Project I: Team #1

JEDI Art Installation

[projectjedi]

Reflections

Monkey: I felt way more comfortable with our team this week. Since we all had a clear idea of what our solution was going to be there were not so many discussions or changes. On the day of the community playtest, The installation took shape in a very good way. We got very good feedback. We noticed multiple things we have to fix about our installation. There is a very high chance of human error in our current prototype but the basic concept worked. We need to work on the explanation of the experience in order to acknowledge our biases and the deficiencies of our mechanism to the audience and to be more transparent about our approach. We had a feedback session with Dan and Bill. I think I might have been a bit defensive, I need to work on my attitude and my energy when getting feedback. In general, it was a good week for the project with our highest moment as a team after the community playtest and a bittersweet ending with Dan and Bill’s Feedback. We still have some work ahead of us and I don’t want to jinx it, but I feel we are learning how to work together better and hope we can continue with this flow.

Michelle: Going into the playtest day, I was nervous and concerned however based on the feedback recieved on playtest day, I was pleasantly surprised on how the users enjoyed our experience/installation. This was motivating but I still had my reservations on the ethics of the installation. I was also slightly disappointed to see that after we set up, the skylight in the space had such a drastic effect on the installation making it hard for some of the faces on the wall to be seen. Thankfully we were able to think of a solution half way through to adjust this via hanging black sheets over top of the projector. This took up some extra time but I think it added to the experience in the end and provided a better visual for our audiences. Going into the presentation week, I am also nervous as I am unsure of what we will awknowledge and enclose to audiences. Hopefully we will be able to share the research we found and properly acknowledge our biases in simulation.

Xiao: Due to my body not getting good rest after the fever last weekend, I'm not in too good a shape or spirit this week. It's tempting to get more into it, but I always feel tired. So when it came to the final production stage, I felt that I didn't do a good job of supervising and checking. Some details can be further improved. But I isolated myself from the product design. Otherwise, I think our product could have been better. Also, I always say I want to learn how people work in different cultures. Because I put myself in the position of "understanding" and "learning", it seems that when I encountered some obstacles, I did not choose to be more proactive in solving them, but rather to "accept" and "compromise". I know I could have been more proactive in trying to get a better result. But I didn't. It's a choice, I guess. I always feel that I'm not really in a "working state" at the moment. And I wanted to avoid "trouble" as much as possible. But is this really the right choice? I'm having some self-doubt. We are about to enter the final phase of the semester, and I'm a bit overwhelmed. I've been physically unable to recover from my illness. But I have to actively adjust, and as a PM, I have to be more supportive.

Saleema: Much to all of our surprise, the Community Playtest day was a real success, atleast for us. We dint have high hopes, but the feedback from the participants was positive. When the day started, we had some installations problems, like very bleached environment which hindered the visibility of the video projection. We came up with quick solutions. Monkey tried his best to cover the installations with black drapes which actually worked well. Then there were some software bugs to be fixed in the morning before the installation and post lunch as well. We dint actually except this much response, but at one point there were too many visitors taking the experience that we runout of our test result sheets :D This whole experience was new and overwhelming, but there are many lessons to be learnt.

Brianna: I was honestly quite pleasantly surprised with how well the playtest went considering all of the hardships that we experienced over the course of this project. We received a lot of positive feedback from most of the testers. It was not as high fidelity as most of the other installations there and we definitely ran into some issues (the faces on the results papers did not match the order of the faces on the web app, my computer crashed twice, etc.) but we made it through. However, we then were contacted for an urgent meeting the following day where we got some more negative feedback. One point being that it does not relate fully to the brief (not to do with bias in tech, just bias in general) and the other is that we should not be drawing any conclusions and making people feel bad since our methodologies are biased in and of themselves. While the meeting was quite startling it is not surprising as this was the type of feedback I expected to hear on the day of the playtest (because I agree with it). I am prepared to make the necessary changes going forward.

[projectjedi]

Contributions

Xiao: I had a lot of communication and coordination this week. Coordinating venues before testing, preparing relevant equipment, and tracking progress. Preparing the plan for the community test. Responsible for taking photos, recording user feedback, summarizing user feedback on the day of testing.

