Individual Retrospective: Milestone 5

[salihakalender]

Please share your individual retrospectives for this Milestone 5: Final Presentation

🧠 What you learned

✅ What went well

⚠️ What could be improved

[Mohamedmxz]

Mohamed Tilal:
🧠 What you learned
I learned new ways to make a good presentation and saw how important it is to show results in a way that keeps the audience interested. I also learned more about how websites work in both frontend and backend.

✅ What went well
We kept making the website better step by step.
Most of my work was on the presentation. It was not easy, but in the end it turned out to a good one.

⚠️ What could be improved
We started late in this milestone and that cost us some time, I would have wanted to start earlier. We also could have asked for feedback sooner to improve both the website and the presentation faster.

[ObayCipher]

🏁 Milestone Retrospective

🧠 What I Learned

Most of my reflections come from following the meeting minutes my team posted and the ongoing discussions we had in our WhatsApp group chat. Staying connected there helped me understand how the project evolved step by step. I learned how important it is to communicate consistently, share progress, and keep the momentum going. I also deepened my understanding of how different parts of the website link together, which made me feel more confident in contributing.

✅ What Went Well

Even though I couldn’t always be there in person, I made sure to keep in touch with the team through WhatsApp and by reviewing the shared notes. The website kept improving at every stage, and the collaboration showed how much we can achieve when everyone plays their part. I focused mainly on the presentation side, which started as a challenge but ended up being one of our strengths. I also feel glad that I was able to contribute and stay in sync with the team’s progress.

⚠️ What Could Be Improved

Because we started the milestone a bit late, we lost some valuable time that could have been used to polish the website and presentation even more. For the next milestone, I want to be more proactive in reaching out and joining in earlier, rather than waiting for updates. Also, I hope we can share feedback sooner so improvements can be made on the fly. Overall, I plan to stay more actively connected—not only through chat but also by contributing more directly to the work itself.

[SiSaR-Pal]

✅ What Went Well
We successfully built and launched our website as a communication artifact. The backend server worked well to fetch PM2.5 data and generate country-level insights (DALYs), making results understandable to non-technical users.

⚠️ What Was Challenging
Integrating backend and frontend took longer than expected. Handling missing/inconsistent API data and simplifying the explanation of DALYs for a broad audience were also difficult.

💡 What We Learned
We learned how to communicate uncertainty clearly, improve teamwork across technical and non-technical roles, and focus on user-friendly design rather than technical complexity.

🔄 What We’ll Improve Next
Allocate more time for integration and testing, strengthen documentation, and build more robust error handling. We will also seek earlier feedback from end-users to refine clarity.

🎯 Strategy vs. Board
✅ Expected: Building a website, backend-to-frontend flow, and task division worked as planned.
⚠️ Didn’t Work: Deployment and explaining DALYs simply were harder than expected.
➕ Added: Extra insights per country and API error handling.
➖ Removed: Advanced indicators/visualizations to keep the message clear and simple.

[linahKhayri]

Linah Khayri:

🧠 What you learned
We learned how to take complex research and turn it into a clear, engaging story, and also how to strike the right balance between technical details and accessibility for a broader audience.

✅ What went well
We made good progress on improving the website layout and refining the tool’s functionality, which made our presentation feel more polished.

⚠️ What could be improved
We could manage our time better by starting the slides earlier, giving us more space to polish. The voiceover and transitions also still need some fine-tuning to make the flow smoother.

[FalaqMajeed]

🧠 What we learned
We learned how to map our journey from the starting point to developing a tool that reflects our complex research into just 8 slides that could casually present our work. Along the way, we also gained new skills related to building and improving the website.
✅ What went well
The tool was successfully finalized, and the feedback Evan gave us on the website was really valuable. His input helped us make the site more informative and organized.
⚠️ What could be improved
We underestimated the effort required for the slides and their transcript. We didn’t anticipate how challenging it would be to prepare them within the limited time available.

[Adamx090]

🧠 What you learned

• How to display information at a high level
• How to emphasize the right information in a short timeframe

✅ What went well

• We improved the website and the tool that displays our model
• We brainstormed well and selected the right sections to include in the presentation

⚠️ What could be improved

• We could have distributed presentation roles earlier so everyone had more time to prepare their parts.
• We could have each brought forward draft slides to compare more ideas and create a more inclusive presentation.