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Des302 - Week 12

Even though last week was our final blog post week I feel I should post a final post anyways. Going into my final week I am feeling ready to work hard to get my final steps achieved. I am feeling on track but still overwhelmed with the amount I have to do. I am happy with how I have gone in this assignment, and I think picking an assignment topic that I am very passionate about helped me to get through this assignment.

I am happy to be writing this final blog posts as I have found these blog posts more helpful than I expected. I found it was great at the end of each week to sit back at think about all I had achieved. They have been great for reflecting and sometimes venting on time when I was overwhelmed or stressed. I can’t believe I have finally made it to the end. So close!!!

Figure one, two and three: Hero images of my publication. My own work.

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Des 302 - Week 11

Holy moly! Guess who finally printed…. I did. I finally built up the balls, haha. Ok, so it’s been a big week this week. I feel the final uni stretch has begun, and as I feel myself getting more over uni, I have to keep pushing to get my assignment done. This week started with a Tuesday night all-nighter with some other capstone peeps. On this night, I smashed out a big chunk of my visual summary and my system map. This was so good; we could all work together and discuss what we needed in the summary. I surprisingly got way more work done than I thought I would, and we were all happy with how productive we were. We have planned to do more of these all-nighters over the next couple of weeks to get our assignments smashed out together. 

Completing my system map was such a relief. I find system maps so confusing to understand. I brainstormed the system map on Monday and got so frustrated because I couldn’t figure it out. I then left it for a day and came back to it later. I think I have now achieved my system map, but I am still unsure if all parts are right. I just can’t wrap my head around a system map.

Figure one: System Map from my Miro Board. My own work.

What? I printed my final publication. After a long process of iteration and refinement, I finally got it to a point where I was happy with it. I spent lots of time practising printing and critiquing. It was relieving to get to this point finally. When I got to see my publication, it was all professionally done. It was a rewarding feeling, but I quickly found a big spelling mistake that took away much of the excitement. I also took some hero shots of the publication, but these didn’t turn out the way I had wanted.

So what? My experience from this showed that I should have just proofread it one more time. Luckily, it’s not too obvious, and my friends have said they didn’t notice it. But I just have this gutting feeling that it's not perfect. 

With the hero shots, I should’ve taken more time to plan and figure out the camera before I got straight into taking the photos. My experience taught me that I should be more confident in asking for help. I got many things wrong, but I am so glad I have time to go back and fix it. 

Now what? now, going forward, I have realised I need to have a better eye for mistakes. I am so annoyed that I didn’t just have one more proper read-through. I am going to print again closer to the submission date so I can have some pristine, perfect publication for hand-in. Going forward with my hero shots, I will research and create a mood board for what I want them to look like. I am going to take my time and not rush them. I also want to ask the fab lab tech to help with my lighting and give me tips when taking the photos.

Figure two, three, four and five: Hero shots of my final print. My own work.

Ok, well, that is me for now. Onto the final stretch of capstone, it’s going to be a long two weeks, but the end is near!

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First all night of the sem! 11/09

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Des 302 - Week 10

How has another week gone?! I swear they are going by so quickly. Well, with another week down, it’s time to do another what? So what? Now what?

What? This week involved most of my time on my publication and the final touches before I print. I started the week by printing off my prototype and critiquing every page of it. My main goal is to get a good grade, so I am trying to get it as perfect as possible, which isn’t my strong point. I found that going through each page and asking for feedback from peers helped me immensely in developing my prototype further.

So what? Through reflection on my publication, I realised I had lots of cleaning up to do. My experience from this has shown me that I need to be much more thorough and work harder to make my publication look more professional. Taking all the little notes and critiquing each thing has forced me not just to submit what I have but to have a much stronger outcome at the end. 

Another lot of feedback I received was a couple of pages I should add to the publication. Once someone mentioned this to me, I had an absolute “dah” moment and realised a significant page I was missing. This page was one explaining the following pages to come. Without this page, it can be a bit confusing to the reader. From that, I added this page and think it helps make my publication more understandable. 

