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Assignments

INFO-440: Information System Design
Autumn 2002
B.S. Informatics
Information School
University of Washington

website: http://courses.washington.edu/i440a

Contents

• Overview
• Deliverable Guidelines
• Standard cover sheet
• Standard formatting
• Grading guidelines
• Late policy
• Re-grading policy
• Design Exercises
• A1: Studying artifacts
• A2: Organizing facts and deriving concepts (group project)
• A3: Conceptual modeling and system specification
• A4: Usability assessment
• Interactive Project Prototype
• P1: Project proposal
• P2: User needs and wants
• P3: The prototype
• P4: Discussion
• Tips
• Weekly quizzes
• Participation

Overview

Assignment Percent of
final Grade    		Due
Date
Design exercise 1 10 9 Oct
Quiz 1 5 16 Oct
Design exercise 2 10 23 Oct
Interactive prototype proposal    - 28 Oct
Quiz 25 6 Nov
Design exercise 310 11 Nov
Quiz 3 5 25 Nov
Design exercise 410 4 Dec
Quiz 45 9 Dec
Interactive prototype * 30 13 Dec, 12:30pm
Participation 10

*Checkpoint deliverables are due between 28 Oct and 13 Dec.

The four design exercises and the prototyping project, worth 70% percent of your grade, will assess your ability to employ methods of design to solve problems.

The four quizzes, worth 20%, will assess your ability to recall facts and principles about information system design and to reason analytically about their application. The questions in the quizzes will take various formats, including short-answer, essay, and multiple-choice. To do well on the quizzes you will need to keep up with readings and attend class.

Receiving full marks for participation should be easy — see below.

You should expect to work between 10hr and 15hr per week outside of class. Some students may choose to spen more time on this work because of the broad scope for the exercises and prototyping project. Please be careful if you find yourself spending more time than 15hr/week — obviously, this is only one of several classes that you are taking.

Deliverable guidelines

Each of the four Design Assignments, and the Prototyping Project, has Deliverable Guidelines. It is imperative that you follow these guidelines.

The Deliverable Guidelines always include page limits. Pay attention to them. Material beyond the limits will not be read.

Every attempt will be made to grade and return your work within ten days.

Your work should be concise and logical. Aim for simplicity and clarity in your written and visual communication. While beautifully executed work will not necessarily gain points, sloppy work will lose points.

The work you produce in this class belongs to you. From time to time, the instructor may want to use your work in other courses or in research. If this is the case, the instructor will seek to ask your permission and cite you appropriately.

Standard cover sheet

To protect your privacy when exercises are returned and to facilitate communication, submitted work must have a cover sheet. The cover sheet must include the following information and be formatted nicely:
  • Course name
  • Quarter, program, department, and university
  • Assignment name
  • Your name and e-mail address
  • A date
  • A web site address (if relevant).

Staple the exercise pages to the cover sheet.

See: Cover Sheet Template [WORD]

Standard formatting

Unless the Deliverable Guidelines state otherwise, all written work must conform to these standards:
Property Setting
Line spacing 1.5
Top margins 1"
Left/right margins   1.25"
Font 12 pt Serif

Note: You may use any appropriate font size and style for headings, figures, charts, etc.

Grading guidelines

Work in this course will be graded to criteria. In other words, you won't be graded on a curve.

Each of the exercises is designed to test your achievement against certain learning objectives. Different exercises touch upon different learning objectives.

Work of A (3.9 - 4.0) and B (3.2 - 3.4) quality, for example, can be described as follows:

A grade (3.9-4.0): Superior performance in all aspects of the course with work exemplifying the highest quality. Unquestionably prepared for subsequent courses in field.

B grade (3.2-3.4): High quality performance in all or most aspects of the course. Very good chance of success in subsequent courses in field.

For additional information on the meaning of grades, please see these general grading guidelines.

Late policy

Work that is handed in late is penalized for three reasons. First, to be fair, all students should be given the same time limits. Second, if you spend too much time on one assignment, it is quite likely that you will have insufficient time to spend on subsequent assignments. Third, in a competitive marketplace your company depends on you to beat deadlines. Unfortunately, rarely is there sufficient time.

