Presentations and loopy flatmates.

Due to extreme stress and tiredness, my flatmate has lost her brain. We have discussed making the kettle work by remote control, and I beat her to saying "I need to pee". She is currently worried about exploding. But is not moving until the tea is finished (which was made via physical labour.)

In more interesting news, I have finally transcribed (?) a couple of my interviews for my dissertation, and have come to the realization that I'm likely to have over 20,000 words of research for this dissertation. I don't think this is a good thing. Although it will be when I pull it off.

I have my presentation tomorrow for my project plan / proposal. From speaking to everyone else who presented on Monday, I suspect I'll get an 'amber' light: mostly because my output of the communication concept is really unknown until I have 'completed' my research... but I am well focussed in all other aspects, so this doesn't really worry me.

What was really interesting was my interview with a principal speech therapist yesterday. She forms an integral part of a regional service that identifies, and has budget for, augmented and alternative communication devices for people with communication disabilities. (Obviously dead handy for my dissertation!) She was responsible for getting the touchscreen voice synthesizer into my Mum's hands, and it was great to have the chance to understand the way the service works. My initial opinion is that we are very lucky to have this service. Ideally there needs to be more budget so that perhaps there could be more time spent on the interim stages between clear speech and unintelligible. When it does come to unintelligible speech however, the service seems to be doing everything it can to maintain an (if indirect) dialogue between user and designer. This is something that really tied in with the identification of 'path to market' struggles by my design interviewee, so woohoo! This thing might get written!

Later.