Now what? I have realised I need to not rush this step on finalising my publication before I print. This is such an important step that for a lot of my assignments I don’t do. Fixing the final details is something I need to work on. I want to make sure every page is perfect. I have now done another practice print, and I think I will complete the same steps again of critiques.

Going forward into next week, I hope that by the end of the week, I can finalise my publication and have it ready to send to Pink Lime for final printing and binding. I hope also to run my publication past a lecturer as I haven’t done this in a while. I am not great at asking for feedback. This is another I need to work on! Let's bring on next week. I am so excited that I am so close to having my final publication done.

Figure One: A picture of my critique sheets. My own work.

Figure Two: A picture of my first print compared to my second print. My own work.

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Des 302 - Week 9

A bit of a slow week this week, which hasn’t been good leading into the last month. I have felt a bit burnt out and stuck since our pitch to the partners. I haven’t been too hard on myself since hitting this slump. I decided giving myself a few days felt like a good idea, so I will go into the final month ready to put in some long hours. 

Even though I spent a bit of time relaxing and not stressing out, this week I worked on finishing my prototype. I spent time finishing the transcript and my final pages. Finally, finishing this prototype was quite rewarding as it took longer than anticipated. Even though I still have a long way to go I can now gather feedback and iterate it to a point where I am super happy with it. Here goes what? So what? Now what? 

What? I finally finished my first proper prototype, which included finishing the transcript. I am happy with the overall look of it, but I feel I have a lot of iterations and refinements to go. I have read it through fully, and I’m not sure if it conveys the message I was aiming for. I am feeling a little stressed as I have a long way to go, but I am grateful that I still have time to work on it. 

So what? My experience has shown me that I must dedicate much more time to iterating my prototype. I feel that, at the moment, I am wasting a lot of my time. I am basing this off the fact that I now only have four weeks left, and was supposed to have this first prototype done a few weeks ago. If I had made better use of time, I would be in a much better position now. I have been aware that I needed to finish it, but I have procrastinated by doing other things. In general, I think I leave things until I get stressed enough about running out of time. I need to give myself more time and work harder so I can achieve my goals for this assignment. I mainly don’t want to be disappointed with the final outcomes of my assignment.

Another thing that I have thought about is whether this prototype is enough. I am worried that I should be doing something else to support my publication.

Now what? I realise now that I have to prioritise developing this prototype a lot quicker throughout next week. I need to actively seek feedback from peers and use that feedback to move forward. I also want to print out the publication to look at it and take it apart. 

My goal is to have the next prototype done over the next week so I can spend the week after refining it and cleaning up. Therefore, I will be ready for a final print, so I will be able to video and see if there’s anything else I need to do. 

I think this new plan will help me be prepared and back in a good position for my final submission. I can do this!

Figure one: Publication Protoype One Complete from Indesign . My own work.

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DES 302 - Week 8

What an interesting week this was! Only five weeks to go. How is time going so quickly? This week was quite big and nerve-racking as we had to pitch our work so far to our project partners. For my stream, our partner is Diversity Works New Zealand. To prepare for the presentation, I had to create slides to summarise my work thus far. I also decided that as I’m not the best at explaining this project, it would be ideal to print my first publication prototype. This was surprisingly so exciting! 

To have enough to show in my pitch, I looked at the pages I had so far and hadn’t realised how much I had completed. I realised that I had completed more pages than I had registered. I decided I had enough to print prototype one.  It took me about five attempts, but I finally printed my publication in the right size, formation and colours. It was reassuring to see my publication printed and was so motivating to see what my final product could look like. As seeing something printed is so different compared to on screen. 

Figure one: Printing Process of Publication, Showing the amount of tries it took. My own work.

To explain how my pitch presentation went, I will use the What? So What? And Now What? Model. 

What? I had to get up in front of my project partners to pitch my idea for my chosen problem. I pitched my dyslexia publication called “Beyond Words”. To support my presentation, I had a physical prototype.

