Brainstorming

This week's assignment was to choose the target audience and go interview potential users.

Each couple chose a different target audience-

The Elderly- Noam and Aviv chose to interview elderly people.

The first interviewee is Aviv's grandmother. She's a technophob and won't agree to use any kind of technology. Her family bought her an iPhone, but yet she still doesn't use it. The only thing she does with is is answer calls, she's not even calling anyone by herself. She won't let anyone to teach her, she finds it insulting. When Aviv asked her if she would like to book appoitments, order medicines, buy things and write phone numbers through her mobile phone (all of the above were given by her as an example of her day-to-day life), she refused. She doesn't want a technological solution. The grandmother said "I really don't want to be involved in this whole internet world, I like to really go to places, phisically. I don't count on the internet, I don't trust it. You need to understand, all my life I did things by myself, I can't suddenly trust something like that internet of yours... How do I know that things are really happening if I'm not there? I like seeing things in my own eyes". Obviously, the inernet is a code name in her eyes to anything that is technological. Aviv tried to give her examples for things that the internet can help her with on daily basis, but she said that even if it's as simple as pressing one button she still won't do it.

The second interviewee was Noam's mother, who is 63 years old. Noam's Mother is doing pretty well with technology in general, but during their conversation she said the following comments:

-When she uses Youtube she hates the ads before the videos (she didn't know there's a 'skip ad' option because it's too small).

-She doesn't find the search field in Youtube.

-She doesn't know how to pause the song so she just closes the app.

In general, she says when she gets stuck and she doesn't know something specific she just gets out of the app. She says that whenever there's an update to a certain app she needs to learn it from the beginning and that's frustrating and confusing for her.

She doesn't know basic keyboard shortcuts (for example if there's no 'print' option on the page she wants to print she won't know she can do ctrl+p). In addition to that she's cluless about technical issues-if the internet gets disconnected she would just leave it aside.

She does know how to use Facebook, but on a very basic level-uploading a photo or sharing a Youtube link would be too much for her.

She doesn't understand the graphical language of several websites and apps. For example when she lookes at Youtube she didn't understand what the arrow that means back stands for, she asked why isn't it written in words.

The third interviewee is Noam's father, who is 65 years old and doesn't get along with technology at all. When Noam asked him which apps does he use on daily basis, he answered "SMS and outgoing calls". He told Noam that he was afraid to give up his iPhone 4 and get the iPhone 6 because it took him so long to learn how to use the old iPhone so learning how to use a new one would be too hard for him. "I had a simple Nokia phone and it took me several years to switch it to something more advanced that allows me to do more things. When I had the iPhone 4 I didn't want to learn how to use the iPhone 6, it was too technological for me. I know I'm missing out and preventing from myself the option to enjoy the technology and innovation but yet I can get by with what I already have and it gives me what I need. I don't challenge myself to understand everything that the internet or the iPhone can give". He has a website that was created by his daughter who used to work with him, but ever since they're not working together the website just stays the same and there are no updates because he doesn't know how to handle it. It bothers him that he can't use the internet to promot his business but he rather stay in his confort zone because it requiers too much effort from him. His 2 favorite apps are the bank app because it looks just like the internet website, and the radio app because he has a list of stations to choose from so with just 1 click he can get what he want. It's easier for him to send SMS and not Whatsapp because sometimes when he uses Whatsapp he texts the wrong people.

He would like to know how to play games with the iPhone and to enjoy it and how to use the e-mail.

He's having difficulties to use the printer and certain functions of the keyboars (such as '@', he doesn't know how to do it).

He claims that the computer and the iPhone aren't friendly because it requiers from him to remember stuff.

He said that in his opinion the only solution would be 1 on 1 lessons with a teacher that will show him exactly what to do in every situation.

The fourth interviewee is Lior, a 3rd year psycology student from IDC who used to volunteer in a program that teaches the elderly.

Lior said that when they tried to teach it was difficult because most of the elderly people would just go straight to what they know and they didn't really want to learn new things. She also said that the program had meetings only once a week so by the time they would've learnt, they would forget it all.

