A Gift For Someone Whom You Can't Meet In Person
In this assignment, we're supposed to create a personalized gift for a friend whose birthday is coming up soon. Thus, we had to interview our friends and get to know more about their interests and needs in order to craft a suitable gift for them.
Progress
Week 1 (empathy & define)
On the first week, I started off asking my friend, Avelyn Lau several questions to identify her likes and dislikes so that I could design a gift that suits her. Moreover, I also tried to observe and analyze her text messages in our group chat to gain more inspirations for the gift.
During the define stage, I narrowed down the information collected from empathy stage such as her "needs" and "wants" and put together a relevant problem statement. From there, I synthesized various gift ideas which has the potential to be created during this time.
Week 2 (ideate)
From the gift ideas I synthesized from problem statement, I further explored each of them and expanded the possibilities of each ideas.
It was definitely a tough one as not just I had to think critically and creatively, I had to also make sure that the gift tallies with the user's liking at all costs. In the end, I chose the DIY vending machine as it has an added surprise element to it which is a bonus especially for gifts.
Week 3 (prototype)
As I decided to go with the vending machine, I tried to make a simple prototype of the basic vending machine with recycled items such as cardboard and paper.
I did so because I wanted to understand the mechanism of vending machine thoroughly and be able to venture into different possibilities of the vending machine.
After that, I moved on to make the final prototype. As I was making the final prototype, I made sure that the slider was functioning by reducing the friction between the ice cream sticks. I also painted the exterior of the vending machine and named it "11-7" to ensure that it looks aesthetically pleasing.
Week 4 (presentation)
I showed the finalized gift to my friend through text and she absolutely liked it. It was worth all the effort after all.
She was also pretty surprised that I managed to complete the gift within a day .
Outcome
Reflection
In short, I had a great time making the gift and also learnt a lot in the process of making the gift. Firstly, I've learnt to communicate with my target user, who's my friend and obtain clues of her potential gift from the conversation. Therefore, it has definitely sharpened my observation skills and taught me to be attentive to my target user.
The most interesting part of this assignment was when I had to gather inspirations from different resources such as Pinterest. In this process, I've came across various ideas which seemed very creative and only required recycled materials such as a DIY pinball machine. Therefore, it inspired me to think further and come up with more and better ideas.
The most absurd idea that I came up with is the popcorn treat box which came with additional drawers. I came up with that idea because my friend is fond of watching movies and series on Netflix.
Moreover, I've learnt to be more creative when it comes to brainstorming and developed critical thinking skills through this assignment. I've discovered that we should ask ourselves more questions such as "how" and "why" to generate more practical solutions to our problems as it's one of the key element in the design thinking process.
The most difficult part of this assignment was to decide which idea to settle down with as all of them seemed pretty fun and interesting to make. Initially, i decided to make the mermaid body scrub set but there seemed to be a limitation to my resources and materials so I had to opt for an alternative. In addition, the vending machine was pretty tough to make as well because there were plenty of internal parts that had to be assembled perfectly in order to make it work.
Overall, my hard work was definitely worth it as my friend really liked the gift and was grateful to have a customized gift on her 18th birthday.