such as the process book, children’s book, posters printed etc.. I have also realised that this could potentially be my last blog post for the semester, which is a scary thought.

A little update on what has happened over the last 3 weeks leading up to submission (which is 4 days away):

Website - Our friend, Walter has kindly designed and coded our website for us who specialises in this and gets paid for doing tones of design work. He developed a website in a few days that showcased our personality as individuals, as well as the brand, Doodle Dolls.

Children’s book - Katriel and Sophie have been working on this section, with Kat doing all of the drawings and colouring, and Sophie getting it binded this week. 

Packaging - Sophie was working hard on completing this, though she unfortunately didn’t feel well near the end of week 12 - therefore Amanda took over and started to design the inside and cover pages for the packaging. We kept to the same colour scheme as the website. 

Statement Writing - our group managed to write up the first 500 words of each statement that was the same - to then go into the next few hundred talking about our individual processes and concepts/research. Ben gave us a lot of feedback on this and stated that writing the first section as a group would be the best way to keep it consistent. 

Portfolio/blog Update - I have updated my portfolio, with a new design and new information on Doodle Dolls. I am currently updating my blog.

Posters - This task has taken a lot longer to process, where I have gone around in circles for the past week developing these. After developing our three posters (Two freestanding poster banners that will stand on the side of our exhibition + a huge wall banner with all of our contact info on. All posters will be 600x1600mm and will be printed externally), we were able to gather feedback from a couple of lecturers. Ben’s feedback was by far the most critical and comprehensive. We did unfortunately gather this feedback after we sent the posters to the printers, resulting in a stressful email to the company asking them to delay our printing until we could make the changes. We learnt our lesson straight away - to wait for all feedback before we sent them off to printers. About 24 hours later, Amanda and I came up with new and improved versions. We don’t think they are perfect because we were pushing for time, but we hope the lecturers especially Ben, appreciates the improvement.

Process Book - This was my job over the last two weeks, which included the collation of everyones write ups for each section of the book (we had roughly 80 pages worth of content - including images and references). This process was also a lengthy one, where I individually designed each page for the book, labelling each file in order so I could combine the pdf’s, and then print for my first iteration to take back to the team and get any feedback. A few things were changed, though we kept a lot of what Ben’s feedback was from the posters, and I tired to implement certain aspects into the book, to follow the theme and communication. This will be getting printed tomorrow in time for Monday’s deadline. 

The final bits and pieces we are finishing off now is our construction of our exhibition and the final bits like printing out our statements for assessment etc. 4 more days left and we will be all done! Very excited!

[kylieclarke-bct]

Play and Interaction - Reflective Statement 2017:

Doodle Dolls produce sustainable felt dolls designed from the drawings of underprivileged children, that gives back a percentage of the profits on the sale of the dolls to the artist. (Brown, Clarke, McIntyre & Worrall, 2017) This concept is developed through studio with four students, Amanda Brown, Katriel Worrall, Sophie McIntyre and myself, Kylie Clarke. Through my Play and Interaction paper, I am working on a sub-project alone, in which the adult can upload their child’s favourite drawing to the Doodle Dolls app, animate and then explore the world full of fun challenges and games.

Doodle Dolls was created to assist, child poverty, and sustainability and textile waste research:

Child poverty rates are increasing at a rapid rate. As Roy (2016) states, “one-third of the country’s children, or 300,000, now live below the poverty line – 45,000 more than a year ago”. Doodle Dolls is a direct response to this issue, with the aim of providing aid to those in poverty, one child at a time.

Secondly, figures obtained by the Ministry for the Environment show that, every year, the textile waste present in New Zealand’s landfills increases by around a hundred million kilos (The Wireless, 2014).

Doodle Dolls will turn unwanted textiles that cannot easily be resold into new, desirable products that will minimise the amount of landfill waste.

My initial feedback in week 9 was extremely useful and thorough. I discovered that my designs were well developed for a one person team, though I needed to research more into the challenge and gaming aspect of the application. Thomas W. Malone (1982) looked into two key questions around gaming user interfaces:

Why are games so captivating? and,

How can the features that make computer games captivating be used to make other user interfaces interesting and enjoyable to use?

To make a game a ‘challenge’, there needs to be a goal where the outcome is uncertain. Creating this for a child’s app for 5-8 year olds can be rather difficult, keeping in mind the ability of a 5 year old and an 8 year old varies (Malone, 1982). This is why I have created three early prototypes of three types of games that could be included, but not limited to; a multiple click game, platform game and a social network simulation game. If given enough time, or had another person on my team, I would have playtested these a lot more and made sure the three flowed together, and if not, created a fourth game option.

Alongside the challenging element, they also need to be able to hold the child’s attention and keep them coming back to the app. Chris Crawford states that a very important motivation to play an engaging game is fantasy fulfillment. Taking the child away from the real world and placing them in the fantasy world alongside their animated character allows the child to “escape” and to experience “symbolic exploration”. It is critical for humans, especially children to explore in a made up world where they can recreate “our art and our games”. (Crawford, 1984). My aesthetic is simple, yet requires full imagination with the challenges included such as the ability to gain points/coins/apples and level up through the child’s chosen way in the exciting and interactive world.

A very similar example of an interactive child’s ‘toy-to-life’ application is Play-Doh Touch. This company uses a special product with their app to connect the children with their physical creativity and their explorative traits. Play-Doh Touch uses a special stamper to create a character with the child’s chosen coloured play-doh. Their parent then scans in the character and is animated instantly, ready to be interacted and explored with (Perez, 2016).