Monkey: This week we had a lot of work and a lot of progress on our project. I contributed by making sure everyone understood the idea and know their tasks. I helped create the content for the quiz and edited the video for the wall of faces using Saleema’s CGI faces. I tested the eye-tracking software and encountered some issues but we had a contingency plan which was to use the webcam to see where people see. This week the teamwork was really smooth and everyone did their tasks very well. For the day of the Playtest, I helped put the installation together. I felt my experience in art was very valuable for this day since I had a clear vision of how everything would take shape.

Michelle: This past week was short but busy as we had showcase/playtest day so I contributed by creating the user flow, designing the wire frames, and working with Monkey and Brianna to create a cohesive design for the quiz and results form.

Saleema: Finally, this is the Art Installation and Community Test week. I had the challenge of implementing the face reactions. After thorough research and learning a new dedicated software from scratch, I managed to test the facial animations with different emotions. When the teammates liked the test renders, now its time for me to do the animations of many different faces. I chose to do 6 faces with three different emotions - neutral, angry, and happy. The next two days were the busiest with sleepless nights of animating and rendering out. At last, it came out well. I sent the renders to Monkey and he comped them all in three videos. The day before the test day, me and Xiao was in the Installation hall making arrangements for the Community test. We set up our seating and layouts. To our surprise, the big day went very well. Its a fully packed week.

Brianna: This past week I worked on coding the prototype for the community playtest. In a short amount of time it was a lot to do (did it in about 2 days), but I’m happy I was able to deliver something. I also helped set up our prototype and all the necessary equipment and helped facilitate the tests.

[projectjedi]

Week 10 Project Update

After we confirmed the final proposal last week, we entered the production phase this week.

The production process was relatively smooth, but since we were late in finalizing the theme, we thought the work for this showcase will be rudimentary. Some technical issues and details will need to be worked out in the future.

On Thursday, we officially started the community playtest. What we didn't expect was that this "play test" was very formal, with many external participants. This made us feel a bit uneasy about the sensitive topic of "bias". To our surprise, we received a lot of positive feedback on our work. Most people were "surprised" and said, "The results made me reflect a lot". We were very happy with the results because that was our intention - we wanted to make people aware that sometimes their "prejudices" are unconscious.

But because of the sensitivity of the topic, we didn't want testers to feel offended, and we explained carefully to the subjects at the end: there is no "right" or "wrong" test result. Rather, people from different backgrounds will have different focuses. Some people focus on the background, some on the eyes, some on the skin colour, and some on the angle. The point is: your experience, your knowledge, and your perception, all have an unconscious impact on your bias.

However, we were still challenged by one of our professors on Friday. This made us very nervous. But after patient communication, we understood that the teacher was offering us help. There were some misunderstandings and miscommunications.

Overall, we were satisfied with the process and results of the test. But we must admit that we are not rigorous enough for the whole process of setting up and designing the details of the product. This may lead to some misunderstandings among the subjects. We need to continue to reflect on the summary and develop further product transformation and iterative upgrade plans.

[projectjedi]

Reflections

Monkey: This week has been very hard in terms of teamwork. It is very hard to keep the energy high in long meetings when we are all tired or blocked creatively. Our solution has changed many times and we haven’t gone into development so I believe that has created some stress and tension. I took the initiative and addressed these issues one on one. I have made mistakes in terms of time management so I will try to improve that. I try to encourage everyone to participate in decisions but at the same time, I know I can be very insistent on my ideas. I hope to be more organized moving forward.

Xiao: After the last reflection, this week's meeting schedule is much better, and the goal of each meeting can be accomplished. But also from last week I was worried about the team's progress. But can't seem to find a good way to move forward on my own. I feel that everyone has a different background as well as different working habits. My own experience doesn't apply here. And I'm learning how to deal with these issues in a new cultural environment. So I have a lot of concerns and hesitations. But I may have been too hesitant, which caused a real delay in our progress. And because of my own inexperience in managing this type of design project. There was a lack of clarity about task and goal setting, which led to unclear time management as well. This is all something I need to reflect on as a PM.

Saleema: For me this project experience is going to be something which I will be using in all my future projects. Even after having very long and productive meetings, pitching and finalizing was not easy. At one point, I felt more confused of the whole process. There are enough lessons learned both by observing and involving in the process.

