‘Tech for Good’

MA DCS 7AAVDC29 practical digital research and design project

1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Your primary seminar task between weeks 3-8 of Semester 2’s core DCS module (7AAVDC29) is devoted to group work (4-5 students per group). During the seminars and in homework sessions you will be researching and developing a concept and business idea for an app or other digital product that is beneficial for society or culture. You should imagine that the app is being developed for a start-up, a government service, a cultural institution, an NGO/charity or an existing company. In Week 8 your group will present your app concept in a short pitch (with slides/mock up prototype) to an investor (your billionaire seminar tutor).

This exercise is intended to help you develop your research skills, business thinking and presentation skills for professional life.

The presentation of your group’s project is not part of your assessed grade for the module. However, this practical project is linked to a summative assignment that you will submit in week 9 of the module and which counts for 20% of the overall grade. This is described in section 7 below and in more detail in the Assessments section on KEATs.

2. TIMELINE:

Week 3: At the end of this seminar, the seminar leader introduces the project exercise, answers questions, and assigns groups.

Week 4: You have group homework. Discuss different ideas for a project and come up with 2-3 possible concepts, which one person will email to your seminar tutor. The seminar leader will review your ideas and suggest the strongest one for your group to start developing.

Week 5 seminars (double seminar – 2h). You will discuss the lecture and core readings as normal, and afterwards will work on your project concept with your group members. Your group will already know which idea you will begin researching and developing (based on oral/email feedback you will receive from your tutor). You should conduct practical research together during the seminar. After this, you can assign specific roles for responsibility (see page 5 about roles). At the end of this longer seminar, each group will briefly introduce their research design.

Week 6: (Reading Week): Time to execute your research design! Take your own observations using the app, link them to reflections from academic literature, study facts and figures about the area of your app. We would encourage you to plan interviews with potential users and/or a survey. Also study the market for which your app will be developed, and look at competitors, and investigate the existing technologies that will make your app work. Groups should meet during reading week to develop their research together and to discuss findings.

Week 7 seminar and homework: Most of this seminar will be dedicated to the finalisation of your presentation, prototypes and mock-ups. Your tutor will check on your progress in the seminar, answer any questions you have, and give feedback on your ideas.

Week 8 seminar - 2 hours long. This gives us time to discuss the lecture and core readings as normal, followed by the group project presentations - each group will have 8 minutes (maximum!) to present their app. Each group will also have 5 minutes to answer questions from the potential ‘investor’ and the audience.

Top projects (date TBC): The groups with the top scoring projects in each seminar will have the opportunity to present their concepts again in a whole class showcase event that will be scheduled after the Spring break. This will be our final whole class event and groups will get feedback from the module conveners and other teaching staff. An overall class project winner will also be announced at this session.

3. DETAILS OF YOUR TASK:

Your team’s task is to research and design the concept of your app through undertaking the following steps/activities:

- Explore the issue or problem that your product is trying to address through online research: What information/statistics are available, and can you find (current discussions/debates) that show the potential value of your product/service?

- Identification of real and currently existing digital technology that your app can be based on. What ideas can you get from existing apps or platforms?

- Research on the target group: Who is likely to use your product? Is it one target group only or two or three? How big are the target groups, are they big enough to make a viable market?

- Research on the market situation: Is there a gap in the market for your product/service? What is your target group using now? Who are your main competitors? What is your comparative advantage or unique ‘selling point’?

- Development of a business plan: how will your service/product be financially viable and sustainable? Will it be subscription based? Or advertising based? Will it be funded by a non-profit organisation? Or is it linked to a transaction or shop? How will you keep this thing going?

- Imagine undertaking the walk-through method for two/three real or potential users from your target group: thinking through potential user experiences of different types of (typical) users from your target group.

- Develop an understanding of the ethical challenges the technology could face including worst case scenarios = #epicfail;

-  Develop the design – a logo and a mock-up of a prototype showing the most important screen (landing screen/home screen, for example) and features.

-  Going public: outline the marketing strategy you will use to introduce the new digital service/product to your target group. How do you reach your users?