 I was so nervous as I was thinking of the worst. I was scared they wouldn’t like my idea or think I hadn't done enough. I had shown a couple of classmates my prototype and they reassured me that my work was good, and I think this push convinced me to be confident in what I was presenting. 

So What? My experience in this presentation went way better than I had expected. I think this is from actually printing the prototype. One of the partners said, “When I heard you say you were making a publication for dyslexia, I was hesitant, but actually seeing it was so great.” She thought it was a great idea to easily show what people with dyslexia go through, not just for people who don’t know much about dyslexia but also for people with dyslexia who don’t quite understand it. I felt my stress lift off me as I received this reassurance. I also received a few critiques and points to support my publication. 

I am pleased with how this presentation went and glad the partners could see my vision. I am glad I printed my prototype to help sell my idea. 

Now What? I feel much more motivated and reassured to keep working towards my end goal. While it was great getting positive feedback, I have a long way to go to get to the end. With this feedback I plan to take it on board and keep working hard to complete more pages. I want to make sure to keep getting feedback from my peers throughout the rest of my process. 

I feel more validated with my idea and am excited to work hard to finish my publication to a standard I am proud of. I am glad I got this push to re-excite me to get my assignment done. 

Figure Two: A Slide from my Presentation Pitch. My Own Work. 

Figure Three and Four: My printed prototype 1. My Own Work. 

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DES 302 - Week 7

We are back for my final 7 weeks at university. It’s feeling a little surreal and coming up far too quickly! That week just flew by and it’s time for the final stretch…

As instructed from my recent feedback in the blog post assignment was to stick to my favorite model instead of trying different ones. Therefore, for the rest of the semester, I will be using what? so what? now what? I have chosen this model as I have used it a couple of times, and I think it works best for me.

 Coming into this week, I got hit with a lot of stress on Monday morning. I had realised I had a very big amount of work to do over the next weeks, and I was majorly regretting not completing more work over the break. I realised I needed to spend a lot of time to create my first proper prototype. What? Continuing/restarting my first prototype for my publication. There are lots of elements to creating this publication. I found I was thinking about each thing I had to do at once and was overwhelming myself. So What? Despite my initial overwhelming feeling on Monday, I decided I needed to break down what I actually needed to complete. The two main things I need to create my prototype are to complete the transcript and create the pages. Putting it like this sounds easy, but it has taken much more time than I expected. Once I have completed these two steps, I will be on a much better track and will be able to iterate and come up with the strongest publication outcome I can. Now what? I have used this week, and I will use the next week to complete this prototype and transcript. Recognising that these tasks are more time-consuming than initially anticipated was a crucial step to set realistic timelines. I will continue working towards this goal over the next week. Over this week, I have made some progress towards this goal. I have completed much more of the transcript and created a few pages for my first prototype. I am feeling prepared to continue and hopefully complete this challenge over the next weeks. I feel confident and better that I unpacked my overwhelming feelings so that I can make my first prototype correctly and not too rushed.

Here are a couple of pages I have created for my first iteration:

Figure one: emotional impact page for iteration 1 from indesign. My own work.

Figure two: missing information page for iteration 1 from indesign. My own work.

I am ready to work hard over the next week and the following weeks to complete my publication. I am getting excited and find it refreshingly nice to do an assignment for myself. I haven't done an assignment that I am passionate about in a while. Picking a topic that is personal to me has helped to bring back my drive even after feeling like giving up. I am excited but scared for what’s to come! :)

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DES 302 - Mid Semester Break, Week 2

This week did not go to plan. As I said in my reflection last week, I wanted to spend much more time on my assignment. Well, that did not go to plan. I found myself a lot busier than I had anticipated. But that's ok! I am not going to let it stress me out. I will give a short update today explaining what I have achieved over the past week.

The main thing I have achieved is finding my aesthetics and developing concepts for my front cover. This has been quite a fun / frustrating process. Coming up with aesthetics is quite exciting, I love moving things around and trying many different things. But to start this process was super frustrating. I found myself struggling even to get started. 