One of the great aspects of this product is the ability to create a well crafted character no matter how inaccurate the toddler is at building their play-doh masterpiece. This allows ALL children to be able to scan in an animal without worrying if it will work, meaning the reliability of the process is accurate which is a theory I should have implemented into my application. At 5-8 years old, many kids will not be able to draw a clear image therefore making the animation process in the application very difficult. In future, to prevent this occurring, Doodle Dolls can create a variation of character colouring pages on their website, so the parent can print it out and let the children colour them in. This means the images will already be pre selected and all that needs to be generated is the colours used by the child to create a unique design.

An aspect that users did not enjoy though was the non-challenging aesthetic. Perez (2016) states, “Play-doh fails to create a compelling world after the whizz-ban glee of its digital trickery wears off.” Other than the initial scan, there is no challenge in the game and nothing for the children to work towards, therefore falling short of enjoyment and repetitive play. She also states that her child quotes “Mommy, this is boring.” There was no advanced gaming technique that allowed her child to progress through the game.

The idea of a colouring page is used in the Kelly Tarlton’s Sea Life - Amazing Creations Playroom area. This brand new section in Kelly Tarltons are targeted for toddlers to older children, where they can draw their own fish, scan it into their machine and watch it come alive on the huge interactive screen in front of them. This area is perfect as a resting point, where parents can grab a coffee and relax/chat while their child enjoys their time at Kelly Tarltons (Kelly Tarltons, n.d.).

I managed to view this exhibit in early 2017 when it was just released. It was a relaxing room to be in, where children were scattered around the tables, using the crayons and drawings provided. The environment was a relaxing one where some parents were scattered amongst the children, helping them create their masterpiece, where others left their children to their own creativity and took advantage of the coffee in the area. The idea of the parents helping their children colour in, is the idea I wanted to add to my application. I want to encourage this relationship over art, then through a screen, encouraging the continuation of play with their creation. Unfortunately, my downfall was time, and I was unable to playtest this theory and whether it was going to work with families behind closed doors, compared to an interactive installation in a public space.

In week 9, Ben mentioned that I needed to establish whether the app is a ‘challenging game’ or a ‘toy’. From the research that I have found, which is backed up through the Play-Doh Touch research and limited playtesting, I have discovered that the best interaction is a simple challenging one where the child develops their skills and creativity by aiming towards a simple goal. There is always development in the app which means the usage will be consistent, the child won’t get bored and the opportunities are endless. Of course, this is a Doodle Dolls 2.0 idea, so all these theories I have established and contextualised are still in prototype stage. This means that certain aspects may not work due to restrictions in playtesting. The lack of game testing is also the main thing I could have changed through the semester, which I know would have enhanced my design decisions.

REFERENCES:

Brown, A. Clarke, K., McIntyre, S. Worrall, K. (2017). AUT University: Doodle Dolls. Auckland. Unfinished student project.

Crawford, C. (1984). The art of computer game design.

Kelly Tarltons. (n.d.). Amazing creations | kelly tarlton's sea life aquarium. Retrieved from https://www.kellytarltons.co.nz/explore/amazing-creations/

Malone, T. W. (1982, March). Heuristics for designing enjoyable user interfaces: Lessons from computer games. In Proceedings of the 1982 conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 63-68). ACM.

Perez, S. (2016, November 18). Hands-on with play-doh touch, the app that brings kids’ creations to life | techcrunch. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/18/hands-on-with-play-doh-touch-the-app-that-brings-kids-creations-to-life/

Roy, E. A. (2016). New Zealand's most shameful secret: 'we have normalised child poverty'. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/16/new-zealands-most-shameful-secret-we-have-normalised-child-poverty

The Wireless. (2014). The impact of throwaway threads. Retrieved from http://thewireless.co.nz/themes/impact/the-impact-of-throwaway-threads

[kylieclarke-bct]

Studio Week 10 - Doodle Dolls Organising Through a week-by-week Schedule:

Week 10, went by so fast, and I feel like I am falling behind slightly. I’ve managed to keep up all semester but these final weeks, for all of my papers are taking a toll, especially my blogging and research. 

Monday’s lecture class, felt quite slow. We felt rather lost and felt like we needed to regain our momentum, mainly by organising the tasks still needed to be done for the rest of the semester. With only three members of the team present, it was rather difficult to gage exactly what needed to be done, and divide the tasks up so we stay on track. Our way of making sure everyone was in the loop, was to use Slack and Trello, which we have all found extremely useful over the last 10 weeks. 

During the tutor swap in week 9, Clint mentioned to many groups that the best thing to do from now, is to write down everything that needs to be completed and write a day-by-day or a week-by-week schedule. Above, is our choose schedule. We choose to divide everything up by weeks, so we knew what had to be completed by the end of the week considering all of our busy schedules working and other papers. I find this extremely helpful, because I know what I need to do, to keep the team afloat for these final weeks. 

TASKS:

Over the week, I have started putting together examples of Instagram and Facebook ads for our marketing example for the process book, which will be shown in the exhibition. We have talked about including an example of a celebrity ambassador (such as Lorde) who can represent us to a wide audience. 

I have also complied all of my app design ideas (through play and interaction) onto one page and made sure they are ready to be printed for the exhibition, as well as a DPS for the process book. I have received good feedback from my group about the design and are excited to showcase them on the night of the exhibition. 