Brianna: To be quite frank, I have been leaving every meeting feeling mentally drained and exhausted. I don’t feel as though we are working efficiently as a team and I am incredibly concerned as we only have one week before the community playtest and I myself am still quite confused about the actual details/features of our solution. It has gotten to the point now where I’m so worn out that I have two thoughts battling within me. One is the perfectionist who wants to do the best she can, and the other feels defeated and wants to just accept whatever direction we’re heading in even if I’m not fond of it or if I see potential issues. I want to be proud of what we present, but I also don’t want us to keep spinning our tires in the mud as we’ve already been doing that for the past four weeks. I do not blame any one person, there is no “I” in “team” and as they say in the timeless classic Disney Channel original movie High School Musical, “We’re All In This Together”. However, I believe that our biggest issue is communication. I have been feeling a bit frustrated because I feel as though we spend so much of our time addressing issues within our team and yet these issues persist and nothing changes. I am going to try my best to view this as a learning experience so I can have a more positive outlook on the situation.

Michelle: Where to begin? I started the week with high hopes and a positive attitude as I was given the feedback to work on my “trust.” The feedback to me felt as if I was not being a team player and that is the last thing I would ever want my teammates to feel, so I went in with a positive and encouraging attitude which pushed the team to think more critically and “fool-proof” our solution. Once we all aligned on a solution/installation, we met with Jason to get a professor’s opinion before meeting with client Bill and we finished the (Wednes)day feeling on the same page. As mentioned, somehow between the hours of 10:30-12pm on Thursday, the solution had changed again?! I can see the team is stressed, concerned with timing and lastly/more concerning they/we are all SO confused; confused why the solutions keep changing. I took the time to speak to the advisors which gave me a little bit of a clearer direction, but for the first time in this course, I am experiencing a situation where the team is not on the same page. I thought my “questioning and challenging” was the root cause of why we kept changing solutions, so I took a step back - being more submissive and quiet of my thoughts, BUT noticed that exact day, two other/more instances where the solution had changed (again). Once in the (Thursday) morning before meeting with the client, and another after meeting with the client. The second instance has me even more concerned that the installation we are making is not as clear as the one pitched & greenlighted….I also took the time to speak with other cohort members to get outside perspectives which led to the idea of me chatting individually with some other team members such as the developer and PM. Once speaking with our PM, I was able to connect the dots to see and understand the root cause of why the process for our team was so challenging. Some members of the team do not recognize that when people (myself included) “question or challenge” a solution, it does not mean change the direction. When chatting with my PM, I used another analogy to explain my actions of “questioning” aka “when you have a leak in the house, do you fix the leak or do you move homes?” In that moment, I saw her lightbulb go off and understand why I ‘challenge’ or “ask critical questions.” I told her (again) my intentions are never to change the direction of the solution, but only to ensure we tweak features of OUR solution so that our installation will be that much stronger. I ended up noticing this pattern of questioning a feature leading to a re-direction, not only coming from me but my other teammates as well as from the client, which led to the end result of always changing our solution. Moving forward, it is too late to address this now as it will distract the team from the end goal, thus will put the remainder of our efforts in creating a solution and finishing the project. However, it is unfortunate we had come to this point where we are putting forth a solution that I, personally know is not my best effort but on the other hand, this is a learning experience for which I will be able to recognize quicker in the future.

[projectjedi]

Contributions

Xiao: During this week, as the solution became clearer, we needed a clearer schedule of tasks and time planning. With the help of Monkey, I created a new sprint schedule, in scheduling meetings, client communication, meeting notes, peer communication and did more research to support our new persona and solution, negotiated exhibition space as well as some daily documentation work.

Monkey: During week 3 of our project, I have been working more with Xiao to organize the agenda of meetings and to design the sprints. We have iterated on our idea and it keeps changing but every time I have tried to help contribute ideas for the art piece to be more compelling and for the message to come across better. I believe I have good experience in terms to all the different forms in which an issue can be tackled through art so I have tried to bring that to the table. I have addressed the teamwork issues during team meetings and also one on one to give and receive feedback. This week we have had very difficult meetings but I have tried to help keep the energy up and the ideas flowing. I try to contribute in terms of implementation, I don’t know much about coding or programming but I have encountered situations like this before and I try to come up with solutions for the technical difficulties.