  1. Unless the Deliverable Guidelines state otherwise, assignments are due at the beginning of class, printed on paper.

  2. If you will miss the deadline, you should inform the instructor as soon as you can, indicating when you will submit the work. The instructor will try to accommodate your needs. You should use this clause only for extraordinary personal reasons.

  3. It is at the instructor's discretion to accept late work or assign late penalties (see 2 above). For any late assignment, 10% will be taken off your work per day. After five days, your work will not be accepted. (A day is defined as a 24 hour period. To be clear, weekends count as two days.)

  4. Late work must be handed to the instructor or teaching assistant in person. You are advised to make an appointment for submitting work. You may also be able to hand work in at the front desk of the Information School and at student services but this cannot be guaranteed.

If you miss a quiz, you will receive zero. To calculate your overall grade, your lowest quiz score with be thrown out and the three remaining scores averaged.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Interactive Prototyping Project MUST be submitted on time. Late projects will not be graded.

Re-grading policy

To have work re-graded, you must submit a Re-grade Request within five days of when your work was returned. The request must be a single piece of paper, containing the following information:

  • Re-grade Request
  • The information contained on the standard cover sheet
  • An explanation for why you believe you deserve a higher grade.

The instructor, possibly in collaboration with the teaching assistant, will consider your request. If the instructor is convinced by your argument, your work will be re-graded. If not, the instructor will send you e-mail explaining why. No re-grades will be considered for late work.

Design exercises

There are four design exercises in this course, each worth 10 points. With the exception of A2, all exercises must be completed individually. The exercises:

A1: Studying artifacts
A2: Organizing facts and deriving concepts (group project)
A3: Conceptual modeling and system specification
A4: Usability assessment

A1: Studying artifacts

Due: 9 Oct; Worth: 10%

This assignment is divided into two parts. You will need to read:

Norman, D. (1990). Chapter 1: The psychopathology of everyday things (pp. 1-33). Design of Everyday Things. New York: Doubleday.

Learning objectives

  • Gather useful information about users and activities through observation or systematic inquiry
  • Define and discuss the following vocabulary: Conceptual model, affordances, visibility of function, natural mappings, constraints, feedback, and breakdown. Discuss Norman's model of human action
  • Develop skills in inspecting artifacts and critically thinking about the use of artifacts
  • Analyze the virtues of an artifact using this vocabulary.

Part I

Go into any setting where people work, play or learn. Examples include: A clothes shop, a library, a museum, an office cubicle, a playground, etc. Observe how people operate in the setting and identify an artifact that causes people to experience a breakdown. (You should expect to spend around 15min observing a setting.)

A breakdown is sudden change in activity, where people pause, become aware that something is amiss, and seek to adapt. Breakdowns are unexpected. Some example breakdowns at a gas station would be

  • Pushing a lever that should be pulled
  • Pressing instructions for using the pump rather than the button that turns the pump on
  • Repeatedly squeezing the lever but being unable to understand why gas does not flow.
Ideally, you should observe a person experience such a breakdown. Alternatively, you might find evidence that many people have encountered a breakdown but not actually see the breakdown yourself. An example of this would be a set of instructions for how to operate a water fountain. If there are lengthy instructions chances are there is something wrong with the design of the tap.

Now do the following:

  1. Decide on a name for the breakdown and a brief description
  2. Using a photograph or sketch, describe what you saw and how the breakdown occurred
  3. Explain the underlying reason for the breakdown
  4. Propose a solution that would prevent the breakdown from occurring in the first place.

Side note. Within the user-centered design community, many people seek out and document such breakdowns. See, for example, the Interface Hall of Shame.

Somewhat related to this problem are those who explore useless inventions with the Japanese art form known as Chindogu. See, for example, this noodle fan.

Part II

Consult a book, magazine, or website and select an object that is used by someone who is quite different than you. Perhaps the person is very young or very old. Perhaps the person's occupation is unfamiliar to you. Perhaps the person lived hundreds of years ago or perhaps the person is a science fiction character.

Now, do the following:

  1. Using a photograph or sketch, describe the person and the object
  2. Describe two or three tasks that can be completed with the object
  3. Describe five or more features that could be added to the object
  4. What happens to the object when features are added?
Side note. Industrial designers spend a tremendous amount of time studying the small details of products. See, for example, the effort that Metaphase Design spent on the redesign of the Gatorade bottle. Notice how the bottle is deconstructed visually and in words. You might organize your presentation in a similar fashion.