To other members of the group - We have unfortunately had a bit of a hiccup with one member in the team this week. The task was to complete a logo for our company. The other three members in the group gave our likes + slight disadvantages of certain aspects of the logo, which has resulted in tension and has made it had to give constructive criticism to said member. Our job as a group is all about being on the same page and making sure everyone is happy with the design, not just one person. The issue has been left for now, until Monday week 11, when Amanda will talk to said member calmly to try have our group finish this semester on a high.

On a higher note, Kat and Amanda took our dolls to the AUT day care end of Week 10 and the kids apparently loved the dolls! They were scratched, thrown, hit and pulled, really testing the durability of them - but they have managed to withstand such a beating, which we are super happy and surprised about considering they were only made as a prototype. More info on this will surely be on their blogs and in my blog next week. 

Week 11 and 12 are going to be super busy finishing tasks and getting our work printed and exhibit ready. 

[kylieclarke-bct]

Studio - Week 9 - Tutor Swap and Accelerator document

Week 9 was one that went by super fast, but Amanda and I managed to finish the Accelerator Challenge document for Doodle Dolls as well as our group getting great feedback from Clint during the Tutor Swap in Monday’s class session. 

Accelerator Document:

Week 9 marked the last of 5 Accelerator workshops ready to prepare us for the 10 page document. We went over the solutions, and advantages through marketing examples for our business, coming with with many different post it notes containing heaps of marketing examples that we then took back with us and filled out our marketing and advantage document slides. 

Amanda and I worked for two weeks putting the core of the information into our shared google docs slide. This worked extremely well especially when we were working right next to each other. Communication worked well + we could see what each other was working on therefore there were no overlaps/repeated work etc. Once it was 90% complete, We broke away end of the week, where Amanda worked on polishing the content for the last 10% and I worked on the design and infographics ready to be professionally sent into submission. 

Here are a few of the slide designs that I created:

Title page: Page One (have removed Amanda’s number as I am posting on a public forum)

Solution: Page Four

Market Analysis: Page Six

Milestones/Timeline: Page Ten

I trialled a few front pages first, using our photographs of the dolls as the background, though I wasn’t happy with the way it looked. The photograph made it look unprofessional, and the colours made the page look dull and not very well thought out. The text was easy to read, (so I carried those fonts through) but it didn’t grab my attention. Below is the initial first draft design:

Not being happy with this design, I researched into what did look good in a professional presentation slide and I came to the conclusion that less was more. Picking only a couple of colours was best and then being able to convey our content through skilled, yet simple design was the best bet. This is when I started creating the blue/grey and green slides above. Group was super happy with them, which resulted in a hand in 2 days prior to the due date. Being ahead of time felt good. 

Tutor Swap:

Week 9 - Monday session was a success. We got some really good feedback from Clint, who loved our idea, and suggested we were taking on far too much, though we seem to be on track which is fantastic. Again, he stated sometimes, less is more so when we pitched about all of the things we wanted to include in our studio exhibition, he was extremely overwhelmed and said there were far too many aspects to show that would all be a half way / mediocre prototype mark. Having less things, but having them done well as prototypes was the way to go. We agreed and started to plan our exhibition. 

We are currently sitting at these things to include:

Process book (including all of our business and marketing research + design processes and development) including our statements

Child’s reading book - We may only have the front and back page + a DPS (Double Page Spread) as an example at this stage.

Logo + Packaging/Labels and Business cards to give out on the night

Kat’s Halloween dolls made through Play and Interaction

Kylie’s app design created through Play and Interaction

Poster (could be in a banner form)

Six components could still be pushing it slightly, but we have cut out the animation and the video we planed to make of Ben receiving his doll. We felt both of these things were nice to have in, but were not necessary for exhibition night and would be part of our Doodle Dolls 2.0.

Onto Week 10!

[kylieclarke-bct]

Play and Interaction - Doodle Dolls App Week 9 Crit

Week 9 was an important one for all of my papers, as all deadlines seemed to land at the same time. Week 9 crit for Play and Interaction was super helpful and i was able to gather some good critique from Ben and some students. Ben mentioned that I had done enough work on these designs and from no on, use the last three weeks to reflect, research and iterate. I plan to look into some children games, as well as research into exactly what parents and children need/want from a game. 

Below are my 2nd/3rd iteration designs created over the past two weeks that I showed at crit. I have commented on design myself, showing bits I am not happy with, what was different from each design and the differences/benefits of each one. 

Start up page:

Sign Up/Sign In pages:

Upload Drawing Page:

Entire Map Page:

Game One Example (Farmville type game - growing plants and levelling up):

Game Two (Click as many time as they can type game) and Game Three (platform/multiplayer game) Examples:

As mentioned above, crit was extremely helpful. Ben asked an interesting question about whether I was aiming the app to be a game? or a toy? I hadn’t really thought about it up until then, and I still not sure. This is what the next few weeks are for - to research this and test it out. 

I don’t necessarily need to make the app a ‘challenge’. As I am aiming it for children between 5-8yrs, the children are not at the age yet where there only mission is to win. They still want to have fun and enjoy the game, but the games themselves still need to b slightly challenging. 

A student from the class, mentioned I should also start playing some kids games, to get some ideas of how they work and also design. I think this will be extremely helpful knowledge to get seeing as the flow in my opinion, isn’t quite working the way i’d like it to. Another thing to look into and play test for the next three weeks before the youtube video and slides are due. 

Last thing I’d like to look into in regards to the flow AND connecting the game to the child in a challenging yet fun way. Claudine mentioned the idea about inputing age and changing the level content for that particular age. I want to see if this is something that can be done, and if so, how? If I can find some games that already do this, then even better. 

