Last week, my classes began working with the Baltimore Orchard
Project, a non-profit here in the
city that seeks to connect people to food and each other through orchards. The two classes that are
working with BOP are my Interaction and Interface Design (IDIA 612) and Advanced Interaction
Design (IDIA 712) students.
The connection was facilitated by our Director of Experiential Education, Darien Ripple. I talked
with them in an initial meeting about problems they might be having (we approached them, not the
other way around) and was there any online, or in-person interactive “things” that they liked. I
compiled a list of interesting problems to solve and brought that to the class. In true
User Research fashion, the classes met with the client and asked them hours worth of questions to
better understand the situation and really find out what the problems were.