Figure one: Concepts for the prototype from Illustrator. My own work.

I decided to give the front cover quite a messy look. I want to make the beyond words the main focal point of the cover. My main goal for this front cover is to stick out. I want people to look at it, be curious, and wonder what is happening. Doing this will draw people to pick it up and read through it.

I have included two of my main developments for my front cover below.

Figure Two: Development One for the prototype from Illustrator. My own work.

Figure Three: Development Two for the prototype from Illustrator. My own work.

When reflecting on the break, I feel stressed as I haven’t achieved the amount of work I wanted to get done. However, I am glad that I took some time to have a break and catch up with friends and family. I feel it was the reset I needed and I am ready to attack my final 7 weeks at university. I am ready to work hard and get my assignments done. My next step for the weeks going forward is to catch up!!! I need to dedicate a lot of time to catching up to the point on my timeline where I should be now. By the end of next week, I want to have pretty much have my prototype one done. I also need to finalise my script. I am ready to complete my final 7 weeks at university :)

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DES 302 - Mid Semester Break Week 1

This week for semester break, I took it quite easy. I had planned on getting lots of work done throughout this break, but so far, that hasn’t gone to plan. I went home this week to visit my family and found myself to be quite busy. I tried not to let the lack of work completed stress me out too much, as I found it was a much-needed break. I think the break I had this week would help me recharge and set me up for the rest of the semester!

However, there were a few times throughout the week when I had a couple of hours to do a little bit of work. During this time, I started to work through the first high-fidelity prototype that I want to have done by the end of break. I started by looking at the aesthetics and coming up with a name for my publication. The name I decided on was “Beyond Words” I think this has a great deeper meaning for the idea of my assignment. I think it explains how we need to look beyond the obvious struggles dyslexic individuals have to empathise and understand what dyslexia really is. Therefore, Beyond Words is a great fit for my publication. 

Figure one: Name Exploration from my Miro Board. My own work.

The next thing I played around with was the style of my first prototype. I was getting quite stuck on this step and started brainstorming for illustrator a number of different looks. I wasn’t liking any of them! This is a step I am still quite stuck on, and I hope to figure it out a bit more in the next week. However, I understand this is a significant step for my publication; therefore, I don’t want to rush it. Here are some of the ideas I have come up with so far. (They is not very good 😬)

Figure two: Concepts for the prototype from Illustrator. My own work.

The final thing I worked through this week was getting the information I wanted to put in my publication. I am still quite early into this step, and so far, I have just laid out what will go on each page and some bullet points that I want to include on this page. This is another step I can’t rush. The information is one of the key points for conveying my idea.

Figure three: Brainstorm for pages from my Miro Board. My own work.

Overall, I feel refreshed from having a chill week. I am glad I took time to relax and not stress myself out. Over the next week, I would like to spend much more time on my assignment. I want to go into the second half of the semester feeling prepared and ready to get everything done to a high standard. I feel this break has given me more motivation which is something I have been lacking the past couple of weeks. 

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DES 302 - Week 6

I can’t believe how quickly these first 6 weeks of the semester have gone! I am feeling so scared but also excited because I’m finally getting into one of the best stages of the assignment. The actual making of this assignment. The main activities I started this week were storyboarding and doing some journey mapping. 

I initially tried to start storyboarding but was really struggling with where to start. Then Sofia told me I should give Journey Mapping a go. I hadn’t done too much journey mapping, so to start with, I was a bit confused. But it turned out to be such a great activity to get started on visualising my assignment. To explain my journey mapping process, I will use the "What? So What? Now What?" Reflection Toolkit. What? I tried to begin visualising my publication with storyboard sketches but was struggling actually to get started. I then decided to give journey mapping a go. So What? Despite my initial uncertainty, journey mapping turned out to be a useful tool for deconstructing the effects I want my publication to have. This technique provided a holistic view of the user's experience and allowed me to identify crucial touchpoints. Journey mapping reminded me that adding new tools to my process often leads to unexpected new ideas and revelations. Now What? I now feel more prepared to take on the challenge of storyboarding because of the insights I gained from journey mapping. The representation of the user's journey has provided a clear framework of something I may use to structure my publication's story.  I'm confident I'll overcome the challenges by using a more comprehensive approach to storyboarding and producing a more compelling and well-rounded outcome. 

