Conclusion: Elliot's Personal Conclusion

My 'management' role within the team developed from convenience rather than necessity. Any person within our team was capable of being the project manager, and as the manager I did not feel that I was the sole person keeping the team on track, the team made my job very easy. I mostly made sure everyone was aware of when and where meetings were and also made it my responsibility to check any team queries with Russell and/or the Supervisors. During meetings I found myself merely summarising the groups decisions/thoughts and at no point felt like I was the captain of a sinking boat. I liked the responsibility and would seek it again in the future.

I enjoyed working in the team. The use of the blog gave us an area to splash ideas down quickly, but in a formal environment. I believe it helped harbor and develop some of our strongest ideas and posting as a team meant that our ideas could spread and grow rapidly.

In terms of HCI, the project has opened up new avenues for development. I had never created a persona before, but I liked the experience. It gave me a chance to really get into the minds of the target audience, and I think, even if you have easy access to a large subset of your target audience, personas can still aid development.

I believe the product that we have designed is a fine one. It's charm is in it's simplicity. Although there are some weaknesses in the tool (see the main conclusion and the evaluations), I think the team has successfully designed a useful piece of technology for children.

If I were to do this project again, I would perhaps try and document our decisions in more detail, it's easy to assume that you have done when the group has discussed them thoroughly in the meetings. I would also of liked to have gotten access to a subset of the target audience, but due to the time constraints, this wasn't feasible.

I would just like to close by again stressing the real class of the team, the best I have ever worked with. We have, even with the other stresses during our final year, enthusiastically tackled the problem and have an excellent blog to demonstrate this. I'm personally astonished by the shear number and frequency of the posts on the blog, further showing the team's impeccable nature.