Testing, 1 2 3...

After getting my buckle at Outdoor Innovations, I met with my mentor at the VPL. Richard kindly listened to my phase 3 presentation and gave me lots of valuable feedback and supported me for my position on my argument for some questions that have been brought up, mainly the issue about sticking with the English-only versionfor my resource guide as a starting point.

He shared with me his experience and the rationale behind sticking to the English-only service for the Skilled Immigrants InfoCentre. Two main reasons for the service to be English only are:

1. For immigrants to work, they need to be open to intergrate themselves into the official language they will be working in. Of course, there are information on helping the immigrants to get help and be trained with professional English classes.
2. The reality of funding and the budget is limited. In order to accommodate the various cultural groups, it is hard to get all the information translated into all possible languages for immigrants coming from different parts of the world.

Along with these rationale behind the Skilled Immigrant InfoCentre, my ultimate goal for this project is to encourage the immigrants to get out of their comfort zone and be introduced to other cultures and local activities.

The last thing I want to do is feed the immigrants information in their own language and keep them in their own cultural bubble. As long as the language and word choice on the guide is concise and clear, it would do the job.

I got to test my new prototype at 100% scale to a few immigrants who are in my targeted demographic. I quickly approched them after an info session was conducted on the 4th floor at the VPL in the afternoon (I know, Richard told me not to because the security might not be happy, but I took a chance anyways...and it was fine).

The immigrants who I spoke to were quite excited about the idea, and my argument for sticking to the English-only content is approved! They're able to read the English I've edited on the cards and they also really like the idea of being able to read some fun facts about other cultures on the back of the cards.

One thing Magnes, a pharmicist from Iran (on of the people I tested my prototype on) said that she actually likes the fact that this information is provided in simple and straigh-forward English because she gains a sense of accomplishment to be able to read something in her second language and feels like she's learning but not overwhelmed. That was really nice and reassuring to hear.

Having said that, I will intergrate translations for more content-heavy materials to be distributed later on in various cultural centres or public immigrant service facilities.