IRIS

For this research through design project I worked on a vitality case; motivation of female sporters. During this project my group and I worked on researching the motivational dilemmas female sporters in advance of their intended sporting activity. To research this we developed IRIS. An interactive clothing hanger, which was deployed at target users for a couple of days. During this deployment the participants had to keep a diary of their experiences and motivational struggles. Before we were able to create the final IRIS we conducted prior target user studies to research sporting rituals and translation of emotions for example.

I wanted to learn new aspects of the design cycle. This resulted in improving my skills in setting up user studies, executing them and analyzing them. Next to that I learned a lot of new user study and research methods.This is important for me, because in my vision I see products that are focused on the user and therefore are valuable for them. I learned how to be specific in what I ask and deliver in a user study. The consent form needs to be specific about everything that might be sensed and saved and what will be done with the acquired data. But also the questions asked during interviews and in diaries should be so specific that you get the answers you were looking for. This project helped me improving those skills. I also improved my coding skills and prototyping skills during this project. I helped with the creation of the prototype and learned from a team member on how to code and how it worked technically. 

I have the feeling that I have never learned so much (about user studies, research, team work, presenting and prototyping) during a project. I had not expected this at the beginning. But the Vitality Squad offered a lot of expertises and ways that could help with problems within the process.  I am glad with and proud of the overall project that my team and I delivered.