Oslo Science Park, 2018. At NTNU, I realized that I would like to create something of my own, and searched out "Insj UiO", which is the University of Oslo accelerator, where I pitched my idea to Insj Head Coach Sotirios Tsolanta. I got the opportunity to join the Insj Batch of 2018-2019, that resulted in user testing experience, service design interviewing, four failed prototypes, a broken partnership and luckily a larger network. It was my first venture into the Entepreneurial mindspace, and it is still on going on. On the frontpage, you may see the village of Undredal, where I live and work this summer, developing my business in tourism.
Starting out in UX, I found this resource to be very helpful, with great articles, and interesting courses. I will tell you an anecdote of this experience. Ever curious, and little patience, I like to explore what happens when you push buttons. In the webpage of Interaction Design Foundation, I pushed a button to become "Local leader of IDF Oslo." Suddenly I was the king over peasants, with a badge stating that I was a "leader". Having absolutely no experience at all, I quickly wanted to undo this action. Only to realize that it was actually undoable, and thereby discovering somewhat of a "dark pattern" in the Interaction design foundation website! How ironic! I guess you must be some level of UX-nerd to find this amusing. I had to contact the international leader and send many emails to eventually undo this action. It was like trying to quit the gym in that Friends episode, or even worse, deleting your amazon.com account. Read more about #darkpatterns at www.darkpatterns.org, which is an interest of mine. Anyways, IDF and I are still friends, and I would recommend their service.
My preferred field of specialty is service design. I am very interested in platforms, and the sharing economy. I have utilized platforms such as Uber and AirBnB as a user and as a creator, in order to make money and gain experience as a user at the same time. Pictured above is view to the mountain of my the primitive farm-hut which I renovated and started renting out on airbnb. It is virtually fully booked for the summer of 2019, and I have #superhost status. Please see and rent it here!
First ventures into #UX on a Masters level, the course IMT4309 at NTNU. Pictured above is a simply heuristic checklist and my personal color-scheme for evaluating a web-page. It looks mess and basic, but it did result in the grade A in the end.
Early hierarchical task analysis for our project in IMT4309, NTNU, 2018. where we were to make a prototype of on functional task in an online LMS. We chose the task of handing in an delivery, and prototyped the task in Adobe XD. We were a two-person group, and while I wrote the report, my fellow student is a graphic designer, and did the work on the prototype. The prototype was based on a heuristic evaluation of existing solution. We did user testing with screen captures, iterated, and made another prototype. We did receive an "A" in this part of the introductory course in the group section part of the NTNU course IMT4309.
The soundbite above is me handing in an assignment in the course in User-Centerd Information Architecture. I did skim read through the famous polar bear book, but clearly not enough, and I received a "D" in this subject.
My first professional job as related to service design, hereunder data gathering, was as a consultant for ILS, more specifically the project TIMSS 2019. We travelled around to different schools, setting up hundreds of laptops with individual the test materials and usbs. It was a valuable experience of in field research, which I am grateful for.
The five pictures above are the visual summary of my first ever academic experience with entrepreneurship and service design, the subject ENT1000, where me and some others decided to create a dog-walking service, an "uber for dog walking" was the slogan of ur elevator pitch. As you can see below, with a quite optimistic evaluation of total market size! We also did dog-walking to prototype the experience and service. Apparently, there are many popular dog-walking services in the sharing economy now. Its quite funny to realize that your idea is far from unique, and that you are thinking just the same as everyone else. It is all about the will to pursue the ideas with power that prevails.
Pictured above is an excerpt of a bit more sophisticated prototype, which I made as a functioning website in Wix. It is quite bad to be honest, and I would never publish it, but it has some potential. I created personas loosely based on real people, trying to capture a broad, but narrow user field. Making use of contra intuitive semiotics, which is a phrase I invented, examplified for example by the hijab-clad girl which enjoys slalom skiing and Arduino. Is it political correctness? Well, I dont know, but it certainly conveys brand values and diversity. Is that not what the corporate stakeholders would want?
Still, in my short time dabbling in Service Design, the professional project that has taught me most about empathizing and communication, is actually working as a teacher for refugees trying to learn Norwegian. This is absolutely the most rewarding thing I have ever done while making money. You go into work feeling bad, and you leave work feeling energized, because of all the funny, crazy interactions that happen. Refugees in Norway face many serious issues, and it feels very good to be a positive person in their life, making them laugh in a shitty situation. I said that I will design solutions for them making life easier, because it is not very easy to understand norwegian bureaucracy for refugees. Hope I can do that! This will definitely make me a better designer, being in a state of contextual inquiry every day, participating. The beautiful thing about UX design is that you dont have to be a genius Jonathan Ive-character to do it. One can simply make use of design thinking in all aspects of everyday life to add value to yourself and others! For instance, I taught a afghani boy who cant read to do a SWOT analysis, deciding on whether or not to prioritizing to learn norwegian over seeing his girlfriend and working at the local kebab place!
To sum up, I don`t have a lot of experience, but I would be absolutely delighted and honored if you would consider me for ELISAVA exchange program. Kindest regards, Haakon Christian Borlaug.
