One the first day, Adam introduced me to everyone in the studio from the UX team, visual designers, developers and also the owners. For the rest of the morning, Adam generously took me through current projects magneticNorth was currently working on and gathered the designers responsible for talking me through the brief, giving me the run down of where they are currently up to, what challenges they’ve come across and walking me through every stage of the process.
After, I was given my first task, a brief that magneticNorth was currently in the early stages off. The brief was in collaboration with the BBC, to create an accessible game for children.Children who have a number of debilitating and often restrictive disabilities such as motor and cognitive impairments. The rest of the day was spent reading up on the brief and become as familiar with it as possible. magneticNorth had already finished the main research phase of the brief. As this topic was new to me I wanted to understand as much as possible, to avoid a situation where It was impossible for me to get involved and bounce around ideas when the brief developed. I wanted to fully embrace myself in the brief, digesting existing research material not only from magneticNorth but research conducted by the BBC and other agencies that were involved and have an extensive understanding of the problem. The majority of the second day was again spent reading up on existing material and research.
The third day was a huge day filled with emotions of excitement and curiosity. The day was spent in a workshop with UX designers from the BBC and other companies involved with the accessible game project. The day was mapped out by the BBC, they dictated how the day would turn out, what we would be discussing and the group tasks we would be undertaking after the initial discussions. In preparation for the workshop, magneticNorth produced around 20 small conceptual ideas for a game. Each idea focused on a certain disability, whether it be cognitive, motor, or visual impairment. The morning was spent with magneticNorth running through their ideas which opened up a number of conversation around each idea, conversations such as how the idea could operate and if it’s a possibility. However, the goal wasn’t to immediately shoot down any idea but to understand the direction and possibilities the concept provided. How would each concept work in regard to aesthetics, functionality and mechanical structure. After the morning, we were put into small groups and were giving a task to pick one idea that magneticNorth presented and to flesh out the idea; to discuss how to concept could be visualised within wireframes, storyboards and user journey. We then presented our ideas to the others groups and then the day was over. This was by far the most interesting and unbelievable days at magneticNorth.
On Thursday, we waited for the BBC to update magneticNorth on which ideas they wanted to take forward and further develop, In the mean time I sat with a team who was currently working on the Manchester City brief, they gave me an overview of the brief and where they were up too. I spoke to the design strategists and UX designers, they all explained the importance of understanding the user by conducting user research, field testing and personas to gather a wide spectrum of Manchester City supporters. On Friday the BBC assigned two concepts to magneticNorth and another two to the other company involved with the project.
For the rest of the week and half of next week, I was solely involved with further fleshing out one of the ideas. I don’t know how much I can say about the idea around the game as I had to sign a Non-disclosure agreement but the concept involved a small fish who can eat other fish in the tank to eventually grow bigger. I spent my time storyboarding different scenarios and how the game can be adapted to fit all disabilities. By first looking at the mechanics of the game, so seeing how the game would work in a general sense. What would it look like and what the main objective of the game was. Then understanding the input methods and attempting to construct a one-switch game and bringing that one-button to then figure out how to adapt that for other disabilities, such as eye-tracking, audio only, speech and so on... While working on developing the idea I received regular feedback and constant discussions with designers, managers and developers to understand the realistic nature of the idea. The rest of the week was slow as the work got sent off back to the BBC, I spend the rest of the week looking into other parts of the UX process such as elevator pitches, user journeys.
In all my experience has been simply brilliant. Everyone at magneticNorth was so lovely and generous and made me feel very welcomed. Nearly everyone came up to me on the first day to introduce themselves which put my first-day nerves at ease. My experience has confirmed that I am indeed heading in the right direction, regarding MSc and my career goals beyond. I still find it fascinating that magneticNorth allowed me to be involved with the BBC project, and actually get involved with a workshop where I was interacting with accessibility designers from the BBC! Accessible design is an area that I’ve had an interest in for a while but never had the opportunity to act on these interests but my placement allowed me to dive straight into the deep end with accessible design, which I absolutely loved and felt a great deal of joy, fulfilment purpose.
On Thursday, we waited for the BBC to update magneticNorth on which ideas they wanted to take forward and further develop, In the mean time I sat with a team who was currently working on the Manchester City brief, they gave me an overview of the brief and where they were up too. I spoke to the design strategists and UX designers, they all explained the importance of understanding the user by conducting user research, field testing and personas to gather a wide spectrum of Manchester City supporters. On Friday the BBC assigned two concepts to magneticNorth and another two to the other company involved with the project.
For the rest of the week and half of next week, I was solely involved with further fleshing out one of the ideas. I don’t know how much I can say about the idea around the game as I had to sign a Non-disclosure agreement but the concept involved a small fish who can eat other fish in the tank to eventually grow bigger. I spent my time storyboarding different scenarios and how the game can be adapted to fit all disabilities. By first looking at the mechanics of the game, so seeing how the game would work in a general sense. What would it look like and what the main objective of the game was. Then understanding the input methods and attempting to construct a one-switch game and bringing that one-button to then figure out how to adapt that for other disabilities, such as eye-tracking, audio only, speech and so on... While working on developing the idea I received regular feedback and constant discussions with designers, managers and developers to understand the realistic nature of the idea. The rest of the week was slow as the work got sent off back to the BBC, I spend the rest of the week looking into other parts of the UX process such as elevator pitches, user journeys.
In all my experience has been simply brilliant. Everyone at magneticNorth was so lovely and generous and made me feel very welcomed. Nearly everyone came up to me on the first day to introduce themselves which put my first-day nerves at ease. My experience has confirmed that I am indeed heading in the right direction, regarding MSc and my career goals beyond. I still find it fascinating that magneticNorth allowed me to be involved with the BBC project, and actually get involved with a workshop where I was interacting with accessibility designers from the BBC! Accessible design is an area that I’ve had an interest in for a while but never had the opportunity to act on these interests but my placement allowed me to dive straight into the deep end with accessible design, which I absolutely loved and felt a great deal of joy, fulfilment purpose.
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