After the gallery walk, our group realized several things that we hadn’t taken into consideration about our oar clip designs. Through the feedback of our classmates, we realized that as much as we viewed our designs as simple and straightforward, some of them were not intuitive and seemed confusing to others.
pano of our gallery walk presentation (how cute are all the colors?)
I think we saw a lot of conflicting thoughts on our designs, as some mentioned the simplicity of the loops, while others were confused as to how they connected the oars. The feedback was especially helpful in thinking about the tradeoffs of each individual design. The loops, while simple, might not be best at keeping the oars attached to each other. The oar clips with snowboard bindings, while durable, could be cumbersome. And the wrap, while simple, may not be secure enough with just velcro.
I think a large fraction of confusion could be attributed to the fact that our posters were not entirely clear or well-organized. Not only did we forget to list our project goals, but we also wrote/drew every poster with just pencil, which made visibility and legibility difficult. We’ve definitely learned the importance of presentation in conveying ideas to others and will take this lesson to heart for the future.
Our greatest takeaway and conclusion was that none of our designs seemed just right; there was something off about each one, which made us rethink altogether to come up with something new. After more brainstorming and bouncing ideas off of one another, we came up with some ideas that were completely different, taking into account all the feedback and ideas put forth by our classmates. By interacting more with the oars, we figured that we’d have to account for the gap between the oars. We also wanted to focus more on stability, ease of putting on the clips, and effectively keeping the oars attached. The gallery walk was definitely helpful and eye-opening; our group learned a lot!