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Overview:
The course project is intended to be a hands-on exercise in task and
user centered design, prototyping, evaluation, redesign, and implementation.
In Phase I you began by proposing an idea that forms the basis of a
course project.
In Phase II you performed a task analysis of your ideas, with some
early sketches of your ideas. You created and evaluated low-fidelity prototypes
based on the task analysis.
In this final phase (Phase III), you will incorporate the results of the previous low-fi
prototyping/testing exercise into the design of the medium/high fidelity final
prototypes. You will also do an informal user evaluation.
The immediate purpose of this assignment is to give you experience at:
- hands on application of design concepts to the building of a moderately
robust semi-functional interface
- learn to evaluate a higher-fidelity prototype.
Deliverables:
Your group will deliver Section 4 of your portfolio in the form
of a conference research paper covering your whole term project.
1. Final steps in conducting the research
A) A horizontal/vertical prototype, plus re-design rationale
- Redesign your interface. To do this, you should review your
Phase II prototypes and walkthrough results. You should also apply the design
knowledge you have gained in class to your design. You may want to develop a
few more paper prototypes here and do further walkthroughs to check your ideas
out. This part is up to you.
or
Come up with a novel system design that stretches your team's creative
talents.
- Implement your design as a medium fidelity horizontal/vertical
prototype. Use the appropriate tools of your choice, implement your primary screen(s) or
other visual parts of your interface.
- Horizontal: all the main components of your interface are included.
This gives the illusion of a fully functional prototype.
- Vertical: select one or two primary tasks and make sure that a
substantial part of the vertical functionality required for those tasks
is supported. 'Substantial part' includes screens, error messages, handling of unexpected input, defaults,
robustness, .... You may program in 'stubs' for
sub-tasks you are not implementing at this time (e.g., certain actions may
return some kind of 'Under development' message).
- Deliverables, in portfolio:
- The following material needs to be described in your research paper
(deliverable #2 below), or its appendices, as approriate:
- Redesign rationale that describes your main reasons behind
the changes made
- Illustrations of your final implementation, using new screen snapshots
or whatever is the equivalent for your project
B) User evaluation
- Representative users: identify a small number of such users for your system.
The exact number you have will depend on how extensive your evaluation is.
You should involve at least 5 users, 8-10 is generally more acceptable. If you cannot find/use representative
users, you need to explain why and justify the selection of the users that
you do involve in the evaluation.
- Plan the evaluation: Decide in advance a "protocol" for
your evaluation. Pre-determine the tasks you will want your users to
perform and the data you expect to collect. You should use both qualitative
and quantitative methods for data collection. You must use statistical analysis
for part of your your data analysis, so plan your study accordingly. [Note:
it is obviously not necessary for you to achieve statistically significant findings. ]
- Conduct the evaluation: Use the techniques described in class and
in the readings for running your evaluation. One requirement is that you use
video as one of your data collection methods.
- Deliverables, in portfolio: The output from the evaluation
that needs to be described in your research paper, or its appendices, is
described in deliverable #2 directly below.
2. Conference-style research paper
- Using the CHI template, create a paper that is at most 10 pages,
including references. You will need to attach additional appendices, which
will not be in CHI format.
- While every project differs somewhat, the goal for all project papers
should be to motivate the work, and to describe your approach to the
research, what you have actually done, and highlight the most salient
outcomes/results of your work.
- For a classic user-centered design project, the paper outline should be
something along the lines of what follows below. For guidance, look at the
structure of papers we have reviewed in class that cover research that is
similar to your project in approach.
- Introduction
- motivates and sets the context for your work
- outlines at a very high level what you did and the contribution
of your work
- Related Work
- sets your work in the context of what appears in the research
literature or in industry
- Formative Study
- include this if you have collected substantial user data that
informs your prototype design
- Design Rationale
- include this if you can formally outline your design rationale
- Prototype(s)
- may include multiple iterations of the same design, with user
feedback in between
- could be two competing designs
- User Evaluation
- possibly includes a pilot study subsection
- should have subsections describing the participants, apparatus,
procedure/protocol, study design, dependent measures, hypotheses
- results subsection which provides an analysis of the data
collected, and summarizes the main findings of the evaluation
- limitations subsection outlining shortcomings of your evaluation
(this can also go after the Discussion
- Discussion
- reflect on the results and what they really mean (What is the
quality of your system design? What parts of the design work well
and what still needs improvement? Do you really believe that the
system would work well for your identified users and tasks?)
- Conclusions and Future Work
- References
- Appendices (not normally included in a CHI paper, but here need to
include at a minimum illustrations of your system for which there was
insufficent space in the main body of the paper, as well as all the
study raw materials, such as, questionnaires, interview transcriptions,
consent forms, and any other required ethics documents).
3. Video
- Create a video description of your project. The video should highlight
the design and evaluation of your prototype, and be approximately 3 to 5
minutes long. You should have a good reason if it is longer than 5 minutes.
- Submit a USB key of the video. Your professor will keep this as part
of the course archives.
4. Demonstration
- Your group will demonstrate the working parts of your system to your
professor. Appointments will be made in designated non-class times towards the end of the term
(i.e., before the final portfolio is due).
5. Presentation
- Your group will give an in-class presentation that documents the iterative
design, development, and evaluation of your system.
- You must include the video description of your project as part of your
presentation.
- You will have 15 minutes for
your presentation and there will be 5
minutes for questions.
- It is not necessary to have your whole group do the presentation jointly;
in fact, having more than two people present at the same time is often
problematic. Decide in advance what will make the most effective
presentation. Often, the best approach is to have the two strongest speakers
deliver the presentation. Of course, all the team members must be at the
presentation and available to answer questions.
A note on the Portfolio. The portfolio is intended to
document the progression of your design, beginning with this Phase I, and
continuing through the Phases II and III. Your portfolio must be neat,
well-organized, and visually appealing. Portfolios should be constructed out of
a 1" or smaller 3-ring binder (I will not appreciate having to
carry around larger binders :). Your portfolio should also use titled section
separators (the index kind) to separate the major sections. The cover of the
portfolio should include the names of the group members, the group number, and
the title of the project. The first page should be a table of contents, which
will grow over time. You will add to this portfolio as you complete each phase
of the project. You may include pointers to online information if pertinent.
You should include your graded previous work (proposal, Sections 1, 2 & 3) in your portfolio as well, so
the reader understand the progression of your entire project.
Note that suggestions given in the grading of your previous work,
where relevant, should be incorporated into your current work.
A note on the grading. Grading will be based upon the
sophistication and maturity of the work, the elegance of the designs, the logic
of the written and oral presentations, and the completeness of the work.
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