Deliverable guidelines

The deliverable is a PowerPoint presentation consisting of 7 slides plus the standard cover sheet. You should submit the presentation on paper.

The first slide should state the problem you are solving and give an outline of the presentation. The next three slides must be used for part I. The final three slides must be used for part II.

Assume that the presentation is designed for a small group of your peers. Thus, it is acceptable to create slides with relatively high information density. In other words, 7-10 bullet points, or equivalent, per slide are acceptable.

A2: Organizing facts and deriving concepts

Due: Oct 23; Worth 10%; A team project (all members receive same grade)

When working on a large design problem, you will encounter a huge number of relevant facts, concepts and ideas. This data comes from observing work settings, interviewing people, and studying work artifacts. Some ideas will overlap exactly and be named the same thing. Other ideas will overlap significantly but be named differently. Some ideas will be named the same but actually stand for completely different underlying concepts. Other ideas will be contradictory. Getting to a common vocabulary, and a common view, can be extraordinarily difficult.

In this group assignment you will develop skills in organizing ideas and deriving higher order concepts using a design method called affinity diagrams. This is a group assignment.

For background reading, turn to the section on affinity diagrams in Contextual Design by H. Beyer and K. Holtzblatt (pp. 154-163). You may also want to seek out examples from the Web, including

Learning objectives

  • Organize information about users into useful summaries
  • Develop an appreciation for the impact of design on society
  • Practice skills in group problem solving and brainstorming
  • Develop skills in analyzing and organizing a large body of design information using affinity diagrams.

The challenge

CNN asked its audience to submit proposals for what should be built at the World Trade Center site in New York. Hundreds of people have submitted proposals. Each proposal consists of a picture, sketch, or diagram and a short written description explaining the vision. You can find the proposals here:

Some of the proposals are very sophisticated — perhaps done by architects. Other proposals are not particularly refined but the underlying ideas may be just as relevant. All of the proposals are touching. How might this material be summarized? What common options are being proposed and why? What values do people believe are important?

Deciding on a design approach for the Word Trade Center is profoundly complex in every imaginable way. Even on small projects, however, the challenge of identifying and summarizing different points of view is ever present.

Steps to follow

You should follow the following steps:
  1. Build a team. Ideally, your team should consist of three members. If necessary, you may have a team of four. Be sure, however, that your individual schedules allow you to meet several times. You should decide on a name for you team. [Name of team and team members is due Oct 9.]

  2. Explore. You will be given an URL to twenty-four proposals at the CNN site. Each team will receive a different URL to a list of proposals.

  3. Identify. Divide the proposals amongst your team members. Each team member, working independently, should then study the proposals and extract concepts from them. The concepts should be written down on note cards. At this stage, the more note cards the better.

  4. Organize. Come together as a team and pool all your note cards. Now, working at a whiteboard, wall, or large table organize the cards into categories. There should be no more than four cards in any group. Try to find a compact but complete representation for all your ideas. If you have a pile of note cards in an 'other' category, you are not done!

  5. Document. As a team, discuss how you will document your findings in the deliverable.

To execute these steps efficiently, you should pause and

  1. Decide what role each of you will play
  2. Outline a schedule for completing the steps.

Deliverable guidelines

The deliverable is a small web site.

The audience of the web site is the same audience as the CNN site. This last statement begs a question, and your team should answer it before proceeding too far. Side note: What design method might help you with this task?

The web site must include the following information:

  1. Cover information. Include the usual information. This information need not be on the Home Page for your web site. In fact, keeping your audience in mind, it probably shouldn't be on the home page. Of course, a link to the cover page should be available.

  2. Summary. Describe the objective of this project and describe your major findings.

  3. Methodology. Summarize the methodology enough detail that someone else could repeat your process. Comment on what the process felt like and the stumbling blocks you encountered as a team and how you overcame them. If possible, take a couple of photographs of your team and your note cards, in various states of organization, and use these materials to document your methodology. Finally, it will likely be helpful to include examples, and citations, of the proposals that you analyzed.

