Prime Digital Academy came to me, and they wanted to know how successful their current welcome gift was to their new full-stack students. I told them that I needed to do some testing to find out how well the modern welcome gift was working or not working.

I did a heuristic analysis of the current gift. The gift was a water bottle. Since the latest circumstances, the students currently all do their schooling remotely.

My research findings were that for one, a portable water bottle was not the best fit for the students. The water bottle was not only not practical, but also it did not have anything that held value to the students.

From these findings, I decided to create some new ideas. I based my information on videos the students made and questions the students were asked and had answered. I focused on what was within arms reach in their work areas, and l listened to what struggles they had while they were going through prime. Students were having issues with time management. Also, I saw that some prevalent items in their work areas were pens and drink containers. With this information, I went forward with my new concept ideas.

The three designs were presented, voted on by my team. The timer pen was the winning concept. I was excited to start working on the next phase, which was to build the prototype.

I made a prototype of the timer pen that has the school logo and the cohort name printed onto it. It would be a solution to students having issues with time management and help them with notes for class. They would find value by having their cohort name on the pen as well.

“I would see myself using this pen.” - Full-stack student

The goal of this proposal was to find out if the current welcome gift was of worth, and was something that the full-stack students used. I discovered that the welcome gift was not of value, or was of use for the full-stack students. From what I learned, the welcome gift needed to be changed. I came up with some alternatives, decided on one, and built a prototype. I tested the prototype and received more feedback, and the students communicated more features to add to make it better.

I would say that all of their suggestions were great.

The most cost-efficient feature would be to add the clock to the timer pen. Then students can see the time as well as set the timer for when they are working.

Overall,

Due to the curiosity of Prime Digital Academy wanting to know how their welcome gift was accepted amongst prime students, I would have not had the opportunity to discover what I did. It would be another story if we could test our friends and family during the holidays or birthdays to see if the gifts we gave them were that successful or not.

I understood how the gift was not practical for students that are going to school remotely. Most of us walk to our desk and sit down. There is no running to class or moving around as much as we did before the pandemic. I realized that the students' needs had changed. So for a gift that would have been a practical gift before, was now something that is not needed at all. Prime Digital academy cares about their staff as well as their students. This opportunity helped Prime understand what a practical gift can look like during these times. I am happy to have brought this to their attention. Now the students can have something they can use and value during their time at prime.

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