Second Week in Aalto (3 – 7 June)
This marks the start of our second week in Aalto University. From this week on, we will be under going lessons that have been crafted according to the needs of our track–Strategic and Experience Design. That being said, before we embarked on this learning journey, we have to first have some sort of design and business foundation.
For the first lesson, we learned about the double diamond design structure. The lecturer then went on to give a brief idea of what is being expected in the different sections. for example, under the section ‘Define’, there are three key takeaways. First, will be to identify what is the user idea of pain, pleasure, honour and shame. Second, it will be to be able to identify the context in which such states are being experienced by the user. Lastly, it will be to quantify these pains and pleasure using Time, Efficiency, Memorability, Error and Satisfaction. It wasn’t done in great details; it was merely just a brief summary of what’s to come.
For the next lesson, the lecturer taught us from the business point of view. He went through the three main idea, namely the IBM’s hill, the 7 different types of Archetypes and last but not least, the Business model canvas. This, to me, was conducted in much greater detail for he gave examples of each and every points stated, and also allocated some time for us to practice.
The next lesson was with regards to passion, and throughout the lesson, it allows me to see the relevance of Humanities and Social Science in design. I can’t put a finger as to how he did it; but it was interesting to be sitting down there, listening to him.
The last lesson was set aside for how can we conduct research. This lesson was very informative for it taught us the different methods we can use when conducting an interview. In summary, we were taught on the how should we frame our questions, what should we do when interviewing (like what to record) and how to process the data.
After lessons, we went out. We ate some great food along the market square. Dare I say, the fishes were orgasmic! They were really good! However, the location is a bad place. I remember jumping around when those irritating seagulls fly near me. They are out there trying to steal your food, and I am really thankful that we do not have to share our meal with them. Nonetheless, they gave me some great memories. There was once one of those birds attempt to scare the shit out of me, and I jumped, and there was an old lady beside me and seeing me jump, she jumped in shock too. Some of the people around looked at us, thinking what happened. I was embarrassed, and so the only thing I could do was to laugh. Seeing that it was nothing but a bird that scared me, the old lady laughed too. What a day!
Anyway, after eating, we wandered around and chanced upon a ferry terminal at the market square and was just thinking of checking its schedule so that we will board it the next time round. However, 5 minutes later, we found ourselves seated on the ferry, heading towards Suomenlinna island. It was very very unplanned, but oh well, since we are here, might as well grab the opportunity and explore the wonders of Finland.
