Minor Project [ Task 1, 2, and 3 ]
25.04.2025 - ..2025 week 1 - week 14
Sheryne Axellia Putri / 0367267 / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Minor Project
Task 1, 2, and 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Instructions
2. Feedback
3. Reflection
LECTURES
Week 2 02.05.2025_Introduction to Design Thinking
- Artist or Designer?
The key distinction between art and design lies in their fundamental purposes. Art is primarily aimed at provoking thought and evoking emotions in its audience, often encouraging personal interpretation. In contrast, design is centered on addressing specific problems and effectively communicating messages to its intended audience.
Art and design, while often intertwined, serve distinct purposes and employ different methods. While art focuses on personal expression and evokes emotions, design prioritizes functionality and user experience. Understanding these differences is essential for appreciating the unique contributions of each field.
- 2.2 Introduction into Design Thinking
Design Thinking, highlights three essential elements: Desirability, Feasibility, and Viability. Each of these components plays a crucial role in creating innovative solutions that not only meet user needs but are also practical and sustainable.
Desirability focuses on user experience and satisfaction, Feasibility assesses whether an idea can be implemented with available resources, and Viability ensures that a solution is financially sustainable in the long term. Together, these elements guide the design process towards effective and meaningful outcomes.
- 5 Stages of the Design Thinking Process by Anneza Sofia
1. Empathize
Understand the users and their needs through observation, engagement, and immersing yourself in their experiences.
2. Define
Clearly articulate the problem you want to solve based on the insights gathered during empathy.
3. Ideate
Brainstorm a wide range of creative ideas. Challenge assumptions and explore unconventional angles.
4. Prototype
Turn ideas into tangible solutions. Build scaled-down versions or models to test your concepts.
5. Test
Try out your prototypes with real users. Gather feedback and refine your solution.
- Three main phases of IDEO’s Design Thinking process
1. Inspiration
This phase is about understanding the problem and gathering insights. It involves observing, engaging, and empathizing with people to uncover unmet needs and challenges.
Key activities: field research, interviews, observations, empathy-building
2. Ideation
This is the creative phase where you generate, develop, and refine ideas. Teams brainstorm possible solutions, explore possibilities, and start building early prototypes.
Key activities: brainstorming, sketching, concept development, prototyping
3. Implementation
In this phase, you test and refine solutions, turning prototypes into real-world, impactful innovations. The goal is to bring the idea to life and launch it effectively.
- 2.3 Assumptions vs Empathy
What Is Empathy in UX Design?
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. In UX design, empathy refers to the designer’s capacity to see the world from the user’s perspective, recognize their emotional responses, and design with those feelings in mind. Rather than focusing solely on how a product functions, empathetic design considers how the user feelsthroughout their interaction with the product.
When a designer practices empathy, they move beyond technical specifications and usability guidelines to truly connect with the human experience.
Why Empathy Matters
1. Building Emotional Connections
Users aren’t just looking for functional products; they want experiences that resonate with their needs and improve their lives. When designers create with empathy, they can anticipate emotional reactions like frustration, delight, or confusion and tailor the experience to foster positive emotions.
2. Reducing Frustration and Pain Points
Empathy allows designers to identify and reduce user frustration before it even arises. When designers put themselves in the user’s shoes, they can anticipate pain points and streamline the user experience to prevent negative emotional responses.
Think about the frustration users feel when dealing with poorly designed interfaces.
3. Creating Inclusive and Accessible Designs
Empathy is key to designing for diverse and inclusive audiences. Users come from a variety of backgrounds, abilities, and experiences. By practicing empathy, designers are more likely to consider the unique challenges faced by people with disabilities, cognitive differences, or limited technological access.
4. Humanizing Technology
In an era where technology dominates much of our daily lives, there’s a growing desire for technology that feels human. Empathy helps humanize the digital experience by making it feel more natural, intuitive, and aligned with how we process emotions.
- 2.4 Empathy in Action
A.) Jane Chen created an easy-to-use incubator for developing countries by providing an affordable solution for keeping premature babies warm.
B.) A culturally accepted bindi infused with iodine to address micronutrient deficiency.
C.) The Human Connection to Patient Care by the Cleveland Clinic encouraging healthcare professionals to understand and share the feelings of their patients.
Week 3 09.05.2025_User Research in Design Thinking
- 3.1 Why Conduct User Research?
