This week we presented our ideas for BUDDY to four mentors. We also provided information we gathered on the problem of shyness, the ways we believed it can affect kids in the classroom in terms of self-expression, and how we might help them have a more meaningful presence during lessons in class.
Afterwards we received a lot of helpful feedback. Some regarding the way we should vision our product with a unique and open-ended approach, and others about how dominant our solution should be in the student’s day to day.
The most prominent feedback was about how we should better categorize our problem and the group we are trying to help with our solution, as a way to both yield better results in a more specific area, and to broaden the appeal of our product to others.
We reached a conclusion that we should focus on the feeling of incapability among students in the classroom, preventing them from participating during lessons.
Later that week, we sat to discuss our vision for a day-to-day scenario in which a student uses BUDDY as part of his school and classroom experience. We wanted to point out the ways the student might struggle to participate or ask questions during normal class hours due to feelings on inability and how, using BUDDY’s sensory abilities it could communicate with him (and maybe the teacher also) to give him other ways to communicate.
We are looking forward to better visualize our product, at least in our mind over the next week in the best way that both provides help, and does it in a simple and sleek way.