HCDE Capstone (2025)Reflection
This capstone project was different from what I imagined at the beginning. I thought we might just design something simple or make a basic product, like a part of a real industrial project, but this project ended up being much more complex and meaningful. Our team created a high-fidelity dashboard called BlueBoard that helps decision-makers at health facilities and government agencies understand water-related disease risk and health infrastructure needs. Through this process, I learned a lot — not only about dashboard design and data visualization, but also about how real-world users think when they use tools like this.
At the beginning, I honestly felt a little nervous because I wasn’t sure how to work on such a large project with real stakeholders. But week by week, I gained more confidence, especially after doing interviews with stakeholders from PATH. I realized how important it is to listen to what users need, and not just design based on our own ideas. I also did a lot of research about water quality and disease risk in Ghana, and that helped me understand what kind of data is important and how users might want to explore it.
One thing I’m proud of is how I analyzed the interview transcripts and used the pain points to improve the design. Analyzing the interviews was a bit boring at times, but through this process, I understood the pain points users have. For example, they want to compare regions quickly, they need predictive tools to plan ahead, and they want clear summaries, not just charts. I used those pain points to guide the design goals and helped sketch the user flow. I think I helped bridge the gap between research and design pretty well.
If I could go back, I wish I had learned more about how to access clean, raw data for our visualizations earlier. It was hard to find regional water quality data with latitude and longitude info. That slowed us down a bit when making the charts on the dashboard. Also, maybe we could have done more user testing during the mid-fi phase, just to make sure every feature was easy to use and matched the user flow, the logic of how people actually use the dashboard.
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Working with my team was a great experience. Everyone was nice, and we all helped each other. I focused on user interviews, visual design, and filtering features. I also helped revise our interview questions and the explanation texts for our dashboard features. I think I contributed to making sure our design was easy to understand and based on real user needs.
I think our biggest success was making something that is both useful and clear. It’s easy for dashboards to be overwhelming or confusing, but I think our design keeps things simple and lets users explore data the way they want. One weak point might be the prediction feature — it looks good, but we didn’t have time to test the models deeply. I hope in the future we can work more with real data scientists to improve that part.
This project helped me understand how to work in real life. I now understand the full cycle from research to design to testing, and how each step matters. It also showed me how important it is to work with real users and organizations, not just imagine what people want. I think these lessons will be useful for my future career in product design.
Looking back at the HCDE learning goals, I feel like this project really matched them. I practiced human-centered thinking, worked in a cross-functional team, used tools to communicate ideas, and considered different aspects of how we handle data and how to design around it. This capstone made me feel more prepared for the kind of work I want to do after graduation.
Overall, I think this experience was valuable. It connected a lot of what I learned in HCDE to a real-world problem and gave me a chance to actually build something that could help people.