  4. Taxonomy. Present a classification of the ideas you extracted from the proposals. The classification should distinguish the ideas you extracted from the categories that you, as a team, invented.

  5. Social issues. List five social issues and design options for addressing those issues. Show that these issues and options come from the design proposals. The issues should not be based on your opinions or other readings.

How you organize the site is up to you. As usual, simplicity and clarity are key objectives. The site should consist of only a few pages — certainly fewer than 10.

Logistics for submitting your site will be covered in class.

Side note. If there is time and interest we, as a class, might discuss how the individual team classifications could be combined into a single point of view. Such an aggregate classification might be a valuable contribution to the national conversation about the World Trade Center. Speak up if you are interested.

A3: Conceptual modeling and system specification

Due: 13 Nov; Worth 10%

This assignment consists of three parts.

The Web contains a fair number of sites that are known as personalization sites. Examples include www.excite.com, my.yahoo.com, and my.lycos.com. At such sites, people can customize information feeds and create organized information views.

In this assignment, you will explore how visual notations can be used to represent users and systems. To get started, you will have to sign-up for My Yahoo and explore it.

Learning objectives

  • Create descriptions of user needs using scenarios of use
  • Create a conceptual model for a target system
  • Create specifications for the structure of an information system and user flow through the system (hierarchical and sequential information structures)
  • Develop an appreciation for how visual notations can be used to represent users and specific systems
  • Discuss the difference between Small Information Architecture and Big Information Architecture.

Part I

Consider the users and activities at personalization sites. Create one use scenario.

Part II

Create a conceptual model for my.yahoo.com, represented as a diagram. Now, answer these questions:

  • What metaphors does My Yahoo employ? How successful are these metaphors? That is, where do they help understanding and where do they interfere with learning?

  • Does the conceptual model support the scenario? Why or why not?

  • Propose a method for investigating how people learn this conceptual model and how closely a person's actual mental model matches the conceptual model.

Part III

Examine the structural organization of my.yahoo.com. What are the major components of the site? What are the whole-part relationships between the components? Answer these questions by drawing a diagram.

Examine the sign-up process. What are the major steps? What e-mail is sent to a new subscriber? What triggers the sending of this e-mail? Answer these questions by drawing a diagram.

Side note: Examining these two aspects of my.yahoo., especially the sign-up process, will reveal an enormous number of special cases and dry detail. You will have to decide what is the most important information to show and invent abstractions that hide some of the less important detail.

Deliverable guidelines

Please follow the standard formatting guidelines and include the standard cover sheet. Here are some additional guidelines:
  1. Part I. Use no more than one page. Be sure to create a meaningful and memorable name for the scenario.

  2. Part II. Use no more than two pages to illustrate the conceptual model. Include a caption, and as necessary, employ call-outs to highlight important features of your diagram.

    Use no more than two pages to discuss the conceptual model. In the discussion, include the following sections: Metaphors in My Yahoo, Support for personalization scenarios at My Yahoo, and Mental models for personalization.

  3. Part III. Use no more than three pages. Include a caption, and as necessary, employ call-outs to highlight important features of your diagram.
Side note: When creating the diagrams, you might find it helpful to print in landscape mode. Another idea is to tape the pages together to create a larger surface.

A4: Usability evaluation

Due: Dec 4; Worth 10%

There are many ways to determine when and where a particular movie is playing. You can ask a friend or walk to your local theatre. You can turn to a newspaper. You can use your WAP enabled cell phone to surf to the information or you can call the theatre. You might even turn to the fridge because you are in the habit of clipping and taping schedules. For each of these modes of access, the goal is the same but the tasks and actions are different. Perhaps over time people adapt to the method that is the most efficient. How can we study such rich activity quickly?

In this assignment, you will explore methods for studying goal completion. The assignment is divided into four parts.

Note: Before you begin this assignment, these parameters need to be set:

  1. Movie sites to investigate (called www.somemoviesite.com below)
  2. Names of movies (called M below)
  3. Locations for watching the movies (called L below)
  4. Times for watching the movies (called T blow)
  5. Methods for accessing movie information (e.g., newspaper, web, phone, etc.)
As a class, we will set these parameters well before the assignment is due. We will divide the class into groups and each group will be assigned a different set of values for these parameters.

