This week, we prepared a new set of interview questions for our upcoming interview with Ruth, following the cancellation of our previous session. While initially unexpected, this worked in our favour, allowing us more time to refine our questions and explore our project goals in greater depth. At this stage, we are all more confident in our individual research areas, and this interview will be a valuable opportunity to gain deeper insight and help progress our project further.
After our previous interview did not go ahead, we were assigned a new interview with Ruth, which is a positive development for the project. Her senior role allows her to provide a broader and more strategic perspective on our research topics. As we had already prepared a set of questions for our earlier interview, we revisited and refined these to better suit Ruth’s expertise, enabling us to ask more tailored and in-depth questions that align closely with our project goals.
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Having the opportunity to interview someone like Ruth will benefit us in the long run, as her experience and insight can provide valuable guidance and informed opinions to strengthen our project direction.
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As a group, we are excited about this new opportunity. Although we were unable to conduct our first interview, speaking with Ruth provided valuable expertise and insight into the prison system. Her knowledge will help us better understand the challenges within our project area and guide us in deciding the most appropriate direction to take our work forward.
As a group, we revisited the interview questions we had previously prepared and discussed how they could be refined to better suit our interview with Ruth. Much of our discussion focused on ensuring the questions aligned with her field of work and expertise, as this would allow us to gain more accurate, detailed, and insightful responses. Tailoring our questions in this way will help us access perspectives we may not be able to gather elsewhere and ensure our more specific research questions are meaningfully addressed.
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I feel our revised questions work really well and will help us understand whether our chosen research topics can meaningfully support the next stage of ideation and project development.
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We are hopeful that our interview with Ruth goes well this week, as it will be a key step in progressing our project. As a group, we aim to use the insights gained to move confidently into the ideation phase and begin developing informed and meaningful service concepts.
After our meet-up, while scrolling through social media, I came across a useful video that explained how prisoners, particularly in the US, use tablets while in custody and the functions they provide. The video offered interesting insight into how digital tools are already being used within prison environments, helping me think more critically about how technology could support access to education, communication, and services within similar systems.
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The video was both insightful and interesting, showing how prison systems engage prisoners through electronics while also highlighting how restricted and limited their internet access remains.
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Seeing this video demonstration provided valuable insight into a potential design direction for our project. It highlighted how a tablet-based system could be tailored specifically for people in prison, offering controlled access to services that support education, finance, and reintegration. This sparked ideas around how a digital service, designed with clear boundaries and purpose, could meaningfully benefit prisoners while fitting within the constraints of the prison environment.
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