2. Reflection

REFLECTION

During last Tuesday's class, we had two primary activities: (1) Designed our own board game and (2) Discussed the ideas and our understanding of "Makers" in the books we read before class.

When we first were given the printed board game sheet, a game piece, and two dice, I was wondering how this would apply to "making". We were instructed to play with our neighbor by rolling the die (or dice) to see whose game piece would reach the end first. But after a few rounds of rolling, which we obediently executed, we were then instructed to make the game more interesting by adding a set of rules. It took a little while to break out of our "obedient" mentality but once we all got our games developed, it was pretty fun to try out our invention and to also play the games the other groups created.

It is interesting to see the consequences of the game decisions made by each group. Having just created a Geolocation Hunt Challenge (with QR codes) for about 30 people at our church picnic on Labor Day, I had a fresh understanding that the decisions we made to restrict the players in the game will also direct their behavior and attitude as well as the way they played the game. In the same way, although we did not have as much time to develop our board game further, the outcome we expected and the actual results of the game were slightly different. In our group, we expected that our game would end pretty well and pretty swiftly. In actuality, when we demonstrated the game to the others, each player was stuck returning to the start block multiple times without a way to quickly progress forward. This could easily frustrate players. In another group's game, I was stuck towards the end of the game, continually going back and forth within the last tail but never able to reach the end. However, in my experience, I felt more satisfaction than frustration in the latter game while I felt more frustration than satisfaction in the former game (my group's game) even though in both games I was stuck for quite a while at specific segments. I now realize that game-making requires so much UX design.

Our discussion last week was also very intriguing. The question that was posed to us was "what is making?" or "what is a maker?" My understanding from reading the book Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and Innovation by AnnMarie Thomas (as you can read from my book review blog last week) were that makers are self-identified with a set of qualities that includes learning and playing, curiosity and resourcefulness, taking risks and responsibilities, sharing ideas, etc. These makers make anything from woodworks to algorithms, Lego Mindstorms to squishy circuits, sewing to tape-figurine making and many more. Based on this, I believe that everyone is a maker (more on this later in my summary of this week's readings). And everyone can make anything. However, the other school of thought brought up in other books during our discussion was that "making" only encompassed hardware and technology such as welding, electronics, programming and others of that manly sort. Although I can see where they are coming from, I do not particularly agree with this idea. I believe that working on other kinds of work in addition to these manly activities will actually train one to "think outside the box". In other words, it can encourage innovation. When one works on sewing, drawing, music-making, crafts, even cooking, though seemingly feminine, actually engages one to be resourceful and curious in different ways. It may even expand their capacity in these areas, allowing one to think with an even more open mind than one that is constantly considering only one topic or area of interest.

READING SUMMARY

The Ted Talk by Dale Dougherty was very inspiring. The tagline caught me from the very beginning: Everyone is a maker. I whole-heartedly agree with that. I do believe within everyone, there is a desire to make and create things, even things that express themselves and their interests. It is just a matter of how much time and effort they put into making as well as how much they have given to develop the maker in them (either since childhood or during adulthood). We can also see this desire to create in the IKEA hackers that were interviewed in Rosner & Bean's (2009) paper and IKEAhacker.net. People are creating (or hacking) things mainly for their own personal and unique use like the kitchen made out of IKEA cabinets. People were also creating things to express their personal creativity like the GYNEA chair or the Sashimi car in Dougherty's Ted Talk. Additionally, as mentioned in Lindtner's paper on Emerging Site of HCI Innovation (2014), we see people creating things to sell them to the public via Kickstarter for the public's benefit. All in all, these readings lead me to the same conclusion, everyone is and can be a maker.

Furthermore, throughout the readings, the video, and through browsing IKEAhacker.net, I see the maker traits described in Making Makers constantly repeated and proven to be true. All these makers are curious, all these makers are resourceful, all these makers share their inventions and ideas. Even the ones that were in fear of idea copycats still posted their ideas and hacks to the hacker site in the end because they want to get their ideas out there and recognized (Rosner & Bean, 2009).

Lastly, I would like to bring up a question I have been frequently asked. Friends and family have been asking me how my classes have been going this past week and I always start by telling them about makerspaces. The next set of questions I am bombarded with is "What is that?" and "What does it have to do with your field of study (Information / HCI)?" I have to admit, I am still not entirely sure of the answer to this question. I know in my gut feeling that makerspaces is definitely related to HCI. But in what way? How does making contribute to user experience design? I know this was somewhat brought out in Lindtner's paper. But I have been considering how to put it in a way that someone outside our UMSI community can understand. The best I have come up with, and I have a feeling I will continue to discover the answer throughout the rest of the semester, is that human-computer interaction deals with improving a user's experience with anything they are interacting with (though specializing in, but not limited to, computers and technology). Because of the continuous need to improve the experience, there is also the need to continually be innovative in order to fit the ever-changing and -evolving needs of people as the ages and generations continue. In order to be innovative, we need to be these makers who are curious and resourceful to discover new (better) ways to do things, new (better) ways to solve problems, new (better) ways to satisfy people. We learn all these by doing and making and even enjoying what we are doing and making. That is my consideration. I would love to hear every one's thoughts on this question.