Ben mentioned a tv series called Sarah and Duck that I would also like to look into soon. 

Three weeks to go and I feel like I have reached a huge milestone, though still plenty to do!

[kylieclarke-bct]

Studio Week 8 - Accelerator Programs and Preparing for Crit:

This week’s work was a tiny bit slow, considering Kat and Sophie were off in Wellington for the majority of the week for WOW. That being said, we had a solid few hours of work and meeting’s on Monday to get us through the week, which leads into the crit for next week with Clint. 

Meeting with Tabatha:

Monday morning marked a new week where we met with a girl called Tabatha that had replied to our ad a while back from the AUT website. We have had two people email us saying they were interested in our idea. We decided to meet with Tabatha mainly because her expertise could be helpful for the development of the dolls, and maybe creating some backup solutions as to how we will be making the dolls if the felt loom idea turns out to fail. She was rather shy but her expertise lead us to inviting her up to our studio on Friday and sit down and work with myself and Amanda, putting together our Accelerator document. 

Through the week, we discussed her in amongst our group and decided that it was too early for her to be involved. We emailed her, giving the news though saying we still wanted to remain in contact for future reference. At the moment, we are starting to put our marketing plan and business model together which she didn’t seem to have any knowledge in which was what we expected. It’s good to keep our options open and if anyone comes along that can help us at that moment, then we will definitely grab that opportunity. 

Fourth Accelerator Workshop:

Amanda and I also attended the fourth workshop for the program, Prototyping. This workshop was rather short, and probably the least informative one so far. What we did find out though was to make sure we have a good prototype or something to show by the pitch night if we were to get through to that stage. Prototypes really help with selling the idea, especially when the judges can see and feel what it is exactly we make in Doodle Dolls. 

Accelerator Document Development:

Friday was a spare day, so Amanda and I met to discuss the document that we are having to create. It is 10 pages long with roughly 300-500 words on each page, describing the associated topic. By sitting down and trying to nail this out rather quickly (the due date (oct 8) has really snuck up on us) I have realised that I am a much more productive person in the morning before lunch when I have to sit and write constructive content. Using this knowledge, we will be meeting early Wednesday next week to continue our document and make sure it is up to the standard we want. We will also be touching base with Kat and Sophie next Monday and showing them our progress + if they have anything they would like to add. 

Crit Presentation:

Amanda and I also started putting together our presentation for Week 9. Ben stated that the best idea would be to put together a slideshow, just like week 3 so we can clearly show what our idea is, what we have been doing and what direction we are heading in. We found that writing up the bits for the Accelerator program (image above) really helped us with the content and gave us a clear path as how to fill the presentation and say it in a way that is clear and concise. This is extremely important when discussing our idea to someone who hasn’t heard it yet. Heaps of work to do.

[kylieclarke-bct]

Week 7 - Play and Interaction - First Iteration of DD App

Over the first week back, I tried to start designing the app electronically. (I have designed it all on Photoshop). The user flows that I have created (in my last blog) actually help tremendously. Knowing exactly which page connects to what has helped me develop the flow of the app so far. I drafted a simple version: 

From here, I started to design the pages. I struggled a little with the choice of colour (not really knowing which colour will represent what) I have picked a two shades of blue to start with because this colour is a very neutral colour for both genders and ages. Here are my first iterations:

Start page - open the app to see this.

Sign up page - new members sign up here

Upload page - members upload child’s drawing and animate* - *(this could end up happening in v2.0)

Sign in page - for returning members

(I also have a map image as well, which doesn’t want to download - could be due to size.)

I need to make sure that I follow the design rules. I am designing for iOS for this project, though in our 2.0 version, there will also be android. One thing that I do need to change is on the map, I have the back button at the top facing to the left like a normal back button, when I have this animation of the back button swiping up. Small things like this still need to be changed. 

I am using Invsion to animate my application, so even though I am designing it fully on Photoshop for now, I can put them all together and animate the buttons so I can get a sense of how the app would work if it was to be coded. This will also help when I am showing it to the team to get feedback and see if there is anything I should take away or add to the application. 

Next plan is to talk to my DD team about my idea, get some feedback and create the next iteration. Ben mentioned I aim to have another 3 pages showing how three examples of the types of games played which will be in my second iteration before week 9 prototype.

[kylieclarke-bct]

Week 7 - Studio - The Accelerator Program

First week back from the break and we are all straight into it. Monday’s class was all about updating each other from the break time, what we had managed to achieve and where to go from here for the last part of semester. Kat and Sophie managed to finished their dolls, which look amazing and we are all very pleased that they are our first prototype. Amanda and I have been attended the first couple of intro workshops for the Accelerator program in hope to gather info about our business and help develop our marketing plans etc. 

From here, we have no split our project up into two section. Kat and Sophie are targeting the Creative side and Amanda and I are targeting the business side. These sides include: 

Creative: 

Dolls (making and designing)

Photos

NZ craft design award

Packaging

Book and binding (what we have done + v2.0)

Logo and Tag

Animation (Kat)

Poster

Studio space

Video - reaction

Business:

Marketing campaign

Social Media

Co.starters template 

Analysis

R+D

Book of business (what we have done + v2.0)

Website

Doodle Dolls Application (Kylie - Play and interaction) 

This is where our blogs will probably divide. To find out more about the creative development, head over the Kat and Sophie’s blog. 

