The summer consisted of ideating and determining the concept for the new communication system or product, designing it, creating a working prototype and testing it in an iterative process. The diagram below provides an overview of the different parts of the summer phase of the project.

With Nokia clients Dean Andrews and Tosh Sano in Pittsburgh, the team began brainstorming possible solutions around the research findings or identified issues. This brainstorming was continued by the student team, and ideas were reorganized into design themes that drew directly from the issues identified in our research. The student team further brainstormed and developed ideas that aligned with the chosen design themes. The team also organized a participatory design session, incorporating a MakeTools methodology that allowed users to develop ideas around the design themes and their problems.

16 Concepts developed by the team and relevant concepts from users were sketched out into scenarios of use to be able to validate the concepts.Based on user rating, ones that generated the most interest were “Community Visualization”, “Friends hang-out” and “Contextual Mass Communication”.

sketch paper prototype: rapid iterative testing with 6 participants

wireframe prototype: iterative testing on more detailes screen and gain user's feedback on refined system, 3 iterations with 11 participants

We have tested Posti with around fifty users over its genesis. The user feedback regarding our final prototype was overwhelmingly positive—“This is a new concept” and “There are lots of interesting situations I could use this for” were just a few of the responses that our users gave. Posti opens the door to a wealth of new mobile applications that foster communication with the people and communities around you.