Figure one: Journey Mapping from my Miro Board. My own work.

From this, I feel I have become much more confident going into and beginning storyboarding. I begin I creating a storyboard with images of how I most likely want my publication to look. I am finding it hard to imagine at the moment, but I think this storyboard I have made has made it a lot clearer. Right now it is looking a bit like a mess but basically to explain it I say I want to create a publication that shows what struggles people with dyslexia face, side by side with strategies workplaces can use to make it easier for dyslexic individuals. This publication goal is to create empathy and understanding for what dyslexia actually is.

Figure two: Storyboard 1 from my Miro Board. My own work.

Going into the break, I will keep working towards finishing my storyboarding. My main goal for the break is to come back with a solid first prototype so I can gather feedback and work there. Doing this into the next week, I will begin my explorations for fonts, colours and everything to go into my publication. I am excited to have a break from classes, but I don’t feel the amount of uni I will do will slow down. I hope to stick to my goals, so I don’t come back from break feeling stressed and behind. 

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DES 302 - Week 5

Week five has been a big week. It began with getting feedback from my stream group on my ideas and presentation. After this feedback, I have changed my vision for my assignment. I also spent time reflecting on my feedback from the 302 Blog assignment. 

For this reflection, I will use the four F’s of active reviewing. 

Fact: I was standing in front of my stream group, and I asked what they thought of my assignment and my intended idea. People in the group gave feedback that maybe a book for people with dyslexia isn’t the best idea. One person said to look at precedents for other ways dyslexic people can record their thoughts and feelings. Some other feedback is that I could show how dyslexia affects people. There were lots of different feedback angles. 

Feelings: After the feedback, I sat down. I was super overwhelmed and lost in my assignment. Clearly, I haven’t picked the best solution for my research question. I was confused. I took a lot of the feedback at face value and didn’t understand. I found that when I stood up there, I just nodded and didn’t have too much of a reaction. I just wanted to hear what everyone had to say. I felt I needed to take time and not overwhelm myself. 

Findings: I think the reason my outcome from this feedback session was successful is that I didn’t react too soon. I took time to listen and take notes from each perspective of my idea. When I took time after the session, I felt much better about my assignment. I was feeling lost, and now having more ideas is helpful for my research going forward. 

Future: I was proud of myself for standing in front of the group to get feedback. I originally wasn’t going to, but I decided to give it a go. I think my main outcome for this was that over the next week, I need to take some time to go back and diverge to emerge. This is a step I would’ve not done if I didn’t get the feedback. I need to take time to go and do more brainstorming to come up with a stronger outcome. 

The next step in the week was reflecting on the 302 assignment feedback. Reflecting on the feedback I received made a lot of sense. I am not always describing the action I will take when revising steps. Over the past week, I have been feeling lost. I have been confused about how I’m going to get my final outcome finished. I am finding that my research isn’t working for me. Over the next week, I will skip to idea sketching and return to exercises in the Solution discovery phase, such as empathy mapping and the business model canvas. I need to develop a vision to see the bigger picture. Therefore, it will be easier to work through these activities, hopefully!

To diverge, I have watched several videos to learn more about the types of dyslexia and understand it much more profoundly. One of my favourite images I found was an image from Dyslexia the gift blog

Figure one: A picture from a spelling list. Dyslexia the gift blog. 

I love this idea of making images out of words. This is an idea I want to bring into my book as lot's of dyslexic people think in images.

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DES 302 - Week 4

To start this week, we had our presentations for 301 assignment 2. This was such a nerve-racking presentation. Standing up on my own is so scary. It made it a lot easier doing it Infront of my stream group. I had already stood informally in front of them and talked about my assignment. I was happy with how my overall presentation went. I haven’t yet received feedback, but I was glad to get the presentation done early in the week. 