The Accelerator Program:

Amanda and I have now attended 4 workshops. The first two were in the break where they were introduction workshops to the program, what is expected of us and how we can best enhance our application.  The two that we have attended have been based around Market Analysis and Your Customer. These two workshops have been of great help so far, especially because I haven’t really had any business background and practise before. We learnt about our customer and how to target them effectively through the co.starters template: 

The Market Analysis workshop was also interesting. The presenter gave us many different options around access datasets that may be of use to us to find out who our market is, our competitors and also data that can help us enhance our idea. I didn’t even know some of these existed, so using them will be fun just from a curiosity point of view: 

So going into week 8 - we are attending workshop 3 and 4 and we will start to develop our marketing plan using the template above and using the data resources we have been given. 

[kylieclarke-bct]

Week 6 + Break - Studio Update:

It is well into the break at the moment, and even though our project seems to have halted slightly, we are still progressing very slowly. The last Monday session in Week 6 was our pair crit. I was critiquing George, which was rather difficult has he is working with a company where the project has an NDA. So apart from not knowing exactly where they are at and what each of their members were doing in their project, he seemed to think he was on track. A few brief blog posts later, they have split their two member team into two sides of the project, Design and Coding, and he was adamant that that was working well for them. 

In terms of my own project, at that point we seemed to be really on track with our project. We had met a few important people the week before where they pointed us into different directions. Kate offered to place our idea up onto their business pages, where we have actually had one reply from someone who would like to take up the opportunity working with us next year. It’s a potential though we are keeping options open currently. At the crit, I feel like we were well ahead of where we wanted to be, and with all of our team members dedicated to making the best possible project out of this, we are well on track. 

It’s now the break and we have slowed up slightly, which is understandable, as Sophie has been in Dunedin for part of the break. We found that we won the $250 X Challenge award which was great news and we are now starting the process of stage 2 called The Accelerator where there is $20,000 up for grabs. This is where we have decided to split our 4 team member group into two. Amanda and myself are going to focus on developing the business plans and marketing, by attending all the workshops available through the Accelerator program. These are weekly for about 5 weeks. Sophie and Kat are going to focus on the doll making, their stories and creativity behind Doodle Dolls. We will soon have to start thinking about the end of semester and discussing our poster, statements, and how and what we want to present at the Open Studio. Kat has mentioned she is very interested in making a mini animation based around Benjamin the Pilot (Doll she has created) (see her blog) which we think is a great idea - it will add personality and give the people at the exhibition an idea of what we want to achieve. 

Amanda and I have attended the first two intro workshops for the business program, where we have met a few other people also with great ideas, wanting to take them further. Exciting things to come for Doodle Dolls!

[kylieclarke-bct]

Play and Interaction - Week 6 - User Flows and Crit:

This week, I felt like I made a break through with this paper. Up until now, I have been struggling to define what my project was exactly with this paper seeing as I am also working on it with three other students through Studio. Finding something to break off studio and complete that was worth 15 points rather than 30 was definitely a struggle. I finally narrowed down possible ideas to an app, where I do have very little experience in, though still wanted a challenge this semester. Also, creating an app related to doodle dolls means Ben can clearly see what I am working on through this paper and then through studio. 

User flows - Four Ideas + Trello:

Above are the four user flows I showed in my youtube presentation during crit last week. I will expand on what the feedback was on these in my crit reflection below.

I also have added a list in our Doodle Dolls Trello board, just for myself to keep track of what I still need to do + It is also helpful for my other team members to see what I am working on through Play and Interaction. 

Crit reflection + Slides:

Concept 1: An extension of the website, where the adult can input their Childs drawings with ease and straight from their phone. No hassle. 

Concept 2: Just a game for children. They have this world to explore, where they can enter parts of the map and play games, earn points etc.. 

Concept 3: Is a combination of both, + more. The adult can send in an image, and then have it animated, for it to be sent back and then the children can interact with the environment, with their drawing/character. 

Concept 4: Is idea 3 + multiplayer. This is the same concept as 3 but the games can also be multiplayer, where parents can play alongside their children for connection play + safety, especially if they are a lot younger. 

Overall I feel pretty pleased with the feedback I received and also the stage I am at. I have given myself a good 5 weeks to have a draft mock up of my first app design iteration for the next crit lined up, which means I have plenty of time to reflect on the feedback of my presentation and take the constructive criticism on board. 

Ben and other students in the room seemed to like my app ideas, specifically idea’s 3 and 4. Ben mentioned that they were more involved and more likely to keep the users interested. They had a better connection with Doodle Dolls and with themselves, especially idea 4. He also mentioned that until players get involved, they have no idea what the game is. This could be a disadvantage, and I may have to look into this a bit more when designing the application. 

A couple fo students also gave me a bit of advice. Charles mentioned that the animation idea was really cool, though it may take too long to get the animation back and may lose users in the meantime. Using an instant animation tool, (eg - uploading the image and then using pivot points to instantly animate the drawing) will be much faster and ensure the users stay on the application as long as they can. Lara also mentioned to me afterwards if I include an audio section, where the adult could get the child to explain the drawing and use that in some creative way. This also adds another connection element between parent and child. Something to think about. 

Overall, I feel like I am on the right track. It is time to dig deep now and actually design something I am proud to show my studio team. Ben mentioned that it was well planned (could have been accidental) though a good spin off from studio. I also need to remember that while designing games, I don’t necessarily need to look at other games for inspiration. I can get ideas from other every day things, like nature, other mediums and subjects, books etc.. 