User Research → Understanding user behaviours, needs, and motivations through user research enables designers to create meaningful, user-centred solutions that enhance experiences, drive engagement, and address real-world challenges effectively.
User Interview → Engaging directly with users allows designers to move beyond assumptions, uncovering genuine pain points and desires. This could be achieved with informal or formal user interviews. The direct engagement with users is crucial for creating solutions that truly matter. Investing in user research isn't just about design excellence; it's a strategic business decision.
User Observation → Observing users is one way to truly understand how they interact with your product or service, as most times users can't explain the way they use your product
or service clearly.
Data Analysis → Identifying issues early in the design process can lead to significant time and cost savings, preventing costly revisions post-launch. User research encompasses a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods.
INSTRUCTIONS
Week 1 25.04.2025
We were required to do the weekly tasks in Mytimes, finish watching the lectures, answer the quizzes, and do a brief roleplay to prepare ourselves to ask our clients. After forming a group, consisting of me, Aisya, Alefiyah, Alya, Dea, Velicia, and Sahibur.
At first, I was confused about what we were going to do for this module. In week 1 of class, Mr. Mike explained that this module collaborates with other projects and that there is a list of projects we can choose from, both inside and outside of campus. I decided to join the Night School project from the Impacts Lab.
As we filled in our names on the Google Sheet for the project we wanted to choose, it turned out that some of us are on different schedules. We voted to have Friday classes for the minor project.
After creating a group chat on WhatsApp for easier communication, I decided to take on the role of group leader. In the first week, we had numerous questions about the project, so we created another Miro board to organize our thoughts and ideas.
- Contextual Research
The next week course of action is to create contextual research about the project you're helping and prepare some questions for an interview with the night school project coordinators and leaders.
It turns out that we all have different ideas about what this program entails. To address this, we conducted another contextual research so everyone could share their own understanding of the night school, including its vision and mission, target audience, and how we can provide assistance.
Week 3 09.05.2025
From the meeting with TNS coordinators, what we gathered from our contextual research and the meeting is that the relationship between the Night School Program and ALCs is mutually beneficial. Teachers gain knowledge, legitimacy, and emotional support, while the program gains on-the-ground credibility and a growing network of ALCs that can help scale its mission
- Recap from the interview:
In Malaysia, there is a significant issue concerning undocumented children who were born in the country but do not possess birth certificates. These children are unable to attend public schools and instead rely on alternative learning centers. Unfortunately, these centers often face limitations in resources, with some even having refugee teachers. As a result, many children aged 14 to 18 struggle with basic reading skills due to inadequate educational opportunities.
A significant challenge is the development of a website that can connect with more learning centers, particularly as they prepare to welcome new participants in phase four of their program. Many of these centers operate independently and lack a verified curriculum, making it crucial to raise awareness about the educational program among teachers.
The website's purpose will be to provide comprehensive information, including testimonials, pictures, and videos, making the initiative more accessible and engaging. There is a pressing need to gather feedback from teachers, learning center managers, and founders regarding their expectations from a night school project. Additionally, sponsors from the corporate sector need to be informed about the challenges faced by these night schools.
We concluded that
one of our key strategies is to improve outreach through rebranding and communication design, giving ALCs tools they can trust and share with funders or partners. And so we list some of our ideas to solve the problem they have:
- Our current goal is to expand the reach and capacity of ALCs (Alternative Learning Centers) by collaborating with Impact Lab Night School Program. The project will focus on supporting refugee and non-refugee learners, recruiting and training more teachers (especially refugees), and enhancing educational delivery through accessible technologies — even offline solutions where internet access is limited.
- Personas & Interviews
We continue to work on our personas, based on the target audiences:
- Prospective Teachers (Persona 1) Not yet trained, potentially fresh grads or community members.
- Current Teachers (Persona 2) Already working in ALCs, including refugee teachers.
- ALC Owners (Persona 3) Key decision-makers — they must directly benefit from this program.
We changed one persona focused for a benefactor, an individual with a philanthropic spirit or something akin to that.
- Prospective Teachers (Persona 1) Not yet trained, potentially fresh grads or community members.
- Philanthropist (Persona 2) Advocate for inclusive education.
- ALC Owners (Persona 3) Key decision-makers — they must directly benefit from this program.
#1
#2 Alefiya helped to make our personas more accurate and easy to read.
Week 5 23.05.2025
We had another interview with the night school coordinators, to have more clear direction about the goals and their needs from us.