Personas were another main activity for this week that I completed. I always struggle with personas as, honestly, I find them quite boring and find it hard to minimise my biases. I decided to make my personas less biased, I would use Chat gpt. This ended up being such an interesting activity, and I found that chat gpt came up with ideas that I hadn’t even thought of. To do this, I wrote a prompt to explain a person and age group I wanted my persona to be about. Chat gpt helped minimise the struggles I was having with making my persona and made some strong personas for my assignment.

The next main part of the week was starting assignment 3 and unpacking the brief. For this part I am going to try one of the toolkits. The toolkit I am going to use is What? So What? Now what? 

'What?' When first reading the Assignment 3 brief, it was very overwhelming and confronting. I hadn’t realised how many aspects there are to assignment 3. I was feeling stressed, overwhelmed and scared to complete this assignment.

'So What?' Initially, I was looking at the assignment brief; this is when I got the overwhelming feeling. My experience in this class taught me that I hadn’t quite prepared for each step in the assignment. This is based on each part of the assignment. There were more elements than what I had included in my timeline. There were many more steps to the submission, for example, the visual summary and the redesign showcase website. It would be easy to miss one of the submission steps. I had these overwhelming and stressed feelings as I hadn’t forecasted and included them in my timeline. My head was filled with “How am I going to get all this done and not miss anything on submission day?”.

'Now what?' To move forward from this, I think the main thing is relooking and reworking my timeline. I want to add each element of the submission to my timeline so I don’t miss any aspect. I will make sure I lay each aspect out at least 5 days before the assignment submission to ensure each part is there. 

Leading into the weeks ahead, I am excited to get started on actually creating and prototyping my assignment. I think once I actually get started on the assignment, I will feel much better and less confused about how I am going to get everything done!

Figure one: Slides from my presentation. My own work.

Figure Two: Personas from my Miro Board. My own work.

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Week 4 Done!

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DES 302 - Week 3

Feeling very tired this week! This week has been quite disappointing in the amount of work I got done. Last week I had such a productive, motivated week. This week has been nowhere the same. On Monday, I felt quite tired to start the week, and that’s how the rest of the week played out. As I was feeling like this, I wanted not to push myself too hard as I didn’t want to overwhelm myself and give up. I slowly chipped away at each step of my to-do list, and even though I didn’t get every activity finished, I was happy with how I approached the week and with how I was feeling. My to-do list for this week was based on finalising each step for the assignment 2 submissions. 

Something I discovered that I was missing was what my main goals are for this assignment. I think for this first assignment, I focused too much on getting each activity done and what I was going to make. I found myself getting quite stressed as I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Even though I had come up with plans A, B and C, I found that it still wasn’t sticking and feeling right. I realised I was looking too far ahead and not focusing on the moment. I decided it would be suitable for me to simply identify my main goals for the assignment. I want to identify what I mainly want to get out of this assignment. This simple task was great, and I felt it resolved some of my confusion.

On Tuesday, I had my one-on-one with Diana in the studio. After having my one-on-one discussion with Diana, I reflected and felt it didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. When I explained my plan A, B, and C to her, she didn’t think it was the best Idea to put a campaign for Plan A. I faced the challenge by conducting further research and brainstorming to refine my idea. Despite the initial difficulties, I recognised the importance of Diana's feedback and decided to take it on board.  However, while valuing her input, I also realised the significance of pursuing a capstone project that truly excites me. As I am the one that needs to complete this assignment, I want to pick something that makes me excited. 

To complete my assignment two, I had to create slides for my presentation. This was a very open part of the assignment, and we were told to put in what we felt we needed. I find this made me Struggle to come up with what I was going to do for my presentation. I wanted to put in most of the parts I had done for this assignment. 

I am hoping for the week going forward, I will approach it with a more productive mindset. With assignment two done, I want to ensure I don’t fall behind, as we don’t have another submission before the end of the semester.

