Research For/By Design Part 5

Final Reflection

Looking back on the entire process of this project from start to finish, it has definitely been an interesting ride. Having to complete a group project virtually was a struggle within itself, but I think that my group members and I did such an amazing job tackling all of the obstacles. We all come from very different backgrounds, so it was interesting to see how we were able to combine and mesh all of our ideas and talents together to get our end product.

Some of the feedback that we received during our final presentation was mainly focused on one of the features of our MTA app; the crime section. When we were initially thinking about adding this feature, the goal was to provide the public with a sense of security when it came to safety and riding on the subway. But when presented, we were told that it could possibly add fear into the public rather than reassurance, which is something that is extremely important, and we could definitely see how it would turn out that way. The way that we have it set up right now is that there is a discussion board for users to post about things that they’ve seen, and also a map where users can report an incident, and others can see where it has taken place. But being in a place like NYC, and having a large number of people using the app, the map would be overfilled with red dots all over, and I can see how that would quickly become an issue. I think that in order to combat that problem, we would need to find a way to present the information in the app, in a way that would actually be useful rather than making it seem like there’s nothing but incident after incident.

Overall, I think that my group was able to come up with a final product that we could see actually being implemented in real life, which was one of our initial goals when we first started this project. We worked really hard to research, brainstorm, and execute our ideas, and as a group, we were able to set out and achieve the other goals that we set for ourselves.