In terms of the presentation, I need to remember for week 9, that my slides should be more image based. I felt like I had far too many words on the slides and was hard for the audience to read and listen to what I was saying. Making the presentation professional this early as well, gives me practice for my final presentation in week 12. 

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Final 20 Images: JOUR707

1. Squat to success: Runners come together for a community run.

2. Nature lifts off at the local fishing spot in Auckland Central.

3. A group of runners, walk to the start line of their community run.

4. Kayaker trains early Monday morning on an empty sea.

5. Gaz Brown, leads the running community team for a warmup.

6. Local fisherman, sits at his post 7 days a week while he waits for the perfect catch.

7. 20 yr old Louis Lambert surrounds himself with his Cyr wheel, used for circus performances.

8. Two friends, bond in the cold before their run.

9. Wildlife perch on the wharf, with keen eyes and empty stomachs.

10. Louis Lambert, walks through an alleyway to a night out.

11. Fishermen’s rod, poised on the wharf along Tamaki Drive.

12. Man on a mission: to catch the ferry on time.

13. Louis Lambert smiles his way through his circus passion.

14. Gaz Brown, gives an insightful speech at the Auckland Marathon Workshop.

15. These three pictures, Avis Lambert treasures. On the left is her grandmother. The middle, her mother, and last is herself as a baby. 

16. Louis Lambert has his circus dreams in sight.

17. Avis Eleanor Hodges Lambert and Louis Lambert, bond over a family joke. 

18. Louis Lambert takes in the quiet Devonport streets on a Thursday night.

19. 20 yr old, Louis Lambert.

20. Louis Lambert practises his signature balance, the ‘Crocodile’.

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Week 5 - JOUR - Out of Comfort Zone: Water/Fishing

This week was another tricky week. After many failed attempts to come to this local fishing spot along Tamaki Drive, I finally arrived hoping there would be a few fishermen present. I came across the one and only guy who was fishing, who didn’t speak a stitch of english so after spending 10 minutes trying to ask him if it was okay to take his photo, he gave up and walked away. Definitely a difficult week, though was a fun little shoot to do early Monday morning.

Out of comfort zone - slightly terrified of swimming in the ocean and have never been fishing before.

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Doodle Dolls - Best of Colab photo

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Week 5 - Studio: Meetings and Prototype Progress:

This week, was a week of meeting with the people we wanted to collaborate with through the business school + our meeting with Donna who showed us the TDR labs, the felting machine - how it worked and how to prep our doll making session.

We have made progress with the drawings! Sophie and I approached schools last week to see if we could get some drawings from the children. We were both rather unsuccessful. I approached my old primary school, though I was pushed around to many different people. I went from reception, to principal to possible interested teacher to then be told she basically didn’t want to know because she was too busy. We unfortunately knew that may have happened so we had a back up. Amanda had a connection with a 4 year old called Ben. He gave us heaps of drawings to play around with, which was perfect for our first prototyping session. 

Firstly, Monday's session was all about our meeting with Donna. She took all four of us down and we experienced first hand how the felting worked. She also showed us a little bit of her early masters prototype where she had felted thousands of scrap felt into one huge roll. Using sustainable and recycled materials is one of our main focuses so working alongside someone who is studying this is perfect for us. 

Sophie and Kat attended a workshop on Friday where they started creating a prototype of dolls that we have chosen to use from Amanda. We picked two images that caught our eye and decided to play around with them for the first prototyping session. 

Secondly, we met with Kate Coleman, who stood in for Sarah Trotman as she couldn't make our meeting on Tuesday. Kate seemed to love our idea and we feel the meeting went really well. She planned to take our idea back to the business department and hopefully get some student involved through their paper so they also get marked, though she was worried that it may have been to late in the semester to do this. Our second bet was to advertise our idea to business students (marketing, advertising, accounts etc..) and see if anyone would like to help us on the side. She thought this was the preferred version, as we can conduct an interview type scenario if we have a lot of people interested. Having someone who is passionate about the project means we will more likely go further with the business later on. 

Thirdly, the prototyping session done by Sophie and Kat seemed to have gone well on Friday. They were given three hours to use the machines so they were advised to have their felt ready so they had 3 hours of solid making. For more information on the making process, Sophie and Kat will have a blog post written up in the next week. 

For next Monday, we will have our progress photos for our prototyped dolls + all of our research, ready for our first crit. 

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Week 4 + 5 - Research and Development: Play and Interaction:

Week 4 and 5 have been slow for both Studio and Play and Interaction. I unfortunately did not get as much research as I would have liked to get in week 4, which is why I am combining the two weeks together into one blog post. This does not mean research will stop though. I will still be reading into certain elements through the process, for both studio and play and interaction.

As a brief overview as to where I am at: 

Child Poverty - Week 4 was the end of our research topics for studio. This meant that I completed prison integration and we decided to not focus on that for this semester through studio. Amanda looked into Child Poverty so after having a discussion with her, I managed to gather a lot of info in one studio session. In week 3, I initially wanted to research my own facts around Child Poverty, though for one - it was already being done in our studio group and two - I thought it would be better for myself and our team to focus on a subject/idea none of us had looked into yet. This also means that marking later on will be easier as Ben can clearly see what I have completed for studio and play and interaction. 

Installations and events - this was a very trick topic that I first attempted to find more about, and ended up only finding one event, and a few organisations that had conversation evenings/awareness talks based around Child Poverty in NZ.

Applications - I started to think about more, how will we be able to connect with the parents and children? and how will we keep them engaged enough for them to come back and do business through us again? This is where I started to look into apps, child friendly + games + input/output + child poverty related.

