Kiwi Sketch

Pencil sketching was about practicing the process of sketching and seeing through repetition of sketches, as well as about learning about different pencil hardnesses.

I focused primarily on sketches of an orange. I primarily practiced replicating the shape with

accuracy and focuses less on the distribution of light. Citrus is particularly challenging because the thin membranes are very light and the large cellular structure contains most of the darker shades. As such, for my final sketch, I decided to start once again and use a kiwi. The bottom sketch is a close up of the area I boxed in the top one.

In this process, I learned a lot about emphasizing contrasts in shading to really pull your eyes

towards important details. I also started a lot of my final skech with a gray shade and then

darkened areas with the seeds and erased areas that needed to be lighter. This made the kiwi

significantly better than the oranges I had previously worked on.

DP3: Inciting Behavior Change with Pirates!

Martini and I just finished our final design project of the year. It was a project about behavior change using smartphones, and she was great fun to work with! If you want to jump straight to the concept, watch the video:

Treasure Hunt at the Grocery Store from Laura Martini on Vimeo.

We decided early on that we wanted to study people who considered themselves at risk for diabetes because we assumed they would be a highly-motivated group when it came to making positive lifestyle and behavior changes. After a few interviews, it became clear to us that unless an adult has a clear "trigger event" (i.e. getting diabetes or having a parent suffer significantly from the disease), he/she tends to do little to prevent the onset.

That said, we used our research to create concepts to be used at the grocery store because we felt that it was the only place where people really feel in control of their food choices. Some initial prototypes had to do with obtaining information on the "healthiness" of an individual at the point of purchase, giving away money to buy healthier foods, and daily goal-setting. Unfortunately, when taking our prototypes to the store for testing, we ran into several hurdles: people didn't want to carry a phone around with them as they shopped because they already had a cart, they were in a hurry to get out of the store, and they tend to buy the same things whenever they grocery shop.

We stepped back, tried to figure out what type of user wouldn't have all these constraints, and observed people in the store. That was when it hit us.... our user should be the kids of these people! They wander the stores aimlessly and are bored and are a great way to reach parents. So, we created a pirate treasure hunt iphone app for the store.