- Think about the academic literature that we have been reading through the core module, both this semester and last semester. What insights/needs/concerns have informed your approach to app design? (You will not need to talk about the academic literature in your group presentation, but you will need to write about this in the assignment that is linked to project).

4. THE PRESENTATION (PITCHED FOR A POTENTIAL INVESTOR):

Max 8 minutes. lively and informative in tone, creative, making good use of visual elements, and delivered to time.

Tip: The slides should not be the notes that you are reading out loud. Avoid too much text on a slide – images are more engaging! You want people to listen to you, not to read the slides, which should contain only the most important information.

You presentation should:

A) Start with delivering a very brief idea of the digital product and service, what it does and why it is beneficial for society.

B) Show the research methods you conducted to understand the target group and product. This includes statistics, interviews, observations, survey data.

C) Research competitors as well as the target group.

D) Explain real and existing technologies that will make your product/service work

E) Mock-up of the prototype or design

F) Walkthrough description of at least one different use case (potential user experience) from your target group

F) Identify the biggest ethical risk, give an example and discuss how you would reduce/remove that risk

G) Explain briefly the planned communication and marketing campaign

The presentations will be judged by the seminar tutor (and other groups). Projects will be judged on the following criteria:

Best researched
Most innovative or imaginative

Most beneficial for society
Most realistic and financially viable
Best marketing campaign

This judging is not related to the assessed component of the project, which has different criteria (see the assessments section on KEATs). The purpose of the seminar judging is to identify one ‘winning’ group per seminar. Each of those groups will then be showcased in front of the whole course in a separate project finalists workshop that we will hold after the Spring Break as a final course event. Again, this finalists workshop is not related to the separate project assessment.

5. TEAMWORK AND INDIVIDUAL ROLES

In the seminar presentations you will be judged as a team, and you should develop your project together. Although each member will have different roles, we expect everyone to contribute to the research on the target user group, market and technology.

For the creation of the presentation, each team member can take on a dedicated role to research a specific aspect of your concept. These are some roles you may wish to have assigned to individual group members (you could adapt or combine some of these depending on the size of your group):

Chief Business Officer prepares the presentation of the business plan, which could focus on subscriptions, advertising, receiving government support or funding, or by developing a service a bigger company needs.

Chief User Research Officer prepares the presentation of the research into the target groups, usage of the product, and statistics and numbers; prepares the imagined walkthrough method on two different users typical for target groups (fictional or real persons).

Chief Design Officer prepares the mock-up of the prototype app.

Chief Technology & Ethics Officer prepares the presentation of the key technologies or data sets that your product will be based on, explains how the technology functions and looks into the ethical issues relevant for that technology. Develops a plan for ethical standards important for the product.

Chief Marketing Researcher presents communication strategy and marketing campaign knowledge gained.

6. THE SKILLS YOU WILL DEVELOP

This practical research/design project will encourage you to apply your understanding of issues and theories in the field of digital culture (from the course readings, lectures etc.) to a real world challenge.  This process will help you develop the following cognitive skills essential for working in different digital environments and sectors:

A) Analysis

-       Challenging, interpreting and exploring different views and perspectives

-       Crossing theoretical and practical boundaries

-       Working with incomplete pictures

-       Thinking creatively

B)  Problem solving

-       Identifying problems and developing hypotheses

-       Breaking down structures and identifying components

-       Testing problems and applying processes

-       Understanding context and applying solutions

-       Making decisions based on different factors

-       Managing complexity and ambiguity

C)  Planning, team organisation & communication

-       Planning and identifying sources of information and data

-       Reviewing, synthesising and integrating information and data

-       Team organisation and roles

-       Involving others and including others' contributions

-       Visualization and presentation

7. ASSESSMENT LINKED TO THE RESEARCH PROJECT

In week 9, each student will submit one document that includes an individual 500 word reflection on their contribution to the group project, and a link to a Sharepoint upload of their group’s presentation slides. This will be worth 20% of the grade for this module. Please see the assignment document in the Assessments section of KEATs for details of what this should include and the specific criteria that will be used for marking.