Skip to main content

Research Essay



A major assessment component for the Design, Development and Creativity module was conducting a research essay which involved working individually or in pairs.

Myself and my partner, Beth conducted our research essay on updating a digital product, the UCD student portal through the introduction of a digital collaboration tool as a core offering for all students studying at the University.

This essay involved conducting both primary and secondary research. In terms of primary research, we conducted a questionnaire, interviews and observational research to understand how students currently interact with the UCD student portal and how it can be improved.

Once we understood the problems associated with blackboard and how it could be updated by making it a more engaging site, we conducted secondary research, studying existing literature and case studies on the topics of collaboration and utilising collaborative tools.

Upon decision on the update required, a usability, requirements analysis and feasibility study were conduct to understand the scope involved in embedding such a tool.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iona Technologies

·        Iona was founded in 1991 by Chris Horn, Sean Baker and Anrai O’Toole ·        The company progressed from a Trinity campus company, releasing Orbix in 1992 and going public in NASDAQ in 1997 ·        Trinity College Distributed Systems Group (DSG) was a small group of academics and engineers conducting research and development into the problem of inter-network computing systems, essentially connecting systems which were developed as independent systems to work and communicate with one another ·        Their research was initially supported by Trinity and then the EU ·        They took a brave leap from academic to the commercial world due to the attractive opportunity of industries like banking and telecommunications embracing networks and internets ·        Iona found that their c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 2 Design thinking - Build the right thing

This week focused around building the thing right as opposed to building the right thing. Great design has always been concerned with the whole experience of interaction. One of the most interesting topics emerging from the class was prompted by a quote from Alan Cooper. It prompted discussion around what do you get when you cross a computer with a camera? A phone? A plane? With a car? A ship? You get a bigger computer.   The products we use on a daily basis are becoming ever more like software. Allen stressed that we need to develop an annoyance and radar for bad design and an appreciation for superior design. He showed us a variety of good and bad design examples and showed examples of how users will highlight the problems in your products or else they will leave marks e.g. a sign telling the user how to interact correctly with a product / service During the lecture, we also watched a video "Inside IDEO" which followed the IDEO design team revolutionizing the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Designing a Robot

In week 9, we worked in small groups to create a robot using an instruction manual and upon creating our robot, we were tasked with creating a "run" function so that our robot could drive around and "guard a base." (for the purpose of the class, the base was a large white box) This exercise was great fun, but at times stressful as we were required to create our robot within a short time constraint. To create our robot within the allotted time, my group divided the tasks amongst us. One individual called out the required materials needed and where they were to be placed, one found the necessary materials and two individuals put the robot together. As requested by our lecturer, we switched roles frequently so that each member got experience working on each of the tasks required. Dividing the roles out amongst ourselves enabled us to create our robot more quickly than if we had completed each of the tasks together as a group.
Post a Comment
Read more