Week two: Diving in

Week two began with being thrown into the deep end.

No time for water wings!

One of the missions of the AVL is education. Several team members teach classes in addition to their daily work for the group, which led to my attending a virtual reality (VR) class to get a sense of both the VR facilities and the educational aspect of the group.

My intention was to sit quietly in the back, being as unobtrusive as possible, but this class session was hands-on and involved students trying several types of VR equipment. The three VR stations (the VCT, a room installation, and two Vives, head-mounted displays) were staffed, but an augmented reality (AR) station at the back of the room wasn't. After a quick, five minute lesson, I was put in charge of helping the students, giving instruction on how to use the HoloLens.

Takeaway: even though my project is completely different, as a team member, I was asked to step in and help out.

The rest of the week was much quieter, mostly involving typing up notes (a work station was finally installed at my desk), writing a draft of a survey for the project, and creating five proto-personas to be used in the design process. The personas are not complete. More exploration will help me flesh them out and possibly reduce them to two or three.

Next steps will involve talking to more team members, including a trip to IUPUI, meeting with the group manager and director, and hopefully moving forward with concrete goals and objectives for the project. One of the difficult tasks ahead is putting together an inventory of images, visualizations, and whatever other digital assets are deemed relevant.