And here’s the same idea applied to our service design, Girls Guild:

Technology is a tool that humans have used for centuries. It’s part of what defines us as human. It’s an extension of ourselves.

Technology is a tools that grants us the ability to wield unimaginable power. We can use it as an advantage over others, helping us to remember perfectly, or to catalog our lives with great precision.

But should we?

Often times technology creates an un-level playing field, where the rich gain the edge, and the poor stay dis-empowered.

Designers have the ability to change this dynamic.

By engaging in the unmeasurable aspects of what make us human; emotion, context, phenomenology, irrational and strange behavior, we will be forced to extend our understandings into unknown areas of human existence.

Stretching ourselves to design for the dis-empowered will lead us towards making more careful and empathetic technology for everyone.

Thanks,
Cheyenne

Hi blog readers!
We’re done with the second quarter and it was awesome. We have our big ideas from the research we did, we’ve made a ton of things in support of our initial ideas, and we’ve learned a bunch of methods for blowing out our ideas. The design idea I worked on exploding, assembling, and iterating is called Edible Rambler (previously Wild Edibles Map, and the name is still under consideration). Some of these methods included use cases, scenarios, storyboards, process flows, wireframes, prototypes, and finally the dreaded presentation of the product.

I presented Edible Rambler on Thursday evening along with delivering the wireframes and prototypes which has been the most challenging thing for me in a class for making. I can hack the production of deliverables; I’m familiar with the tools and I’m confident with the methods, but the public speaking is another ball of wax. My level of anxiety about presenting has become manageable when I’ve left myself time to organize the presentation and run through it at least once beforehand. However, NOT having left myself time for this on Thursday made me realize that I can still get through in a somewhat organized fashion with little preparation. Pushing myself to complete the materials, get in front of the whiteboard a full two hours before I present, and knowing that the whole thing won’t go pear-shaped if I haven’t memorized a script will absolutely help me with the anxiety next time. Finally.

There were a few other methods that posed a challenge for me which I’ll speak about briefly. One of these was conceptualizing the wireframes without a solid business model. I found it frustratingly difficult for me to wire-out the flow of a service that should be seamlessly integrated with it’s financial model. I burned through a lot of scrap paper mapping out the flow of the UI, which eventually helped me understand how I want the business to function. Next time however, I’ll make sure to have the Business Model Canvas done long before I’m at the wireframes stage and before I try and design the user interface. The process flow was also a learning experience for me. It was a great way to understand how to step through the use of a service through yes and no scenarios which lead you further along, terminate your experience, or more often take you off-course and loop you back around. It was an interesting way to think about system functionality and extremely useful.

So without further delay, let me introduce Edible Rambler, a free mapping app that allows you to post and share edible plants, trees, fruit in both urban and wild areas! Registration to the paid service would put you in touch with a community of private gardens and allow you to share and trade garden edibles!
Let me know what you think!

Thanks!
@cheyenneweaver

Check out the Clickable Prototype!
Check out the Wireframes.

Here are my storyboards showing the key functions of my Wild Edibles Mobile App. (the name is still under construction).

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