MINOR PROJECT

MINOR PROJECT

23/08/21 - 03/12/21 (Week 1 - Week 15)

Chan Jing Wen (0340480)
Minor Project

---

LECTURE NOTES

Lecture 1 

Mr Mike briefed us on the module and introduced the projects for this semester. Some projects require us to work with collaborators from another school. One project required us to work with collaborators from other universities. This specific project has the same theme but there will be 3 groups working on it. The list of projects:

1. Healthify 

2. SUGOI

3. Extrash

4. Fertility

5. Tomorrow Burger

6. Food in the City (3 groups)

Hanan, Ivy, Kelly, and I formed a group during the first week and our topic is Food in The City. Mox and Zi Yi joined us during Week 3. 

Lecture 2 

We had a lecture on multi-disciplinary design, human-centric design, and empathy thinking. After the lecture, we started to research our topic in class. 

---

INSTRUCTIONS



Minor Project

Week 1 (23/08/21 - 29/08/21)

We had to form our groups after receiving the brief on Monday. I went to Food in The City but the group was not finalised yet. After some fidgeting, we finalised our members by Friday. Hanan, Ivy, Kelly and me formed a group. I was appointed as the group leader for this project.

Week 2 (30/08/21 - 05/09/21)

During Mondays' class time, we had to start our research in class after the lecture. Our groups' progression wasn't really good so we decided to split the research so it's easier for us to find research. We moved much faster afterwards as we had our direction. We uploaded our own research in our individual board on the groups' Miro board. We also did some interview questions based on our research scope.

Figure 1.1 Individual Research

We showed our research to Mr Mike during Fridays' class. Mr Mike told us to move on to our contextual research board which summarises all of our findings into one. 

Figure 1.2 Contextual Research

Week 3 (06/09/21 - 12/09/21)

We showed our contextual research to Mr Mike on Monday. Mr Mike helped us amend some parts of our contextual research. He told us to start doing our personas, interview questions, and so on.

Our team met up to do the interview questions together. We decided to split it into a demographic section, a section for experienced urban farmers, and a section for inexperienced, soon-to-be urban farmers. We also briefly discuss our personas. Each of us created 3 brief descriptions of the personas we thought would cover our target audience. 

Figure 1.3 Persona Ideation

On Fridays' class, Zi Yi and Mox were added to our group as their original group split due to some complications. We let them go through our contextual research and we expanded the descriptions of our chosen personas. We manage to finish it in class and showed Mr Mike the personas. After feedback received from Mr Mike, we managed to finalise our personas.

During the weekend, the 6 of us met to finalise the survey questions and did a pilot survey among ourselves by pretending to be our personas. 

Below are our personas:

Figure 1.4 Finalised Personas

Below are our survey questions:

Figure 1.5 Survey Questions and Rationale (Draft Ver)

Week 4 (13/09/21 - 19/09/21)

We showed our questions on Monday and Mr Mike helped us amend our questions. We also decided to do the Malay translation after consulting Mr Mike. 

Figure 1.6 Finalised Survey Form

As our group wasn't really fluent in Malay, we only got it done on Wednesday and we quickly send out our survey form.

By Friday, we only received around 10 responses. Mr Mike helped us to source for potential groups we can send to. He also asked us to draft a more proper and standard message to send to the groups.

Below are the messages we crafted (mainly done by Zi Yi, we modified it to fit specific group types):

Figure 1.7 Request Messages

I also created a google sheet for us to track the progression of the replies from the groups. 

Figure 1.8 Google Sheet to Track Contact

Although we tried approaching many groups, our responses were also coming in slow. A lot of the group admins did not respond to us. Some even blocked us from the group :') We only managed to hit around 30 on Sunday. We decided to gather the research findings first and add on the rest after we hit our target. 

Week 5 (20/09/21 - 26/09/21)

We managed to hit 40 on Monday morning. We quickly did the insight statement based on our findings to let Mr Mike check our progression. After receiving feedback, below are the finalised insight statements: 

1. People would like urban farming to be beginner-friendly and be supported with tutorials and tips, to begin with.
2. People would like it to be low maintenance by having a system that can help water, fertilize, and control electricity easily.
3. People venture into urban farming because they think it's a healthier option. 
4. People would encourage others to try urban farming by sharing their produce with one another. 
5. Container farming, followed by rooftop farming and hydroponic are the top three preferred types of urban farming.