They had problems with basic things such as using the mouse, both beacuse they didn't understand the concept and because some of them suffered from shaking. In Lior's opinion, a touch-pad is easier for them. Anothe problem was that typing takes them so long, so idially- speech-to-text technology would be perfect for them, but it needs to be improved, the way it is right now isn't good enough. Lior gave an example about the woman she was teaching-she knew how to log in into Skype, but if there was a connection problem or the internet didn't work, she had no idea what to check.

Lior said "The main problem was that she [the woman Lior was assigned to] didn't really want to sit in from of the computer and lean, she got tierd very quickly. I tried to teach her how to use Youtube but she didn't understand the concept of the search bar and then picking a video and hitting play, so I did it for her and then she didn't understand it. In the end she always went back to doing other things such as drinking tea or reading a book. Although the whole point was teaching her how to use the computer, maybe it needed to be done in a more social way".

The Blind-

Erez and Michal chose to interview Hadar, a 3rd year psycology student who volunteers for over 2 years with a blind student and helps her during finals.

Hadar said that because no one taught her how to teach a blind person, she found her own ways. "The learning process need to be 'presentation of information', because the blind can't see words at all, their understaing needs to be based on stories that are using assosiations", says Hadar.

One problem that Hadat pointed out is that there'es no option of going back and forth to reread "a paragraph she didn't understand". Sometimes they needed to repeat something specific, but because everything isn't written it was hard to do so.

Hadar explains the subjects for the tests by starting from the big picture first, for example, when we'll teach Freud's personallity theory she'll start with the title "Freud's personallity theory" that contains 1)id 2)ego 3)superego. There must always be 'a bottom line', so she'll frame the whole topic and we'll explain how it connects to what will come afterwards.

Hadar uses many examples in order to connect the examples to the inner world of the blind person. For instance, if we'll look at the previous example, the id stands for the basic needs, so she'll ask the student to picture a crying baby and they'll make sounds of crying babies together, so the student will be able to connect it in her mind.

The blind student doesn't want people to feel sorry for her so in many cases she won't us the teacher to repeat anything.

The learning process is based on understanding, that's the only way to remember so many subjects.

The paragraphs must be presented in a form of a story.

-Single Mothers

Stella and Vera chose to interview single mothers.

Stella talked to her boss, who is a single mother, and told her about our course. She talked about a huge problem- she doesn't have a reliable babysitter for her 8 years old daughter. Many times she needs to spend time on finding a new babysitter because the old one didn't show up or quit. She said she's very afraid because she doesn't know the new babysitter, and very often there are no recommendations or reviews from other mothers, so it feels like 'taking a risk with her daughter'. She suggested creating a social network for parents, when Stella explained the concept of the project she added that parents or babysitters can share tips from expirience/different activities for the kids, etc. . Vera talked to another single mother who has 2 kids (6 and 7 years old) and she also said that the main difficulty is finding a babysitter with recommendations-learning from others' experience.

Immigrants-

Me (Ariela) and Gali chose to interview immigrants who made Aliya to Israel.

I talked to Noah, a 22 years old woman, originally from Australia, who made Aliya 5 years ago. She came here during 11th grade in high school and mentioned that the main difficulty was learning in an Israeli school because the educational system is different, and also because she didn't know hebrew.

In addition to that, I talked to Nicole, a 42 years old woman who made Aliya from England, who mentioned mostly how hard it was for her to deal with bureaucracy. She said no one in the ministry of interior speaks english in a normal level, so she couldn't get by without having Israeli friends.

Gali talked to a 25 years old woman who made Aliya from the states 1 year ago. She mentioned how hard it is for her to get a job here because she doesn't know hebrew yet.

Moreover, she talked to a man who made Aliya from South Africa 8 years ago and considers moving back- he talked about the difficulty to find new friends and how lonely it can feel when you're new to this country and don't know anyone.

Gali also talked to "Nefesh Benefesh" which is an organziation that's meant to help people who immigrant to Israel and they mentioned that the cultural diffrences are sometimes so shocking that it makes the immigrants to go back to their countries.