I agree that tension was the missing element. I believe that if stories did not have tension and contained a mere collection of facts, the audience would be bored. This aligns with my understanding of the traditional story-telling structure, also known as freytag's pyramid. I think most stories follow this structure, as they have exposition, an incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and then finally a resolution. If a story did not have any bumps, or problems or tension on the way, the flow of the story would be somewhat linear and uninteresting.

I think this is an interesting example of how technology with limited options benefits those who fit within societal standards and binary categories. However, those who do not fit the norm may be harmed by technologies like these. Because the system only had male or female as the options, this limited the narrator as they would be flagged either way. I think this says a lot about the way our sociocultural beliefs and gender norms are embedded within the very technology we deploy around us.

I think this is a great point to consider. In the previous video, the record button had an icon and it would be interpretable by tech savvy people, but maybe not young children or older people who are not as familiar with newer technology. They could've done a walkthrough where they test the design against multiple personas, ensuring that their design is inclusive. Of course, there is the fact that designers want their product to work for their target audience. However, it is important to make designs more inclusive for every user base.

I agree that while A/B testing can help provide evidence of causality, there may be issues in verifying if the results can be trusted or not. This makes me think about concepts such as validity. How do we know that the results are because of the specified variable, and not other extraneous variables that may have influenced the results?

I've never heard of the term "gulf of execution", but I agree that this is a very important concept to keep in mind when designing a solution. There is always a gap between what a person wants a product to do versus what it can actually do with the inputs a user provides. I find that many usability issues occur when this gap exists; the user doesn't know how to translate their goals into input that an interface is allowed to accept. In this example of the alarm clock, I wonder if a user manual would be helpful in reducing the gulf of execution? Apart from the design itself, I feel like an instructional manual would be helpful as well!

I agree with this statement. A prototype doesn't have to be the final version of your solution, it is just the first step to getting there. I used to view this differently; I thought that a prototype was the final stage of the design process and needed very few changes as it was closest to the actual product. However, I have realised that a prototype helps you test out your ideas and use it to make a better version in the future.

I agree that double barreled questions shouldn't be asked. I think it can be confusing because the participant will wonder which concept to talk about if there are multiple asked in the question. I think when creating questions, this is something I have to closely pay attention to because I may not realise I am doing it. I wonder, if I am thinking a question I ask might be asking about two things, should I ask the question with one concept, and then just make the second concept a part of that question as a follow up, or make two separate questions for each concept?

I agree with this point. If you do a competitor analysis and find a competitor that is doing exactly what you want to do, what is the value in your new product? A good competitor analysis can ensure that you learn from others' mistakes, and address gaps that currently exist in the market. That's also why I think the question "why did they fail" is very important in understanding what previously went wrong when people tried to solve the problem.

I agree with this explanation of what intuitive is supposed to mean. There have been so many times where I've heard people say that "this product has such an intuitive design", and I've always wondered what that meant. I always thought intuitive meant easy to use and explicit, but I guess it doesn't. Information is only made sense of easily if the person understanding it has some level of previous knowledge that shapes their perception of the design. This part of the reading changes my perspective. I no longer think "intuitive" is a useful way of describing design because it's too vague and doesn't actually reflect what people are trying to say. Instead of saying a design is intuitive, I may use a different principle or explain what makes the information so easily understandable.

I agree with the idea that our society actively works to suppress creativity. This affirms my perspective that we often prioritize getting the right answers rather than thinking creatively in order to get a range of answers for a question. I think this because we, inherently, as humans think of things in black and white. If something isn't the "right" or "correct" idea, it is simply wrong. In reality, these answers may not be wrong and may just be different. Through my own experiences at school, I've seen how people are quick to shut down the idea generation process to just skip ahead to the solution. Especially with generative AI now, we're outsourcing our thinking. This is harmful because we need to be able to think. If we can't think, we can't create.

I agree that people should take into account goals and values while designing something. This confirms my perspective that we need to understand how important a factor is for a user in order to create a product that meets their needs and aligns with their values. I think this is true because we are often too solution oriented, and actually need to focus on the problem. When users are facing a problem, what about the issue causes a misalignment in values, or what about the situation is undesirable for them? Additionally, I wonder if considering goals and values are part of value centered design.

I think I agree with this idea of trying to find a design that's useful to a large, diverse group. When designing something, it's usually safe to try to maximise the reach of design in order to make it usable by "most" people. However, I've realised that this "most" doesn't actually exist. Any design, regardless of how it's created, will always work for some people, and not others. I find this idea useful because it informs my belief that there is always an opportunity cost and hidden trade-off while trying to create the "best" design. People may try to generalise the design of their product so that it can be used by virtually anyone (universal design). However, this risks the possibility of losing the specificity or individuality of the design, or creating a design that is based on specific needs of a group. On the other hand, making a design so specific risks the lack of broad usability.

I partly agree with this premise. I agree with the fact that no design can truly, equally serve every single end user. Even if a designer thinks about all the possible ways a design can work for a user, there will always be groups of people who are left out. This is because it is simply not possible for every factor to be accounted for, and partly because a designer's ideas is limited to what they have known, seen or experienced, which may not encompass the needs of all users around the world. However, I think that just because some designs are not universal, that does not mean they shouldn't be made. Instead, they should be modified.

I agree with this. This reaffirms my belief that design is a reiterative process rather than the surface level details of a product. Before, I used to think that design was just limited to visual design, meaning it mattered just how something looked or how aesthetically pleasing it was. However, I've looked into design concepts and processes such as the Design Thinking Process and now I view design multidimensionally. Design is not just about creating features, it's about empathizing with stakeholders, defining the problem, brainstorming for solutions, creating prototypes, and finally testing.