1. Based on your life experience, skills, and interests, what would a design process that is both uniquely yours and effective look like?

 

I’m more self-discipline and more efficient when using visual memory, so I prefer to create a mind map to carry on my plan. In high school’s chemistry class, I encountered mind maps for the first time. It offers me great help during revision time. I’m in love with the colorful pattern and clear size change of the main topic and the sub-themes. Creating a mind map could train my summarizing ability and logical thinking. A mind map shows bullet points step by step, so I could quickly recap whenever I review it.

 

2. Identify your three most important stakeholders and list five UNIQUE attributes for each one of them.

 

My top three most important stakeholders are women in jail, people in the community, and the social justice theater.

For women in jail, they have the same gender, the same lifestyle, and generally similar social class. On the other hand, they are from different races, and their motives are different.

For people in Lehigh Valley, they have the same residence, generally similar social class, and the same region of the country. On the other hand, they have different lifestyles and different races.

For the social justice theater, the workers and audience have the same interest in arts, similar income levels, and similar attitudes. On the other hand, they have different personality traits and different opinions on the play.

 

3. Identify three ways in which you will validate your project concept, technology, usability, and business model.

 

My project concept is to arouse people’s awareness of the mass incarceration of women in the US. We will focus on a specific audience. For example, people in Lehigh Valley, especially in Lehigh University, will understand our idea. We are just starting to let more people know about the current situation by carrying out plays and discussions. Organizations and theaters believe it will be successful.

We are not using technology to carry out our play in the theater.

For usability model validation, it will be easy for stakeholders to interact with our final play because there will be a discussion session after it. Through our propaganda, an estimation of 100 audiences will come to watch our play. What they’ve learned will be maintained in their memories.

For business model validation, we aim to reduce the incarceration rate, but this is a significantly difficult real problem. We will face political burdens because the government earns revenue from prisons. We will have an after-play donation, and we hope everyone could donate about $3-$5.

 

4. Give three examples of something very interesting you learned from a friend that was a completely alien concept to you.

I learned in class that in some Japanese restaurants, customers pay for the one behind.

Before planning to go abroad, my friend told me that normally, American people only drink cold water. In Eastern culture, we are used to drinking warm or hot water.

I was told that 24-hour shops are rare in the US, but in Shanghai, 24/7 supermarkets are almost everywhere.