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DES 302 - Week 2

This week went a lot better than the first! It was nice starting this week and not feeling completely confused about what work I had to do. I think the to-do lists are going to be a great task for keeping me on track for the rest of this semester. They work great for laying out what needs to be done so that I can see what I need to do and slowly chip away at it. 

This week started off with me deciding to change the layout of my Miro board completely.  I didn’t like the messy look and felt it would get confusing when more work was added to it. Cleaning it up and finalising my timeline, I decided to change my methodology from the double diamond. I made this change as I was planning my assignment. I thought that the double diamond would cut my iteration short. I have decided I am going to use the triple diamond. I need those extra steps to come up with the best outcome. I like how it has the step of making your prototype, getting feedback, reflecting and making it again. I also think I need that extra step of user feedback, as it will help enrich my outcome. Alternatively, I think one of the weaknesses of this methodology is that because there are more steps, I won’t be able to spend as much time on them. I think I have to be smarter with the time I spend at each step so I don’t get caught up. 

One of the main things I need to complete for the week is my Plan A, B and C. I was starting to feel behind as I had no idea what I wanted to make for this assignment. I have done lengthy brainstorms, and I have finally come up with my plan A, B and C. My plan A aims to create a comprehensive dyslexia awareness campaign focusing on individuals who receive a late diagnosis of dyslexia. These will include posters, informative pamphlets, and social media ads to reach a wider audience. The campaign will feature an interactive booklet, encouraging self-reflection and answering personal questions. My plan B and C are more straightforward than this and are mainly focused on the booklet.

I feel a lot better going into next week as I now have a clearer idea of my goals for this capstone assignment. I am ready to do more refined precedent research to see what works and what doesn’t. I also want to start some rapid prototyping, as it will be great to visualise what’s to come. 

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DES 302 - Week 1

This week has been a struggle! Getting out of holiday mode and straight into a vast workload has felt quite overwhelming. I have found myself struggling to find where to get started on my assignment. After sitting in class on Monday, I felt I got home and immediately felt stressed after giving it a couple of days to unpack and think about the assignment. I was ready to start my research and plan how to get this assignment, but I mainly wanted to figure out what am going to do! 

For my capstone assignment, I am part of the Business + DEI stream. I am focusing on dyslexia. My current How might we statement is "How might we educate people in workplaces with strategies to better cater for and include employees with dyslexia?" I am not completely sure yet what I want to do for my assignment. I have realised that I mainly want to focus on people who have been diagnosed with dyslexia later in life. I think there is an important gap here, and I want to find a way to fix it. I also want to change the negative stigma around dyslexia.  

When I first met with my stream group on Monday, I immediately felt very confronted. Talking in the group about how we are in a safe space and we are going to have some very confronting conversations, I found it a lot more intense than expected. But after spending some time reflecting, I have felt more excited towards this idea. I am excited to learn more about each person in the group and each person's perspective. I think we all have such different stories, so working with each of them is going to be a very enriching experience. 

Getting started on my assignment was what I found the most overwhelming. I already felt like I was behind and needed to come up with an idea as soon as possible. I spent most of the week planning out my semester and figuring out how I would lay out my Miro board. I have also started research and mood boards for my assignment. Researching dyslexia is actually such an exciting experience for me. As someone who has grown up with dyslexia but never faced it and learnt about it is so interesting. Hearing so many different perspectives and learning the negative stigma around dyslexia is so wrong. I realise that dyslexia isn’t actually a bad thing at all, its just a different way of thinking. My favourite thing I have heard is, “Dyslexia isn’t a disability but a superpower”. So many people suffer from dyslexia. Why is it seen as such a bad thing?

Going forward into this semester, I am very nervous about what's to come. I feel quite overwhelmed, but I am also quite excited. Spending all my time on my capstone project, I think, will teach me a lot about myself. I am very nervous about falling behind and not staying on track. But I hope that if I keep organised and prioritise my work, I will get to an outcome I am proud of.

[katescapstone]