Superviser meeting Week 8 notes

Today I met with Simone for our weekly meeting, where I showed her my draft dissertation plan and we briefly discussed the topic of flow and the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.   I am in the process of writing a blog post on flow based on some of Csikszentmihalyi's work so that will lend more context to the conversation! 

Much of Csikszentmihalyi's writings centres around states of flow and attention while using technology, which ties in with the other topic which was the question of using technology to communicate a subject that is typically associated with the opposite technology.   Simone suggested looking at a TED Talk by Sherry Turkle which I will write about later today.   We also discussed what ways I could create stickiness in the app  - Simone suggested using something like a link to a meditation playlist on Spotify.  The how-to sections of the app would be the primary points of stickiness which would get users to keep coming back to the app.  

One of the things I brought up in my presentation was how I would make the icons, especially on the splash screen of the app, look so that their function was immediately apparent.  Simone said that she felt a good way around that would be to use modal windows, as I showed in the presentation, which the user could tap on and see what counter linked to what section of the app.

Draft dissertation structure

Contents Table

Abstract

Introduction

Contextual Review:

Theoreticals

• Semiotic Theory
• Gestalt Theory
• Flow 
• Technology relationships (Sherry Turkle etc)

Content

• Mindfulness and associated visuals
• Designing for the target audience
• How to create a state of stickiness in using the app

Design

• Relationships between illustration and typography
• The visual system and learning
• Print/screen relationships
• Aesthetic themes of the artwork in the app

Methodology

• Practice based research
• Case studies
• Survey - what & questions

Results

Results of the survey, what do they mean 

Style guide

Outcomes 

• Web prototypes
• Print posters

Analysis of evaluation

• What went well, what didn't

Conclusions

• Results
• Further discussion
• Further reading

References

Any necessary appendices

I plan to at least have much of the methodology section of the dissertation drafted by next week in order to get feedback, and hopefully have made a good crack at the literature review too (although that remains to be seen).