Saleema: This week is another rough week for the team and we had long meetings where we took some time in coming up with a consolidated idea. We got struck in the User persona and user story and were trying hard to connect those to our pitch. From the concept provided to me, I did a 3D black box model to demonstrate how the user will be interacting with the screen inside. This model is used in the client presentation to demonstrate our pitch. And after client meeting, we had a thorough discussion to shape our idea up. I contributed suggestions and ideas which I felt will help in the implementation. As there is a community test next week, we had so much to do individually and as and well as team wise. So, now I have my part to execute - research and find a working model for “the 3D faces in the wall.”

Brianna: This week, I continued to contribute to research and, mainly, brainstorming. Since we unfortunately were still not able to solidify a solution, there was not really much else that could be contributed. I am pretty proud of myself for how much I have been voicing my opinions even though it doesn’t feel very natural for me. I also worry that by challenging another team member’s idea that I might create some tension or friction, or even propel us backwards. But, I try to only challenge when there are actual potential issues and not just “I don’t like this”. This upcoming week, I am (hopefully) going to be researching and possibly developing using eye-tracking software, programming a quiz web app, and figuring out how to connect them somehow. It should be quite the challenge, especially given the time we have left but I will try my best!

Michelle: This week had both motivating and difficult aspects at the same time as the team went in circles trying to resolve and decide on a solution. Midweek, we aligned on a solution and even went to speak to Jason to get his feedback. After Jason’s feedback, we re-iterated to adjust certain features and collectively landed on a solution that we were all excited about. I worked on the user flow and the ‘solution’ explanation for the pitch deck, Saleema worked on a rough illustration of the idea, Xiao worked on the upfront and Brianna worked on the research for eye tracking to see if it was feasible. However, sometime between Wednesday night (after working on the deck) and Thursday noon, the idea had changed (again) making me confused, exhausted, and concerned with what little time we had left. This was difficult and frustrating thus ultimately sitting quietly and feeling like if I speak or ask any questions we might keep moving backwards. After this week, I must say, this was a hard week.

[projectjedi]

Week 9 Project Update

This week started with a team meeting on Tuesday where we discussed Bill’s feedback. We needed to think of a solution based on the user persona and user story that Bill had approved. We brainstormed ideas, broke them down into features, and then converged on a solution using the bullseye tool. It was a very productive and creative meeting. We wanted to get feedback on the solution as soon as possible.

On Wednesday, we showed Jason our solution and he showed us some problems with our user persona. He felt the term future tech company owner was problematic because we didn’t know who will become a tech company owner. Additionally, he said that the experience should be more confrontational and he gave an example used in conferences where they will divide groups based on the colour of their eyes. Once again, we had to go back into ideation. The feedback made us pivot from our original ideal but it was very helpful. We changed some things and added other features including eye tracking to the idea and once again divided our tasks to present the new idea to bill on Thursday.

On Thursday we had time to work together before the meeting. When discussing the idea we came to realize we had different understandings of what the final product would be so we ended up using the morning to converge into a solution and make sure we all agreed on the definition of the product. We had our meeting with Bill. The presentation was not yet organized to show the new idea and the pivot so we had some problems while presenting it. He again gave us feedback and showed us some problems with using eye-tracking software. Once again we had to modify our solution, taking into account Bill’s suggestions. We chose the key features of our art installation and stripped them to the bare minimum to reduce the scope of the project. Once we agreed on an MVP we broke the features down into tasks and divided the work. We planned the rest of the project meetings and made plans for an internal playtest before the community playtest. It was a hard day but we worked together and we were able to move the project forward and finally decide on a solution to move into pre-production.

[projectjedi]

Reflections

Xiao

This week several members agreed that we were not efficient in our meetings and always delayed. The agenda set up was not effective. I realized that I always don't like to push people too much, or I worry that my interventions will make people feel offended such ideas are not appropriate at this time. I should actively promote the efficiency and progress of the meeting and manage the process moderately. At the same time, I felt that it was enough for me to synchronize the meeting information by sending it to the discord group, but in fact not everyone would read it. In addition to sending important content to the group in the future, we still need to talk face to face to ensure the synchronization of information. Also, I'm reflecting on whether the design tools we learned are applicable to all projects. The fact is that different projects must choose different tools, or even that the same tool may be used differently. It's worth thinking about how to use them in our current projects to be more appropriate and effective, not just for the sake of using them.

