Initial Project:
At first, when I was continuing with the Posture Pack, the salient identities included ability, age, and class. Ability and age made up the primary focus of our target salient identity because one of the motivations behind developing the posture pack was to create a posture correcting tool that would be available to anyone despite their age. Current posture correcting tools are not fashionable, and excludes the younger generation that values looks, comfort, and portability. Putting all these together into a backpack aimed to address those concerns.
To learn more about the needs of the social salient identities, the interview process was setup to reach out to students at NYU that used backpacks regularly. Professors and other staff were also available; however, getting the student's opinions was priority.
Experts - Spine specialists, doctors, etc.
New Project:
For my new project, which was focused on exploring the current technology available to aid those with Parkinson's to easier access technology, there was a combination of the following salient social identities: physical ability, age, and language. Physical ability is the most directly addressed for the technology I’m exploring and the following two fall under its branch. I will later discuss more in detail the application of the latter two salient identities in my project. When deciding on choosing a specific group to explore in order to get more direction for research, I went with Parkinson’s Disease. Age plays a role as well considering that a majority of those with Parkinson’s are over fifty years old, still the symptoms can appear before hand from as early as in the twenties.
Interviews:
Target salient identities - Hospitals, research institutions, NYU Langone
Expert - Practitioners, doctors, nurses, etc.