Lessons Learned

Focus! It was our primary goal to create one product that could address a multiplicity of teen-related issues. While this was exciting to talk about, we soon realized that each issue was significantly different enough and needed to be treated somewhat independently of each other – there was no one turnkey solution. Our next thought was to build out many issues so that users could see how versatile our product could be….eventually we understood that just one subject would be complex enough to take up all of our time. It was hard for us to settle on a particular topic but in the end we are very glad that we were talked into narrowing our scope.

Horizontal vs. Vertical design: Additionally the Stick With It! process has many pieces. We were often conflicted with our desire to convey, at least an understanding, of the entire process versus building one particular piece, for instance programming a cell phone to a web server. In the end we decided to design the whole process, cutting corners when we could. We think this made for a much richer design experience for us; it also allowed us to convey the entire experience to our users and they were impressed with the depth of content and functionality (or at least functional wizardry…)

Technology: We also learned a lot about technology; while it is getting easier to combine technologies it is by no means seamless. For instance, we were able to incorporate the blogging technology into our site, but users would still have to go to the blogger.com site to post their reflections. Also, programming phones to the Web is no easy task… which is why we chose to focus our efforts in other areas.

Show your strengths: Although we initially decided not to program the phone, in the end we realized that it was crucial to the user experience to at least demo how the phone interaction would work. We found an online company that enacts outbound calling campaigns. We rigged up a system so that it would be calling several cell phones throughout the day of the LDT Master’s Project Expo and leaving various Stick With It messages for our different user scenarios. Although there were several bugs in that process, the users that were able to try out the phone loved it. Through this, we realized how important it is to convey the key features, even if you have to glue everything together to make it look like it works.

Safety concerns: In future iterations, we would consider safety issues more deeply, especially as they relate to the cell phone and the blogging technology. Because the site is for teens dealing with risky behaviors, we both feel strongly about maintaining anonymity and utmost safety.

Process: Up until the very end, it worked very well for us to share all of the work. As crunch time came, however, we learned how important it was to split up tasks and check in on major decisions. We also realized that, while informant and participatory design is ideal, it is difficult to maintain. It takes discipline to continuously bring design ideas to your informants when it’s often easier just to continue designing in relative isolation.