Before taking BADM 357, most of the classes I have attended before only required me to follow instructions and memorize the materials carefully. Never was I asked to be creative or innovative in any of my accounting courses. Instead, I was usually asked to as compliant as possible in class. So, I decided to take this class in order to challenge the creative and innovative aspect of my skill set and to get my hands on a new technology that will enabled to turn my ideas into reality. I knew at the moment that I stepped in to the Illinois MakerLab that this course was going to bring be a unique experience unlike any other classes I have taken before. It did not take long for the course for it to bring me new experiences.
In the second class, I not only traveled to a part of campus that I have previously never been to, but I also set foot in a building for the first time. For the entire class time, we visited the DRES building and met with our course mentors to listen their experiences and to brainstorm ideas according to their requests. Ryan, Adam, Ron, and Jenna all have their own unique stories while having different requests. One common theme throughout their requests is around affordability of the product to its users. It is very common that a cutting-edge technology is introduced to the general population but in order for it to be actually useful it has to be affordable to most people. From this experience, I have learned that the key takeaway Professor Sachdev wants us to have is to use our ability and skills to create something that will improve someone’s experience of life by a certain margin but not necessary to an extent that it will be life changing for them.
The experiences from the DRES visit was inspirational to say the least. It was interesting to hear from people that lived their lives from a different perspective and exciting how my ideas can potentially be incorporated in all our lives and experience the overall experiences. The most impressive part of the visit that I found was how an actual project from the class few years back has now become a fully functional business and his creating and delivering products to improve people live around the world. Even more, the products can be catered to all customer need and are extremely affordable. I look forward to work with the mentors for the rest of the semester and I hope that my ideas can eventually come to fruition and leave positive impacts in some people’s lives.
I agree that affordability was definitely the biggest overarching takeaway. It is interesting to be solving these sorts of issues because most industries are already flood with low-cost oriented competitors. Wheelchairs provide a unique opportunity to minimize the cost of goods sold, thereby making it more accessible to every user.
I really like your takeaway from Professor Sachdev that we should be creating a product that improves people’s lives by a certain margin but is not life-changing. I think this mindset will help us devise products that are more attainable than some pie in the sky idea. I also agree with you that it was inspiring to see the success of a former class project and to know that it is definitely possible to create an impact.
I really appreciate your reflection on the difference between this class and others is the attitude of creativity vs. compliance. I think affordability is key to keep in mind as well because of the user-base. With empathetic design, we need to put ourselves in the shoes of the user-base. Arielle mentioned some of the statistics on unemployment for those with physical disabilities, and the numbers were shocking. This resource may be helpful in helping contextualize the impact of affordability even further: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/disabl.nr0.htm
Hi, as a fellow accounting major, I related a lot to you when you were talking about how a lot of our courses want us to be as compliant as possible! That’s one of the reason why I was really excited when I was signing up for this class; I want to be able to apply my own background knowledge to be able to make an impact on people in creative and unique ways. I think a really interesting way to make an impact is to adapt expensive, new inventions to be more affordable. I recommend you check out Digital Trends (https://www.digitaltrends.com/) for inspiration on the newest innovations in the tech world if you’re interested in that!
I agree that for a technology or new product to be useful one of the main focuses should be affordability. I think this was a very valuable lesson that we all learned during the DRES visit. I also remember from the first class how Professor Sachdev emphasized a “play” mindset and I think you summed up both lessons perfectly with your post. I would love to hear more from your perspective about how the DRES visit helped to achieve an “empathy” mindset as well. This is referring to the IDEO Design Kit visits we watched before the first class. Another great article to reference is https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/design-thinking-getting-started-with-empathy.
I really like your approach of affordability. For the most amazing ideas in the world. If you cannot make it affordable to the consumer or the everyday user, it doesn’t matter how amazing it is. Especially with our products, I believe that our most important traits must be practicality and affordability.