We didn't stop receiving responses as we wanted to see if more would come in. We reached 50 responses around Wednesday. There wasn't much difference from the insight statements and findings we have compiled so we only made minor amendments to the research findings compilation. 

We worked on the presentation slides as we were told we would meet our University of West Bohemia collaborators on Friday. Below are the slides we presented on Friday: 

Figure 1.9 Proposal Slides

Our presentation took too long so we didn't manage to receive any feedback.

Eva and Katka from the University of West Bohemia joined our group as our product designers.

Week 6 (27/09/21 - 03/10/21)

We showed our customer journey map during class. There were a lot of parts which we missed so we decided to revise it again. 

Below is our customer journey map:

Figure 2.1 Customer Journey Map

We've also broken down the different types of touchpoints into 6 sections. I was in charge of social media, Zi Yi did the website, Mox did for the mobile app, Hanan did the traditional media, Ivy was in charge of the physical store, and Kelly brainstorm the delivery process.

Figure 2.2 Touchpoints

We revised our problem statement and "how might we?" too. 

We managed to do a bit more on the product research. We spoke to the WBU students and had some discussions regarding the product design. They shared their research concept and materials with us.

We met Ms April, a product designer, and she gave us more direction and advice to design our product.

Week 7 (04/10/21 - 10/10/21)

We manage to show all of our progression from the previous week on Mondays' class. We refined the feedback after class. As we have finalised the touchpoints, I created the Gantt chart for our group: 

Figure 2.3 Gantt Chart

A brief overlook of our workload distribution:

1. Branding - Jing Wen, Hanan
2. Promotional Material - Hanan, Jing Wen
3. Stationery, Merchandise - Hanan, Jing Wen
4. Packaging - Jing Wen
5. Social Media - Jing Wen, Ivy, Hanan
6. Physical Store Mock-Up - Ivy
7. SPATIAL - Ivy
8. Website - Zi Yi, Kelly
9. Mobile App - Mox
10. Product Design - Eva, Katka, Ondrej

To see the progression of each task, please head to the respective PICs' blog.

After distributing the workload, we all did some brand identity research for the touchpoints we're responsible for. 

During Fridays' class, a new groupmate, Ondrej, from WBU joined our group.

Week 8 (11/10/21 - 17/10/21)

This week was self-learning week. We discussed our brand name by compiling all our ideas in a document. Below are the brand names we came up with: 

1. U-Farm (urban farming shortened, anyone can farm at home using our product, even you) 
2. Plantopia (inspired by ‘zootopia’, plants in the city) 
3. Pot to Plate (plants that are farmed with our product can be consumed as food on the plate) 
4. Farm for Food (eat what you farm, farm what you eat) 
5. UrFarm (Urban + Farming, Ur can also mean “your”) 
6. EZ.Plants (E - eco, Z - zero pesticide, EZ- easy (to use) + dot (.) - seed + Plants -plants farm) 
7. Seed your plate (eat want you to cultivate) 
8. Letyourplategrow (you cultivate your own food)

We voted and decided for our brand name to be "EZ.Plants". I did some logo concepts after the name was finalised. 

Figure 2.4 Week 8 Logo Concept 1

Figure 2.5 Week 8 Logo Concept 2

Figure 2.6 Week 8 Logo Concept 3

Figure 2.7 Week 8 Logo Concept 4

For the product part, as our collaborators from WBU were busy with school and work, we didn't get to call but we discussed our progression through chat. 

Week 9 (18/10/21 - 24/10/21)

We showed our progression from Week 7 and 8 during Mondays' class. After receiving feedback, we decided to revise the logo concept. We also wanted to change our brand name as we felt like it wasn't what we wanted.

We brainstormed some new names for our brand. Below are our options:

1. Hidro - The Bahasa Melayu (Local Malaysian language) word for ‘hydro’ 
2. Planty - a wordplay on the word “plenty” 
3. ProGro - like “GoPro”, Professional Grower 
4. KangkungToday- Kangkung because its a staple here in Malaysia so it's relatable, Today because urban farming is easy and accessible 
5. Foodify - turn seeds into food 
6. Grower - “I’ll just chuck it in the Grower ™” 
7. Growseum - Growing Museum 
8. Greens - plants, greenery, green fingers 
9. Future - farming produces food for the consumers in their future, farming helps with consumer lifestyle (thus better future), urban farming is the future 
10. Root- like something has grown 
11. Greenroot - Plants, green, food 
12. Beroot- BE healthy + root (you grow your own food) 
13. The Green Hood - hood for the neighbourhood (usually means urban area), a neighbourhood with greens

We settled with the name "HIDRO".