Saleema

I love when things are in motion, and so when there was a steep progress in first week of the project, I was so excited and proudly wondering how the team was very proactive in polishing the research and narrowing down the ideas. But there came a lag, which pushed me to an exhausted phase, feeling overwhelmed and also confused. Being an artist, I strongly believe ART has no limits and when we try to enforce a boundary, there comes the confusion. Yes, it is time to be oriented and build back - A new lesson to learn in our never ending learning.

Brianna

After doing the Crazy 8s exercise, I was so excited and felt incredibly optimistic about the project direction as I felt we had so many unique and interesting ideas. Then came the issue of research and actually justifying our solution. It felt as though there are many well-known issues in tech when it comes to biases, perhaps so well-known that they have been greatly improved upon to the point where it is no longer THAT big of an issue. For example, one of our ideas was to create an “Antigoogle” to highlight biases in the Google images search engine (e.g. only men showing up when you search “CEO”, only white women showing up when you search “beautiful”, only black women showing up when you search “unprofessional hairstyles”, etc.). The issue is, even though these biases still exist to some degree, my research showed that it has been vastly improved upon, especially when you search “beautiful”, “person”, or even “doctor”. Much more diverse than I expected as I thought this was still quite a potent issue. Although I don’t want to undermine the fact that this does, as I said, still exist to some degree, it made me realize that there are much more pressing issues with more CURRENT research to back them up. Therefore, I felt saddened that we had to eliminate an idea I was really passionate about, and I felt that we pretty much had to go back to the drawing board. However, with our newly-approved direction of targeting tech companies rather than individual people, I am excited to see where this takes us and what we are able to conjure up (hopefully very soon).

Michelle

Learned I need to support teammates more in their new roles by voicing my doubts and hesitations more often/when they arise. Ex. Not initially vocalizing why we were coming up with solutions without researching and aligning on target/user stories & avenue of bias opposed to proceeding with trying to touch on all biases and everyone as a target. Moving forward I will speak up more, specifically when I think the team could use some direction.

Monkey

During this week I have realized the importance of not moving forward without the input of everyone on the team. We had to go backward in the process because of this. I also realize that as a product owner I have to be able to say to people when discussions are taking too long and even take a decision about the direction of the project to help things move forward. I have also been reflecting on whether some tools like the User persona are helpful for a project that ultimately wants to produce an art piece. This is the opposite approach that I learned during my education in fine arts and I have seen it more as an obstacle and a limitation for creativity than as a helpful tool.

[projectjedi]

Contributions

Xiao

Mainly did what a PM should do. Organizing meetings, client communication, meeting minutes, task management. During the design process, mainly did research on tech bias, based on medical bias and Ai bias, search engine bias and the reasons for its creation.

Saleema

First Week: When we outlined the Team Charter, I was assigned Art Director role and I came up with my learning goals and objectives. We all were engaged in doing some general research. I pulled the needed google links and a video which I felt were relevant for the topic.

Second Week: It was again a week full of discussions and research. This time, my research focused mainly on art directions. At the same time we came of some interesting ideas and strategies for design.

Third Week: We decided to do a rough design ideation and Sculpture model was assigned to me. I While I was into the design ideation, we suddenly faced an halt in the whole process which led us back to research phase. Again, I spent time in digging to the root cause, finding the answer for the question, “why the search engines are biased?

Brianna

So far, my main contributions have been through the means of research and ideation as we have not yet decided upon a solution that I would be able to develop a prototype for. I mainly worked on researching current issues in technology that involve discrimination and biases. I also looked for some inspiration and examples of interactive art installations as I think many of us were confused about what exactly that might be. For ideation, the bulk of it came from the Crazy 8’s exercise we did in class, which sparked a lot of ideas that we were all quite excited about.

