NOS Maatje

Assignment

For this project, the client of our team was NOS, a foundation that provides media services in the form of news, events, and sports. The aim of NOS is to publish these media services objectively. After defining our target audience, which retirees (aged 68+), we refined our design question to “How can we best keep retirees (aged 68+) who are following the World Cup informed?” With our concept, we aimed to reduce feelings of loneliness. We found out that our target audience feels lonely because they feel unheard. They want to talk about the news but are afraid of starting a discussion.

Results

De NOS Maatje is a personal assistant in the form of a tablet. We opted to design something that is not only available on your phone or the internet. The assistant ensures that our target group is heard, reducing the feeling of loneliness. The assistant always responds and answers all questions related to the news. We also gave the option to choose between two assistants named Sanka (woman) and Bob (man). This way, we wanted to make the news delivered in a more personal manner and thus reduce the feeling of loneliness. You can also specify desired times for receiving news notifications.

My roles

During this period I held the role of team captain. I found this to be a challenge for myself, as I prefer to stand in the background in a team task. I am a person who likes to be in a group and tries to keep the atmosphere pleasant. I always try to help the people around me as much as possible, but despite being relatively extroverted, I find it difficult to say no. As a team captain, you have to take the lead in the team, sometimes be able to say no, and be able to address team members if the agreements are not being followed.

Learning experience

During this project, I learned to focus on the needs of the target audience. I conducted various types of interviews such as card sorting and ladder interviews. Through this, I realized that I really enjoy and find it interesting to conduct field research. Additionally, I gained experience as a team captain. I really enjoyed and learned a lot from this experience. I learned how to get a team excited and push them out of their comfort zone so that they can get more out of themselves.