With that, I worked on a new brand logo, colours, and typeface. Below are the new attempts:

Figure 2.8 Week 9 Logo Concept 1

Figure 2.9 Week 9 Logo Concept 2

Figure 3.1 Week 9 Logo Concept 3

All of us voted and we settled on option 2 for our logo. 

Figure 3.2 Week 9 Primary Colour Palette

Figure 3.3 Week 9 Secondary Colour Palette

Week 10 (25/10/21 - 31/10/21)

After consulting Mr Mike in our Monday class, we were a bit unsure if we wanted to change our logo, so we revoted again to double confirm. We ended up deciding to keep the logo since it's based on our preference. 

For the colour part, I revised it and came up with a new colour palette:

Figure 3.4 Week 10 Revised Primary Colour Palette

Figure 3.5 Week 10 Revised Secondary Colour Palette

Figure 3.5 Week 10 Revised Secondary Colour Palette (Shades of Green)

Figure 3.6 Week 10 Revised Tertiary Colour Palette

Figure 3.7 Finalised Art Direction

Week 11 (01/11/21 - 07/11/21)

This week I focused on seed packaging. I tried a few variations using the spinach seed packaging.

Below are my attempts: 

Figure 3.8 Seed Packaging Attempt 1

Figure 3.9 Seed Packaging Attempt 2

Figure 4.1 Seed Packaging Attempt 3

Figure 4.2 Seed Packaging Attempt 4

Figure 4.3 Seed Packaging Attempt 5

Week 12 (08/11/21 - 14/11/21)

After receiving the feedback from Mr Mike, we managed to finalise the design and started expanding to the other 8 seed packaging.

Figure 4.4 Seed Packaging - Chili

Figure 4.5 Seed Packaging - Ginger

Figure 4.6 Seed Packaging - Key Lime

Figure 4.7 Seed Packaging - Lemongrass

Figure 4.8 Seed Packaging - Onion

Figure 4.9 Seed Packaging - Pandan

Figure 5.1 Seed Packaging - Radish

Figure 5.2 Seed Packaging - Spinach

Figure 5.3 Seed Packaging - Cherry Tomato

Week 13 (15/11/21 - 21/11/21)

This week, our group had to speed up to finish the rest of our touchpoints. I did the social media postings and the newspaper.

Figure 5.4 Week 13 Social Media Progression

Disclaimer: The shelf rack post and where to find us (store) post is done by Ivy.

Figure 5.5 Week 13 Newspaper

Week 14 (22/11/21 - 28/11/21)

As we've gotten even more materials from the WBU students, we managed to get almost all our progression done this week. Below is my progression for this week:

Figure 5.6 Week 14 Newspaper (Final)

Figure 5.7 Revise on Product Introduction Post with Updated Product Image

Figure 5.8 Join Us Social Media Post

Figure 5.9 Product Packaging Attempt 1.1

Figure 6.1 Product Packaging Attempt 1.2

Figure 6.2 Product Packaging Attempt 1.3

Figure 6.3 Product Packaging Attempt 2.1

Figure 6.4 Product Packaging Attempt 2.2

Figure 6.5 Product Packaging Attempt 1.1 Mockup

Figure 6.6 Product Packaging Attempt 1.2 Mockup

Figure 6.7 Product Packaging Attempt 2.1 Mockup

Figure 6.8 Manual Cover

Figure 6.9 Manual Pg2

Figure 7.1 Manual Pg3

Figure 7.2 Manual Pg4

Figure 7.3 Manual Pg5

Figure 7.4 Manual Pg6

Figure 7.5 Manual Pg7

Figure 7.6 Manual Mockup

Week 15 (29/11/21 - 03/12/21)

We had a consultation with Mr Mike on Mondays' class and we managed to finalise all our branding and marketing designs (see final presentation slides). 

The final things that I worked on before doing the final presentation slides were the Instagram story highlight icons and Mobile App Badges (split among Hanan, Ivy, and me).

