I’m in the middle of an intensive two week project: working in a team to redesign a library checkout desk and self-service kiosk. The end result will be a 3D model made out of cardboard that is to 1:1 scale.

Learning applied ergonomics is the point.

The other point is team-work.

Navigating personality conflicts, communicating well, and trying to understand everyone’s take on how to solve a problem.

I’m getting to know everyone in the team well. Everyone gives feedback on each other’s performance, participation, strengths and weaknesses. I’m pushing myself to learn from this — which we’re encouraged to do: it’s supposed to be a reflective learning experience.

Reflecting on the term, it’s been amazing. I’m pushed academically and personally. I’ve met fantastic new friends. I love UCL. I love London. At the same time, I’m a little restless for the future. But it’s heavily outweighed by just enjoying life at the moment. Happy.

(Not mentioning, definitely not mentioning various possible futures in short and long term: travelling to Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou, San Francisco, New York, PhD…)

Feels a bit foreboding, to be honest. It took me a while to fall into a pattern of productive working and now I’m optimally suited to self-directed work. Except that reading week is over. I can haz another week, pls?

I have a handle on my coursework papers and managed to do plenty of relevant reading. I’m bemused by Usability Evaluation Methods generally: it’s a very different approach to intuition and creativity that guided my designs at Reading University. It’s very scientific. Then again, I’m very absorbed by these ideas of, for example, the differences and misfits between user concepts and system features. I’m actually finding HCI very deeply compelling.

I’m also intrigued by think-aloud testing and the level of attention academics give to spoken narratives. It reminds me of analysing stream of consciousness style modernist texts: Beckett, Joyce, Woolf. Verbal protocol analysis and grounded theory are examples of this kind of close analysis. These ideas are both borrowed from psychology.

As well as being academic, it’s mucky. Talking to users is messy, and both verbal protocol analysis and grounded theory involve, first of all, gathering data and talking to real people. Second, you must roll around in that data and try to make sense of it.

Tomorrow is exciting as there will be presentations for each of the option modules for next term. I’m currently leaning on something to do with the emotional aspect of design and something to do with group-working systems.

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In other news: I’m amazed by this plug design. Mind-blowingly brilliant.

Last night I went to toast Laika, the first dog in space with the brilliant people at BERG. Old Street definitely has an interesting crowd and I’m glad I’m here, even if living in Shoreditch was pure chance. Apart from the occasional outing, I’m not really living the life of a stereotypical student and waking up in a pile of sick every day. I’m actually working quite hard. The pace of the course intensified in the last few weeks, which goes towards explaining the paucity of updates.

Next week is reading week. Translation: next week is a week of no lectures and no labs. Just catching up on papers and core texts. UCLIC places great emphasis on reading, and we have been instructed to learn how to read fast and to always have something on the go. I have two pieces of coursework to do for Physical Ergonomics and Usability Evaluation Methods, so I suspect my reading will focus on that. I’m also working on a project for Design Practice, which is going to focus on tempting commuters to modify their routines.

I’m enjoying the course. It is really making me think about design from the perspective of the user. I’ve been aware of user-centred design for a while, as it’s something I learned about as an undergraduate; but I think user-centred text design is a bit different from three-dimensional products, services, and systems. Physical ergonomics in particular forces you to focus on the user in detail, as the user has got to be able to comfortably turn a handle, push a door, and walk through the door frame. Not just a single user, but the widest possible range of users. You can’t really get deeper into user-centred design than anthropometry and ergonomics.

So, the study of people and physical things is changing the way I think about software. I’m learning tonnes! But I also have a growing awareness of: a) how much I don’t know; b) the pitfalls of academic tunnel-vision. I’m reminded of Jorge Cham’s graph (PhD Comics):

I’ve missed a week or two.

Apart from escalators, the course workload has been steadily increasing, and I’ve had to keep up with both that and my internship at Fjord. I’m learning (and reading) a lot.

I’ve had a mental list of things to blog about, but I haven’t got ’round to it. I am, of course, keeping up with Twitter, as 140 characters don’t require much commitment, and it’s perfect for the bite-sized snacks of procrastination between essay points.

If I had more time, and wasn’t merely procrastinating from working on my doors essay, I’d write a nice long post including the points below, crafted into beautiful paragraphs. As it stands, you have to make do with bullet points. I’m sorry.

• Did you know doors are responsible for 300,000 injuries per year in the US? I didn’t. They are everywhere in the built environment, yet given hardly any thought — not much attention is paid to them even in the human factors and ergonomics field.
• An ergonomist will argue that “walking is a series of controlled falls”.
• Field studies, task analysis, physical ergonomics, usability evaluation methods, and the vast number of methods surrounding human-computer interaction design. Some of the things I’m learning about. This perfectly complements the graphic communication background from Reading. I am swinging between being relieved and contented with my design background, and being deeply envious of the cognitive psychologists.
• I’m working on a design project with the paraphrased theme: design something to make someone want to take a walk. It is fun. Navigating group dynamics is less fun.
• I think I’m going to take the option modules Affective Interaction and Organisational Informatics next term. I’m quite looking forward to Applied Cognitive Science. In a masochistic way.
• I don’t know what I’m going to do my MSc thesis on. I really don’t know. I don’t want to get over-excited about a topic that isn’t feasible.
• … I’m kinda tempted to do a PhD. (Uh oh.)
• If I did, I’d want to do the PhD in the US. Maybe.
• I am getting ahead of myself, as usual. But I am really happy.

Apart from that, I love London, and I’m just overwhelmed by everything there is to do. I have no time to do any of it!