Mandate
Members of Team C have come together in hopes of making fitness more readily accessible. We hope to do this by modifying digital platforms such as a mobile application to incorporate exercises for those with physiological limitations and constraints. We have come together to understand how paraplegic wheelchair users might lead a more physically active lifestyle with the support of a mobile application.
Mission Statement
It is important that we encourage those with non-typical physiology to live a healthy lifestyle, regardless of their circumstances. We strongly believe that exercise should not be seen as only for able-bodied people. When we incorporate underrepresented needs in the development of tools and products, we can develop tools that benefit both the “average” and the “non-average” individual. Thus, the utility/benefit extracted by everyone is greater - in part and in whole - when all needs are represented and actively met. We are accountable to furthering the frontier that makes digital platforms more accessible.
Statement of Values & Beliefs
Our values and beliefs are honesty, open-mindedness, understanding, support, dependability, and respect. We do our best to give our full attention to anyone who may be so inclined to speak and discuss their ideas.
Open-mindedness is a crucial team value because our project timeline consists of phases that require those of particular skills and experiences to lead the phase.
Honesty and understanding is also an important team value because we rely on the expertise of our team members and we often need to bridge and reconcile our divergent expertise knowledge. We are learning to leverage each other’s expertise along the way.
Accessibility & Inclusivity Statement
We recognize each other’s expertise. We give those who have more knowledge and experience that pertains to a particular phase to lead the phase. We also give space to those who are not leading to contribute their ideas, as their opinions are equally as valuable and important. We do our best to go around the room to inquire about other team members’ thoughts as well.
Care Statement
We regularly propose meeting times that work with everyone in the team. We recognize that our team members have extra-curricular activities and obligations outside of school. We do our best to understand everyone’s obligations and interests outside of class. We are kind when it comes to other course obligations and exam seasons.
Roles & Responsibilities
Researchers: Emily, Foram, Sonika, Tharanya, Justina (Coordinator)
Designer/Programmer: Gbemisola, Audrey
Foram, Sonika, Tharanya, and Emily specialize in detail-orientedness and organization. Moreover, they specialize in Kinesiology, Psychology, and Environmental studies. Therefore, they are our Lead Researchers. As a result, Foram, Sonika, Tharanya, and Emily will spearhead the research phase. Justina majors in Psychology and excels in networking. Thus, Justina will be our Researcher/Research Coordinator. Justina will spearhead the communications side of the research phase of the project. Moreover, Gbemi majors in Computer Science. Gbemi’s background in programming and her aptitude in detail-orientedness and creativity makes Gbemi perfect as our Lead Programmer. Finally, Audrey excels as an opposer and creative thinker. With her expertise in UI/UX Design and prior work experiences in startups, Audrey is our Product Designer.
Communication
The team has a weekly scheduled meeting set to meet every Sunday and Thursday to discuss and communicate our weekly agenda and check up on eachother and our individual progress. We decided to have two meeting slots per week and team members were given the option to attend whichever slot was more convenient for each member. The option to attend both meetings was also made available for those who were able to attend both. We also use Google Sheets as a tool to assign, regulate, check up on our group work, which is especially useful when there are multiple assignments and tasks the team is working on. Google Sheets is updated regularly by team members. Specific to the engineering/development side of the project, Notion is used as a project and information hub. Additionally, we also have a separate WhatsApp group chat where we discuss any small ideas or conflicts that occur as we progress through our research project.
Material & Data Storage
We have a Google Drive that is utilized to store all our materials and data. This shared Google Drive comprises sub- categories of our research work and the progress we have made so far- which is always kept very organized. The Google Drive also stores all previous research portfolios and assignments as well.
Barriers & Limitations
Throughout the research project, here are a few of the barriers and limitations that the team has encountered:
Not having enough participants for our focus group and survey.
Waiting for ethics approval.
Time constraints (not enough time for formal interviews, coding and designing).
Scope being too big.
Resources
We are very fortunate to have multiple resources to guide us whenever it's needed.
We have multiple mentors and members of the teaching team who are experts at what they do.
We also have access to fundings for our project.
We have access to the York University database for academic journals and articles- needed to find research about the paraplegic wheelchair user community which will be required for our application.
Our team members are from different backgrounds which is an extremely useful resource since we have expertise and perspectives from various different occupations.