Learning objectives

  • Develop skills in task analyses, heuristic evaluations, and usability evaluations.
  • Develop an appreciation for how empirical data can be used to direct design innovation and improvement
  • Discuss the role for design-centered empirical research.

Part I

Using Neilsen's guidelines, carry out a heuristic evaluation of the movie site, M.

Part II

Suppose you are sitting on your couch and you decide "I want to go to a movie with my friend Joe". Develop a detailed task analysis for solving this goal. The goal is satisfied when you are sitting with Joe in the theatre.

Part III

Estimate the time it takes to determine when and where a movie is playing. Carry out estimates using two methods. In class, we will decide on the methods and who will collect data for what method.

Your raw data should look something like this (times are random guess work):

User-ID Trial Method Time (seconds)
dhendry 1 phone 234
dhendry 2 phone 212
dhendry 1 movies.yahoo.com    084
dhendry 2 movies.yahoo.com 054

Part IV

Carry out a very simple empirical evaluation (usability test), following these steps:
  1. Recruit two friends or family members who know nothing about usability or experimental psychology. Ask your participants to sign the informed consent form

  2. Separately, invite each participant to sit in front of a computer. Explain that you wish to observe them working on the Internet. Instruct each participant to think-aloud. Your job is to sit back, watch, listen and be quiet. (We will discuss the details, which are actually quite intricate, in class.)

  3. Give each participant the goal:
    Find the playing times for movie M at location L around the following time, T. You should begin at www.somemoviesite.com. Complete this goal as efficiently as you can. [Note: As a class, we will decide on values for these parameters.]
  4. Time how long it takes the participate to complete the goal

  5. Repeat this for each for movie M2, keeping track of the times and any breakdowns that occurred.
Now, answer the following questions:
  1. Draw a graph of the data that reveals as much information as possible. You should include data collected in Part III. This can easily be accomplished in Microsoft Excel. Studying your data, what conjectures about task completion times can you make from this simple experiment?

  2. List any breakdowns that you observed when people completed this task. Explain these breakdowns in words and with a picture if that is helpful. Give a recommendation on how the problem can be fixed.

Deliverable guidelines

  1. You have a maximum of seven pages to write a report (plus the cover sheet, the appendix, and references).

  2. Include a report title and a table of contents

  3. The report should include the following sections:
    Executive summary
    A maximum of two hundred words on what you did and what you learned
    The objective
    Propose an objective for this assignment
    Heuristic evaluation
    Present the heuristic evaluation
    Task analysis
    Present the task analysis
    The participants
    Describe briefly who the participants were
    The task
    Describe the goal that you gave the participants and how you timed them
    Findings
    Include the graph here, a discussion of it, and your conjectures about task completion times
    Issues and recommendations
    List a maximum of three issues that you discovered and your recommendation for solving the issues
    Discussion of methods  
    Discuss what it was like to observe the users. Did anything surprise you? Did they change your understanding of the goal and tasks? How did the usability evaluation compare to the heuristic evaluation?
    References
    If required
    Appendix A
    Include a table showing the raw data that you collected. The table should have four columns: Participant-ID, Trial, Method, and Time.
  4. Post the raw data (same as Appendix A) and your issues list in your journal. In class we will summarize the raw data and issue lists to develop a comprehensive understanding of finding the goal: Find movie times.

Interactive Prototype

Final Project Due: Dec 13 or earlier; Worth 30%

Notes:

  1. Incremental deliverables are due throughout the quarter
  2. No late projects accepted.

In this quarter-long project, you will create an interactive prototype by driving your own process. Within certain bounds, you will need to decide on appropriate design methods and a methodology.

Your objective is to create an innovative, elegant prototype. Throughout your process challenge yourself to involve users and allow users to inform and shape your thinking.

Learning objectives

  • Demonstrate skills in low-fidelity prototyping and participatory design
  • Employ a full range of design methods to solve moderately complex problem
  • After the project, show how your thinking progressed.

Design brief

You have been contracted by an Advanced Concept Group at a fortune 500 company. Your client requests a vision for the future and a prototype that makes the vision real. You are to design a user interface for a tablet computer. Your invention must do the following:
  • Explain a dynamic process.

