One of my personal goal for this project was to test out user-centered design methods through participatory design sessions.

I started out using a contextual design process, researched overall context, industry situation, and market analysis, then carried out interviews to capture issues. Following the structure, I held a Co-design workshop for design ideation. However, the workshop results brought up new issues I couldn't have found through interviews: it exposed the limitation of how target audience respond to problems.

From here, I decided to stop following the contextual design process and move in the direction which I believed was correct, to figure out why target audiences think in particular ways. My existing research couldn't quite reach the depth of the core issue. I decided to carry out more research and looked for information in related fields.

What was different about the synthesis phase was that it identified key problems and narrowed down ideated solutions so I could move on to producing the design straight away.

Rapid iterative testing were done so the design was improved after each test, changes were made directly after feedbacks. I chose this method simply because it pushed the design forward with more efficiency and considered the fact that my design concept was quite new for people to accept.

Another benefit of the method I discovered was participants' attention span. When smaller issues appear within a prototype alongside a larger problem, participants tend to report the larger problem. By carrying out tests one after another, all issues can be exposed.

Overall I chose to take a more explorative design approach and stumbled my way through feeling quite lost, especially in the middle of the project where I was trying to understand deeper connections regarding the topic. However, looking back I still think the exploration was worth it. In terms of learning, this journey of lost and confusion was truly a valuable experience: instead of following a certain structure, I was able to be flexible and adjust to the circumstances of project needs.