Week 6 23.05.2025
We had an interview with one of the teachers in United Arakan Institute Malaysia, Aisya got his response that he agreed to have a meeting with us to know more about the education program and the needs/pains as a refugee teacher.
- Name: Abdul Syukur
- Role at UAIM: Head of Secondary Education & Assistant Managing Director
- Background: Former Night School trainee (2023, first batch)
- School: United Arakan Institute Malaysia, located in Puchong
- Education Levels: Offers both primary and secondary education
- Previously worked with UN as a translator; joined UAIM in 2023 due to accessibility and desire to serve community
- Helped implement Cambridge curriculum and formal lesson plan structure
- Describes UAIM as a now well-developed learning center with better systems.
Alefiya also did an interview directly to the alc owner in blessed learning center.
- Role: ALC Founder/Leader
- Location: Sunway Mentari Malaysia
- Established: The ALC was first established around 2009.
- Current Team:
- 17 full-time teachers.
- Additional part-time and volunteer teachers.
- Many of our teachers are former students who returned after completing their education.
- Teacher Qualifications: As long as someone has the heart to teach and speaks English well, we welcome them—especially at the lower levels. Educational qualifications are preferred for teaching higher levels.
- Teacher Training: We provide training for all our full-time and part-time paid teachers. Training is conducted by myself and a colleague who is Cambridge-qualified and supports us through the Night School project.
#3 Because we couldn't get a response from sponsors, or other alcs owners, but we managed to get contact with the head of communication of el-shaddai. Thus, became one of our personas.
- Name: Cassie Seow
- Role at UAIM: Head of Communications at El Shaddai
- Responsibilities: Internal/external communication, branding, marketing, fundraising
- Founded in 2008 (16+ years of operation)
- Operates multiple learning centers across Malaysia
- Serves refugees, asylum seekers, stateless and undocumented children
- Each sub-center has a head teacher and local leadership
- Ongoing mentoring, observations, and performance feedback from senior teachers and volunteers
- Acknowledged difficulty in classroom management, especially for young, inexperienced teachers
From those 3 interviews, we finalized our personas into/:
- ALC teacher
- Head of communication
- ALC Owner
Week 7 30.05.2025
Based on our research findings and the interview results, each of us will make five key themes and then choose one as our main insight and combine it into 5 insight statements.
Week 8 06.06.2025
- Moodboard
- Color Palette
- Logo - 1
Sahibur developed more variations for the logo we deicided not to use the owl as the main element.
- Business Card
- Final Proposal Presentation
Week 11 27.06.2025
We had few weeks left to finish our final design and presentation. Based on the feedbacks and questions we got from the TNS coordinators, it seems they prefer to have some of their elements from the old logo back, and the want a clear direction of why we choose the colors and shapes for our design.
Recap:
- logo
the night school clients requested to keep key elements from their original logo
our reason needs to be more precise on how we could fix and solve their problem - color justifications/psychology
(they need better explanation, is the color aligned with our solutions, in relation with what they're doing)
blue: trust
orange: growth
yellow: hope
Correlate how those colors of hope, trust, and growth could relate for educator refuges. So our logo could be seen as something to reach up on.
So our next step is to finalized the logo, website, instagram posts, booklet contents, business cards, and add brochure for our rebranding.
As you can see below, I filled and made a Gantt Chart for my group members divided tasks and see their progress.
Week 11 27.06.2025
Final Logo
- Logo - 2
We incorporated the owl element again, while dismissing the sun idea, focusing on the building and owl.
- Brochure
While working on the brochure, I noticed that our designs didn't quite fit with the chosen fonts and colors. So, we decided to change our color palette to create more contrast and to use Poppins for both the headings and body text.
Another issue we discovered is that our designs do not look consistent with each other, even though we already have a direction on how to use the graphic elements.
In order to avoid this issue, we decided to move our designs using figma, so I can manage and look into their designs making sure it looks consistent. I also made a visual direction explained in our miro board.
I exported my brochure into figma, in the same file with Alefiya's booklet.
- Final Presentation
- Final Website
- Final Sponsorship Booklet
- Submission Links
REFLECTION
This module has educated me a lot about managing and being rational. It was challenging to consolidate everyone’s design styles into a single approach, and I recognized that I need to be more direct. However, I'm pleased with the final outcome since everyone's grade depended on my efforts, and I didn't want to jeopardize it.
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