You are to define a problem and propose a general solution. To make your solution tangible, you are to create a prototype illustrating your vision. While the prototype must be interactive, it might be constructed with paper or cardboard.

ACG is particularly interested in: How users participated in the creation of the prototype. Thus, you must find innovative ways of bringing users into your design process. ACG is not interested in a usability evaluation.

Technical bounds

Your design should fall within the spirit of these guidelines:
Display
Must have a display. The display can be as large as 1024 x 1024 pixels or smaller. The display has 32 bit color.
Storage
Can use up to 0.5 GB of RAM and 20 GB of persistent data storage. Can read/write CDs.
Form
Can take any form. It might look like at CD player, an etch-o-sketch, or whatever form makes the most sense. People must be able to easily handle it within its intended environment.
Input devices
Can have any kind of input device, including domain-specific input devices (e.g, trackball, keyboard, stylus, sensors such as a thermometer, a video camera, etc.). Voice recognition, however, can not be used.
Connectivity
Can connect to the Internet at 24K bps in an unreliable fashion (like a cell phone). Can be connected to a local area network and transfer data at much higher rates (100Mbps).
You can learn more about Tablet Computers at infocater.com.

Examples

Assume the Tablet Computer is situated in an environment where people need to study or examine a process. Choose one of these five problems:

  1. You are with a couple friends, practicing some swing dance moves. How could the Tablet Computer teach dance skills?

  2. You are walking in the forest. You hear an unfamiliar bird call. How could the Table Computer help you identify the bird and explain the eco-system that you find yourself in?

  3. The mountain snow pack changes throughout the seasons. How could the Tablet Computer explain these processes to backcountry skiers who are receiving avalanche safety training?

  4. You are on an outing with you family and decide to take some photographs with your camera. How could the Tablet Computer help?

  5. The heart is a complex organ. How might the Tablet Computer be used by a cardiologist to explain newly diagnosed conditions to patients?

Obviously, you should choose a problem that interests you. As well, you should have access to target users (e.g., swing dancer, school kid, backcountry skier, etc.).

Deliverables

The Interactive Prototype is due at the end of the quarter. It is up to you to drive the design process. To help you manage your time, however, the project has been broken up into four deliverables.

You must document your progress on meeting these deliverables in an online journal (see below). Periodically, your journal will be inspected and feedback given to you.

P1: Project proposal
  • Objective: Outline of the problem you are going to solve and how you are to solve it.
  • Structure: Must include these sections in this order:
    1. Vision. A description of the central hook of the prototype.
    2. Background. A general discussion of the problem and the use setting.
    3. Stakeholders. A description of who the users are and how they relate to each other.
    4. Social impact statement. A list of the possible social and ethical issues that the system may cause, either directly or indirectly, and recommendations for addressing them.
    5. Timetable. An outline of project deliverables and dates.
  • Cover sheet: Include the usual information on the coversheet plus the URL to your journal.
  • Size limits: Three pages (plus cover sheet).
  • Due: 28 Oct. The project proposal will be graded as either satisfactory or revise. Details will be explained in class. Late policies apply!

P2: User needs and wants
  • Objective: Describe the user needs.
  • Structure: Must include these sections in this order:
    1. Use scenarios. Two scenarios that illustrate how the prototype will be used.
    2. Task analysis. A representation of two goals and associated tasks.
    3. Competitive analysis. A review of one existing interface that solves a similar problem.
    4. Requirements. A list of 3 to 5 requirements that the prototype will fulfill.
  • Size limits: Five pages.
  • Due: Draft in journal by 11 Nov.

P3: The prototype
  • Objective: Create a prototype that satisfies the user needs and wants. Involve at least two users in your process.
  • Format: The prototype must be low-fidelity. It must be created in one of these four formats: a) Paper or cardboard; b) PowerPoint; c) VISO; or d) clickable images on HTML pages. If you would like to use another prototyping technology such as flash, please speak to the instructor. You should not create 'dummy HTML pages' . You should not use server-side technology, such as ASP pages and you definitely should not build an application in Java or other programming language.
  • Supporting materials: Your prototype should have supporting materials such as a conceptual model; a timeline of your ideas, sketches, and iterations; a commentary from users, etc. You will need to decide on what supporting materials are appropriate
  • Size limits: Your prototype will have more than three screens but less than ten. Of course, the screens may contain various interactive elements. Supporting material will be the equivalent of three pages but can be in HTML or other media. You should cite entries in your journal.
  • Due: Draft in journal by 25 Nov.