Figure 7.7 Instagram Story Highlight 

Figure 7.8 Mobile App Badges

Finally, below is our final presentation slides:

Figure 7.9 Final Presentation Slides (PDF)

---

FEEDBACK

Weekly feedback is recorded by Hanan. Here is the feedback from all lectures:

Figure 8.1 Feedback Google Docs (PDF)

---

REFLECTION

Week 1 (23/08/21)

I was a bit worried about doing Food in The City since it seemed like a lot to do and we won’t be discussing with the West Bohemian students until week 5 or 6. Our group was also relatively smaller than the other 2 Food in The City groups so I was worried our group would be overworked for the module. We also didn't have any New Media students so I was afraid we would lack in that area of input.

Week 2 (30/08/21)

We started doing research in class, which was a bit spontaneous so I felt a bit stressed out about it. However, we managed to split our research scope after some discussion so it definitely helped us to do our research as a group quicker. We also did some interview questions based on the research we found. After showing Mr Mike our progression on Friday, it seemed like we were on the right track so we worked on the contextual research board together.

Week 3 (06/09/21)

I was relieved that our contextual research is on the right track and it really helped us to organize information well and share the same knowledge and understanding among our team. We also created the survey form and included all of the questions we’ve brainstormed. We started brainstorming our personas too. Mokshanah and Zi Yi ended up joining our group on Friday, which definitely helped us progress even better. We managed to finalise our personas on the day itself and we also revised the survey questions and did our own testing before sending them out. Overall, this week was productive.

Week 4 (13/09/21)

This week, we decided to add Malay translations to our survey form. Our progression slowed down a bit due to us not being very proficient in Malay. We ended up only sending our forms on Thursday, thus not having many responses to show on Friday. After speaking to Mr Mike about it, he shared a few groups where we could try approaching to boost our responses. We also identified more groups that we could send our survey form. We quickly drafted a proper standard message so we could blast it out to those groups and send them all by the end of Friday. However, we still didn’t receive many responses and a lot of the group admins did not reply to our request to join and send our survey form. Things started getting better only on Sunday.

Week 5 (20/09/21)

We finally managed to hit 40 responses during Monday class time! We quickly reworked our problem statement and insight statements based on the newly added responses. We decided to let the responses continue coming in and we eventually hit 50 by the end of the week. We were told that we would be meeting our collaborators from West Bohemia University. Was a bit nervous to finally meet them after one month of preparation. We created a slide so we could update our findings and progression to our soon-to-be collaborators. We had a bit of a misunderstanding with one of the lecturers as we failed to clarify exactly what the lecturer said. This reminded me about the language barrier we have and that I should be more careful in the future when approaching our collaborators from West Bohemian University. We also managed to do our customer journey mapping, which was relatively new to us.

Week 6 (27/09/21)

After our consultation, we understood the customer journey map more and we managed to include more relevant details and utilise this planning better. We had to revise our How Might We statements before amending our customer journey map as they tie together. I think it’s very important that we plan properly as the planning stage definitely determines how smoothly our execution can be. We also researched some concepts for the product, materials for the product, and so on. We met our groupmates from WBU during the week to discuss it. It was an insightful chat as they had more knowledge than us on these topics. It was nice to hear from their point of view, whether what we imagine would be workable, and how well it will work. On Friday, we met Ms April, who is a product designer. Ms April also gave us a lot of insight into the things we were working on. It was exciting to hear from someone working in the industry.

Week 7 (04/10/21)

We managed to finalise our customer journey map by this week. I created the Gantt chart based on the touchpoints. We managed to distribute the task among ourselves by the end of the week. Although I really dislike how Gantt charts are time-consuming to create, I really do think it’s useful because it clearly states whatever we need to do for the project. It does seem a lot though, so I’m also quite concerned if we can manage to finish it all. On Friday, we were introduced to another member from WBU that would be joining our group.

Week 8 (11/10/21)

Self-learning week

Week 9 (18/10/21)

Honestly, our progression was a bit slow. I think I miscalculated the amount of time needed for each task. We took quite a while to decide on the brand name. I guess that’s the cons of having a very big group. However, I still managed to do some logo concepts by the end of last week. In the middle of the week, we decided that our brand name was not working for us, so we had to speed up a bit and decide on our brand name asap as it affects every other collateral. We managed to finish that near the end of the week and I’ve also managed to do the logos before next weeks’ class. For the product side, we kept wanting to meet with our WBU group mates but our timings didn’t really match. They were caught up with other classes or work so we only communicated through WhatsApp. I think it’s quite important for us to actually meet up because talking face to face and chatting through phone is very different. There might be a lot of miscommunications. However, our WBU groupmates created a lot of sketches and explorations for the product. Some of the “sketches” were even 3D modelling, which was quite impressive as we weren’t expecting to see 3D modellings this fast.