Michelle

In week 1, we decided on roles and I chose to explore a new & unfamiliar role of the designer. I was also excited and interested in seeing how other leadership styles would lead and use the methodologies to integrate into our project. We began with a team charter, where I was able to provide and support the new PM with my previous scrum based-team charter as a basis to start and direct the team. From there in week 2, I aided in the initial research on what types of biases exist in the space/industry according to the brief as well as providing interesting examples & videos that showcased opportunities to deep dive for further research and insights. Upon presenting everyone’s research I noticed there was a gap between the depth of research and how we reached any solutions so I voiced my concerns and reached a point of alignment with the team that concluded we did not dig deep enough in our research and we were scoping too broad & too large. Learning from previous projects, over-scoping can lead to confusion; thus encouraging and pushing the team to narrow focus. More recently, I realized I would have to have some uncomfortable conversations but hope that the team can see the intent comes from wanting everyone to understand the overall process/methodologies in deep, deep thought and more importantly with confidence (without doubt or like no leaf unturned).

Monkey

During the first week of our project, I helped the team with research on the algorithmic bias and then focused more on the research for the causes and origins of facial recognition technology bias. I have helped conduct the meeting and intervene when discussions are taking too long. I also contributed multiple ideas for our solution.

[projectjedi]

[projectjedi]

Week 8 Project Update

Overall, the past week was a very significant, chaotic, and surprising week. You're curious? Here's the thing...

First, let's go back to Thursday (Mood: 🥰).

The Crazy 8s exercise in class on Thursday really gave us great inspiration. Since this was an art-based project, we weren't tied down by too many “design tools”, and we were able to come up with ideas that we were really excited about in the limited time we had. We thought our ideas were very good and creative. Then, on the same day, we had a client meeting to have a deeper understanding of the background of this project, the client's goals for the project, the application scenarios, and the target users.

It seems like things were going smoothly up to this point. Next, we continued our research on the topic of biases in tech in-depth to prepare for the group meeting we planned to have on Monday. In that meeting, we shared our research results and voted on the previous ideas we got from the Crazy 8s. Thus, we decided to pitch our ideas to the client and assigned tasks for everyone (Mood: ☺️).

But, yes, good things are always followed by "buts". The day before we wanted to pitch to the client, we realized that we were missing something very important: User Personas and User Stories. We didn't use these tools for this art installation project. To solve this problem, our team had an emergency meeting and finally decided to do more in-depth research to further solidify our ideas based on 2 whys: Why does this kind of tech bias exist/happen? Why do people have limited awareness of this kind of tech bias? We found this to be quite stressful, but this is real life (Mood: 😵- 💪).

It is normal — there are always twists and turns in a good story. Another Thursday came and went. The good thing is that we found out that there are some problems with the project’s progress so far, and we collectively did a team reflection on that. Then, we discussed the “complementary research” to explore the topic we want to address for a second time and then determined the User Personas and User Stories. Yes, it was a lot more work, but this has laid a solid foundation for our next strategies and solutions (Mood: 😇).

After that, we synchronized the project progress with our client and got some more in-depth and insightful ideas and directions. At the same time, the client also confirmed our current direction! ✌️

But we got into a deep thought: Are we thinking about this deeply enough? Is our angle innovative enough? We want to be trying harder. We want to reach the root cause, that's our goal. 👣

To be continued...

[projectjedi]

Team Roles

[projectjedi]

Team Rules

NO WEEKEND MEETINGS!

Bi-weekly team reflections (print).

Must reply in Discord group.

Everyone needs to express ideas and contribute.

Active listening is crucial.

If you have any suggestions for someone, tell them directly. No gossiping behind their backs.

Make sure the workload for members is fair and evenly distributed.

There will be a fixed meeting after or before Improv class every Tuesday.

[projectjedi]

Team Objectives

Brianna: Explore more creative/artistic side. Develop existing skillset further (software development). Improve my engagement and contribute as much as possible without overworking myself.

Monkey: I want to understand the role of the Product Owner. If our projects allow for it, I would like to understand more about game engines and coding languages. I also want to work on my grammar and spelling in English.

Xiao: I want to refine my project management skills (learn from Michelle) and the ability to express myself in English without fear, as well as my way of dealing with things in an English context.

Michelle: Pick up new UX/UI design skills, methodologies and habits while familiarizing myself with Figma & other design tools/software, as well as practice scrum and agile methodologies whenever we can.

Saleema: Even being an Artist by profession, I never had a chance to conduct an art exhibition. This is gonna be a new genre in my path. I will pay equal attention in acquiring some coding skills as well.