Idea’s starting to form - possible application idea for children to interact with Doodle Dolls affectively. 

Child Poverty Main Facts: (That have surfaced from Amanda’s Child Poverty research for Studio)

Child poverty “can lead to serious and prolonged mental illness in children” (Feek, 2017), that can eventuate into a problematic adulthood that has a negative effect on both the individual and society as a whole (Peters & Besley, 2014).

Poverty rates are consistently higher for those aged 0-11 years old, compared to children 12-17 (Feek, 2017). This is Doodle Dolls target market.

Child poverty rates are increasing at a rapid rate. As Roy (2016) states, “one-third of the country’s children, or 300,000, now live below the poverty line – 45,000 more than a year ago”.

Stuff (2016) estimates that “…90,000 kids are living in severe poverty” and that “New Zealand has a goal to halve poverty by 2030"

Peters & Besley (2014) state that “New Zealand has substantial rates of child poverty and material deprivation. These rates significantly exceed those of many other developed countries and, at least on some measures, are much worse than three decades ago. The evidence suggests that child poverty, especially when experienced in early childhood and/or when persistent and severe, can be very damaging —both to the children directly affected and society as a whole. Amongst other things, child poverty contributes to the large educational achievement gaps between children from lower and higher SES backgrounds. For such reasons, there is a powerful case for reducing child poverty. I have argued that decision-makers have the available policy tools to alleviate child poverty and mitigate its effects–at least to some extent. The issue, in other words, is not the means, but the political will.”

Sadly, “NZ has the worst teen suicide rate of the developed world, with 16 suicides per 100,000 in 2016" (Fyres, 2017)

Feek (2017) suggests that “Prevention is the key; which can be aided by policies that support better incomes…“. Hopefully Doodle Dolls will be the beginning of a solution to end New Zealand’s dismal child poverty rates.

Installations and Events:

FLY ME UP TO WHERE YOU ARE: The Contact Festival Playground

Fly Me Up to Where You Are New Zealand in Upper Frank Kitts Park is the culmination of a four-year project that began in 2012 and has gathered 15,000 flags made by children aged 8–12 at Decile 1 & 2 schools in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington.

The project encouraged the children to tap their creativity in order to process their concerns, hopes, dreams and ideas. It offers a platform where their voices can be expressed as a collective artwork.

Fly Me Up was facilitated by artist Tiffany Singh, who considers it a priority to provide a space for learning, sharing and connecting to the world around us. Her hope is to ignite enthusiasm and responsibility in our younger generations for the wellbeing of the community and the world we wish for.

When I found this event, I thought it was such a brilliant idea, it was a shame the flags were up for only so long. I was also touched by the amount if children writing quite serious things on these flags. According to a Stuff article by Rachel Thomas, “While some wanted people to recycle and "be happy", Auckland-based creator Tiffany Singh says the biggest thing our youth wanted were basic needs.” "In terms of being safe and warm and having food on the table ... that was eye-opening." The simple fact that these children knew they were struggling, and knew their families were in a tough place makes them that much more inspirational and makes me what to be able to connect to the children themselves through the Doodle Doll process, rather than just having adults send in their child’s drawings. 

Stuff article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/77297349/nz-festival-flag-art-project-collects-dreams-of-kiwi-kids

Website: http://www.festival.co.nz/2016/events/fly-me-where-you-are-new-zealand/ 

I also found some support groups for poverty and hardship that were promoting classes/advice for people in need. (Save the Children, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), Just Speak.) The only issue with this, is you had to be looking for the help to find it. Doodle dolls is an opportunity for children to put themselves in a better place, as well as have fun while doing it. Another issue is, if the parents do not not get something out of it, why would they put the effort into sending an image for their child if all they are trying to do themselves is put food on the table for the family. What are these families priorities? 

Applications: 

This research has been started, though will be extended into week 6 and through my play testing process. What makes a good application? What makes children want to use it? What will keep the children/adult coming back to use it? Talking to Ben on Thursday really helped with this. He mentioned that I had to make sure the app was for a purpose. I pitched the idea that it would be an app version of our business (adult uploads an image through the app and then is alerted when the application is complete, though Ben stated that this wasn’t necessarily faster/easier and wont have the users coming back. 

Games are so commonly downloaded on the app store, in fact, Over 5 million iOS games are downloaded per day by 63 million iOS gamers in the US and EU. Games represent the largest single App-category on Apple App Stores, and account for half of the downloads of both free and paid Apps. In New Zealand alone, mobile games have been downloaded more than 130 million times in the past year. Games such as Flappy Bird, was such a huge hit for such a simple game, simply because the game was addictive and kept the user coming back, trying to bet their own high score. 

I initially wasn’t going to include games into this app, though doing more research into it and how children’s applications are based around entertainment and education through fun learning could be an interesting way to engage our child users + keep the parent happy that they are having fun and learning at the same time. If there is a way I can combine teaching the child about poverty and hardship in an interesting and engaging way, through an app that also connects the child to the parent, then I think Doodle Doll’s will be starting something really positive. 

I have found a website where it shows highly rated games for children. they state that for children between 5-8, “...socialization and creativity are key -- and believe it or not, there are several quality apps for that! When choosing apps for this age group, go beyond the usual arcade games (although those can be fun) to apps that help kids express their feelings and unleash their creativity.”

