I received elaborate feedback from both Ayo and Louisa during my mid-term crit. Many of the considerations they suggested where things that had come up in the previous discussions or had been a part of the curriculum. Aiyo’s questions about the contents of the course helped me establish that I don’t intend my role to alter the contents of the curriculum as that is not my area of expertise and a lot of research and thought has already gone behind them. Also reflecting on his comments about how the conversations around sex education have changed over time and the effects of colonialism on them, I thought that the best thing would be to focus on the current scenario regarding this and how it could potentially evolve in future.

Louisa mentioned some concerns that had come up previously regarding establishing a collaborative relationship and not a client-designer one. She also suggested narrowing down a medium along with the scope which makes sense at this stage.

This feedback was helpful in helping me reflect and define my project further for myself as well as for others. I also had a conversation with my mother before the presentation and showed her the progress. During this, she mentioned some other more specific focus areas they have within this curriculum which gave me some ideas and inspiration to narrow down the scope to one very specific target group. As I had mentioned before, they intend to extend teaching about sex education and good touch bad touch to children with blindness. Since I have been interested in physical interactions and it’s something I want to focus on, I realized this could provide an interesting opportunity area for me to implement my interests, especially since I tried making a 3D printed prototype.

I think I do have a lot to think about and further research on. I have started to be able to envision a more specific project and hopefully would be able to continue to work on it.

OVERALL COMMENTS

Rama: good summary of feedback and suggesting a possible focus on children ‘with blindness.’ Is that the direction you want to go? As mentioned in my comments on your Process Paper 02, this - too - includes individuals on a range of visual acuity. So, here, too decisions about developmental age/stages and attributes of the children you are designing for in this target population is part of the knowledge base needed to make initial decisions. I assume some of that background would be available to you as resources used by the group you are working with. I would be happy to provide you with basic references, including special education books I have with basic information and materials on children with visual impairment. Another good point Louisa made was to find precedent like what you decide you want to make. That is: influential precedent will become more helpful once you have made some focussing decisions.