Week 10 (25/10/21)

We managed to show quite a lot of progression in class. We almost wanted to change the logo again, but after a week of attempts and revolting, we finally finalised it by the end of the week. I was relieved that we could finally finalise the logo and branding as that meant we could start designing our materials. I wasn’t expecting this part to take so long. Our WBU group mates were also starting to be a bit inactive and a lot of our progress was pending since we couldn’t get the files from them. I was quite worried but I guess I need to try better in communicating with them.

Week 11 (01/11/21)

I worked on the seed packaging this week. It was a bit hard at the beginning because I felt like my designs didn’t fit our art direction. After many attempts as well as consulting my group mates, we managed to settle with one design. Other than that, I personally didn’t progress much during this week for the module as 3 of my other modules had deadlines to meet. I feel a bit sorry for my group mates but I’ll definitely work harder once all my other submissions are done.

Week 12 (08/11/21)

I only managed to work on the rest of the seed packaging this week because the research part on the plant details was really time-consuming. I also notice that the WBU group mates are quite unaligned as Katka and Ondrej have different standpoints from Eva. During the updates, depending on who is the one speaking, the product description can be quite different. We tried to help them stay aligned by discussing it openly in the group chat, but I think it only helped a little. I’m not sure if I’m just over-concerned, but it seemed like when Katka and Ondrej were present in class, Eva wouldn’t, and vice versa. We keep them updated on the feedback and they also say they meet up in school to discuss, so I’m not too sure what’s the problem.

Week 13 (15/11/21)

This week we were told to speed up, so I reworked a new time frame for everyone because I find that some of the issues we had in the past have been delaying our progression and I as the team leader did not manage to replan and control it well. With the new timeline, I feel that we were also speeding up, or it might just be the pressure of Week 13. I think it’s very important for the group leader to regulate the progression very tightly. The planning stage was also not well thought out as a lot of the issues were caused by me not being able to consider if the task can really be done by the deadline. I managed to do all of the social media posts under me that can be done and some of the promotional material. I’m a bit apologetic to my group, but I’m thankful that most of them are working as fast as possible and are responsible for their tasks.

Week 14 (22/11/21)

Our team really managed to finish all of our parts (except the mobile app) within the week. I’m very proud of my group mates for doing so much for the project. Looking back, I feel like our group has gone a bit in-depth with our materials. We really did a lot of research before creating the materials, putting a lot of effort to make sure that the things we create actually make sense. Sometimes in the past, I might also just think “it’s just an assignment, maybe I don’t have to go too much in-depth to check the accuracy”, but props to my team who have been going all out to create all of our materials. I’m excited to work on the final slides to see the compilation of all our work.

Week 15 (29/11/21)

This week was very hectic because I had two presentations and an exam coming up. We managed to finish our slides by Wednesday, once we got the final renders and file from the WBU students. It was very nerve-wracking as I was concerned if we could even finish it on time. I’m even more concerned about the mobile app because I’m afraid that the incompletion will affect all of my groupmates, which I hope is not like all of them have put a lot of effort into this module. I’m reflecting on what I could have done better as a group leader to make sure it was done by the deadline. I think I should have been even more proactive to ask for progression updates and for the XD file, but I didn’t want to be that pushy. Although we have this major issue, I hope my group mates can perform well during the presentation as I will not be able to attend that due to my exam for another module.

Overall Reflection: 

These 15 weeks have been quite a journey for me. I was quite hesitant to take up the leadership role as it meant I had to oversee a lot of things and make sure all of my groupmates are working well and communicating with each other. I think there are still many things that I didn't do good enough, such as how I handled all of the delays of the groups. However, I'm really thankful to my group mates as they have been very helpful and proactive. Overall, I was happy to see how much we grow through this module. It was very exciting how I can apply my graphic design knowledge to the project while seeing my peers from other specialisation work on their part. I think this module has helped me understand what other specialisations are doing and how the different specialisations can work together. I am also very thankful to Mr Mike for giving us a lot of guidance and advice throughout the semester. Although our group has done quite a lot of work, I hope that everyone has a sense of fulfilment for their hard work and team spirit, and I hope everyone gets some rest.