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/best-apps-for-kids-age-5-8# 

Next plan of Attack: Developing ideas:

Ben’s advice to complete before next class (pitch and presentation week) was to create a few user flows for adults and children in a early stage of app development. This will be interesting to develop and test when I have an early design of my chosen app. I am going to play around with several ideas, including games and other activities, or just a mobile version of Doodle Dolls. Play testing both will give me a large ground to cover and will allow me to eliminate ideas when I come across them if they are unsuccessful. 

User flows + updated pitch and youtube presentation is the goal to complete in the last week of semester. Heaps of work to do!

References: 

About us. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.cpag.org.nz/about-us/

Best apps for kids age 5–8. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/best-apps-for-kids-age-5-8#

Child poverty and injustice - justspeak. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.justspeak.org.nz/child_poverty_and_injustice

Fly me up to where you are new zealand, 27 feb – 19 mar 2016 – new zealand festival. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.festival.co.nz/2016/events/fly-me-where-you-are-new-zealand/

The issues. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://savethechildren.org.nz/the-issues/

Over 5 million ios games downloaded per day. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Newzoo_Distimo_press-release_1805111.pdf

Pullar-Strecker, T. (2013, October 30). Nz game studios report huge growth | stuff.co.nz. Retrieved from http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/9341992/NZ-game-studios-report-huge-growth

Thomas, R. (2016, March 1). Nz festival: flag art project collects dreams of kiwi kids | stuff.co.nz. Retrieved from http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/77297349/nz-festival-flag-art-project-collects-dreams-of-kiwi-kids

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Week 4: JOUR - Event/Sport Photography: Auckland Marathon Workshop:

Two members of staff, setting up the screens.

An attender, making her way into the ASB Cube.

Runners ready to learn new facts about their running training.

Gaz Brown, giving an insightful speech at the Auckland Marathon Workshop.

Two friends, bonding in the cold before their run.

Gaz Brown, leading a warmup for the team.

Squatting to success: Runners come together for a community run.

A group of avid runners walking to the start line.

Always on the move to their next running goal.

Fitness junkies run off into the night. 

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Studio - Doodle Dolls - Week 4:

Monday’s class was extremely busy and I feel like our team got quite a lot of work done. Here’s a summarised list of things we went over and our plan for the rest of the week:

We managed to enter into our X challenge completion with the writing that we needed.

Completed a game around telling stories with images.

We compared and contrasted Kat’s, Sophie’s and Kylie’s logos and tried to figure out how we can combine the main ones we liked.

Had a chat to Donna about the labs, how to use them and advice on making our project sustainable. We will be meeting her next Monday afternoon where she will take us over to the TDR lab and give us an into to using the machines.

Compared and contrasted our research findings. Outcome - Selecting our main 5 facts we discovered through our two weeks, and placed them on slack for every to refer to.

This week going forward:

Sophie and myself are contacting our old primary schools to try gather as many images as possible for prototype purposes.

We will be finalising our logo in the next week

Researching more Child Poverty and Sustainability info. (We have decided that using prisoners would be great for the business in the future, but not to worry about it too much for our 12 week work period).

X-Challenge:

About an hour of our studio time on Monday meant we had time to enter into the X-challenge. Amanda had written up a couple of things for the Innovation Challenge the week before, (we know that e had a small chance of winning anything in this one with such an early stage of our business). Because of this though, we managed to have a decent bit of write up for our X-Challenge. Hopefully we are somewhat successful with it, and will find out the result soon.  

Telling Stories through Images:

This was a game that we played on Monday morning, mainly seemed from a conversation about how we loved to tell stories as a child and if we all remembered the paper story game. (Where a piece of paper is passed around, one person writes a sentence, and then folds the paper. Someone else writes a sentence, the folds the paper etc, until we are left with a full random story on a full page of paper.)

We decided to trial this with words and images. One person writes a random sentence, the folds the paper and passes it on to the next person. From there, you look at the sentence and try to draw an image based around the sentence. Fold and pass on. Lastly, the last person looks at the image and tries to write a sentence based around what they see. This was an interesting game and actually a lot of fun. To see your own sentence form into something completely different was rather interesting and it became a challenge to see how weird the sentences could get. It made us realise that you can make a story out of anything, and where we use our imagination, the images could be as weird or as simple as the adult/child would want to make them.

Logo Comparison:

Sophie, Kat and myself, drafted up some logo drafts. We pulled them altogether and for the next week, we will think about combining our favourite ones. During the class, I had a small go and combining, Sophie’s pencil logo, Kat’s text and my people logo, to create a circular simple logo that could potentially be printed on stickers at a later date.

Sophie’s: 

Kat’s:

Kylie’s:

Donna Meeting - Labs:

We also had a really successful meeting with Donna who is in charge of the Labs. She gave us a little bit advice around using sustainable materials and issues we could potentially run into. We asked about melting plastics (like bottles, etc..) though she was adamant that was going to be far too difficult and a lot more expensive than we anticipated. With that idea squashed, she gave us the idea of using felt and fabric, where we use scrap bits of felt to create the bold colours and patterns the children will draw, according to Sophie’s research. (Child Psychology). We are meeting with her next Monday to look more into the lab, and let us trial the machines and test the resources we have available to us.

Research Group Compare:

Last thing we completed on Monday was our brief comparison between each of our research topics. We all have come up with some really good useful information so we have placed our top 5 facts that we think will help our project, in slack for everyone to refer to. Unfortunately for myself, we have decided to put prisoner integration on the back burner, simply because we think we are taking on far too much + it’s a good idea for the future. Would be something to implement once the business is established, and for a 12 week project, we deiced to focus more on Child Poverty and Sustainability.