Feedback from the review:
[General]
+ lots of positive response to the recipe cards
[Donia Williams]
+think about how this could work with school farm initiatives
+could be a good teaching aid
+kids don't really get to spend that much time in their school farm
[Len]
+materials and use must be sustainable because sustainability (of food) is part of my concept
+blocks can be re-purposed as furniture after children are too old for game
+blocks can serve as reminder of food origins
+tell people why suburban ... this is my arena for change
[Mark]
+likes recipe cards
+kids can influence parents to buy healthier foods
+how can recipes expand? online resource? print your own?
[Robert]
+how can you initiate the conversation of the truth of where food comes from?
+who is the real user? are they the ones eating mcdonalds or already going to the farmers market?
+how can blocks be used later? - repurpose
+how do children care for these objects when not playing with as toy? stuffed animal-like?
+how can blocks fit together to be a metaphor for the whole system of nature? reflect how everything effects one another.
[Matthew]
+"smarten up" form of blocks
+they seem like too much material - can they all be one object?
+how can they be more compact for storage and packaging? fit inside one another?
[Kevin]
+can growing be part of this?
+can the meal puzzle be more 3D like the food pyramid?
+focus on child-parent relationship because this is how they will really start to learn
+how much can kids participate in cooking?
[Antoinette]
+how does this correlate to USDA food pyramid?
[Cho]
+can the recipe cards be the place mat?
+what is the reward for putting these pieces together?
+sees the problem, but wants to see the goals/outcome of my design
2 comments:
Leigh Ann,
Sorry I didn't get to come over to speak with you on the day of the mid review. It looks like you got some helpful comments from the crowd, including this from Robert: "how can blocks fit together to be a metaphor for the whole system of nature? reflect how everything effects one another." I think that may be a key question, along with the other comment that you should "smarten it up". I find your subject matter compelling and the approach sensible, but I think the user will only become engaged in the way you hope they will if they are intellectually stimulated during play. Other people seemed concerned about kids aging out the products quickly, and I think you have to consider that, too. Are you working to set up a new user trial with younger (3-5) year old kids? that seems like the appropriate next step, along to getting very specific about the materials that you will be specifying for the product's manufacture, and what kinds of promotional material, teachers' guide, or packaging would go with the project.
steven
hi steven,
I tested with a class of 4-5 year olds the week before mid-review. It was good to see how that age group interacted with the prototypes, even though i am designing for the home setting, not a classroom. The main thing i got out of that testing was seeing the importance of the kids being able to manipulate or arrange the elements in many ways. I also noticed that they wanted to play restaurant and other "role play" type of games with the food, which is why i decided to make the elements three dimensional instead of flat on the wall. after mid review, i realized the blocks are too big to store and also still are not interactive enough.
I was inspired by watching kids the school play with blocks because it kept their interest for so long. so i have now decided that my final design will be in the form of a floor puzzle. there are many pieces that can be arranged in infinite ways to create a "landscape" and then match foods to it....but it is much more compact and storable than the large blocks. you'll see more when we get back from break!
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