P4: Discussion
  • Objective: Reflect upon your design effort
  • Structure: Must include these sections in this order:
    1. Process: Strengths and weaknesses- Discuss how your development process worked. What worked well? What would you do differently?
    2. User involvement. Discuss how users helped shape your prototype and what you learned from users.
    3. Next steps. Given more time, what would you do next to your prototype
  • Size limits: 4 pages.

Final packaging: The final report should consist of a cover sheet, title page, table of contents, and the above four deliverables. Details for submitting the prototypes will be discussed in class.

The Journal

You must track your progress on this project with a simple journal. Between week 4 and the week 10 your journal will be inspected two or three times and comments sent to you by e-mail.

You can use the journal for various purposes. The key idea, however, is to show how your work is progressing. Here are some suggestions:

  • Record your plans and mark your progress
  • Document your ideas and reflections
  • Record links to useful web sites and other material
  • Show the versions of your prototypes
  • Document things you've learned from users.

You should create your journal using the Catalyst Portfolio tool. A tutorial on how use this tool will be given at one of the labs. In the meantime, you can learn more here:

To ensure a degree of privacy, you should locate your journal in a directory, with a password-like name, such as 'sbxfgde':

  • http://portfolio.washington.edu/your_name/sbxfgde/

Tips

  • Get started early. The project is not due until the end of the quarter but you should make progress on it throughout the quarter. Lab time will be used to review your prototypes and to discuss design approaches. As well, take advantage of the Teaching Assistant advising hours. Plan to build prototypes earlier rather than later.

  • Narrow the problem. One challenge for this project is to narrow your chosen problem. You are aiming for a small, elegant prototype. A poor problem would be:
    An application that explains how the heart works
    That would be too big because the heart is very complex. A better problem might be:
    An application for helping a cardiologist explain congenital heart conditions to newly diagnosed patients in her office. The application should work in the general case but the prototype will illustrate it for only one class of congenital condition.
    Notice that in this formulation the problem has been narrowed by identifying two stakeholders, sketching a use situation, and limiting the class of heart problems. Even so, this initial problem statement should be further narrowed.

  • Iterate. You should create your project proposal first. Then, you may choose to jump in and start prototyping. Then, cycle back to writing the user needs and wants deliverable. And then modify your prototype. Then, change your project proposal. You will find that cycling through this two or three time will be very helpful.

  • Involve users. Find ways to involve users in your design. We'll be discussing methods for doing this in class but you may want to do some of your own reading in this area.

Quizzes

The four quizzes are worth 20% of your final grade. The goal of these quizzes is to access your knowledge for basic facts and principles of design methods. The quizzes will take 30min or less. The format of the quizzes will vary.

Some example questions:

  • Name and describe design methods and discuss their strengths and weaknesses
  • Outline the steps for performing a particular design method
  • Explain where in a process you would use a design method and why
  • Given a short case study, outline a process for addressing a particular design problem
  • Sketch and describe models and concepts of human-device interaction.

To do well on the quizzes, you should keep up with the weekly readings.

Participation

This course has a participation component for two reasons:

  1. Design is fundamentally a collaborative activity. Thus, you are expected to participate in class discussions and to engage in review and criticism.

  2. Second, experience shows that superb designers and effective teams reflect upon their practices. Learning from mis-steps and remembering successes is important.

Participation is worth 10% of your final grade. To receive full marks you should:

  • Come to class with questions, answers, and comments. Thoughtfulness is more important than volume. Be an active listener. Do the reading before class.

  • Come to the lab sessions with partial solutions to design problems. Raise issues and accept comments about your designs. Give constructive criticism to your peers.

  • Reflect upon this course with a simple on-line journal. Use the journal to structure and record your thinking about the Interactive Prototype. Record your brainstorming ideas. Record the key iterations of your prototype. Post your working documents, link to sites that you've found helpful, and so on.


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© Copyright David Hendry, 2002.

You may use this material for educational purposes but please cite this source. To make comments, please contact David Hendry (dhendry@u.washington.edu).

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