Project Requirements
Human Computer Interaction
Winter 2013
Version 4 March 2013
You will design a website or computer
application for a specific user population that significantly
improves on what currently exists (the status quo),
possibly introducing new and innovative functionality. This
website/application must address observed breakdowns and/or
unmet needs and goals of your target population in their use of
the status quo.
This brief gives you considerable freedom in terms of the people
for whom you design, the goals that these people have, and the
nature of the technological intervention. Although this theme is
broad, you should design for a particular population whom you have
direct access to.
The final deliverable will not be a fully working product;
rather, it will be a prototype that is sufficiently realized so
that you can undertake a usability study with it of members of
your target population interacting with the prototype. In
addition, your final deliverable will include an envisionment
video of your prototype in a scenario of use along with a
presentation report and presentation. All deliverables for each of
the three milestones are detailed below.
The project is completed in a set of deliverables, each
of which is given a grade and commentary by the professor.
Deliverables are due approximately every three weeks. Each
deliverable will be publicly presented and discussed with
classmates. Between each deliverable is one or more check-ins,
which will involve in-class presentation and discussion of your
deliverable-under-development.
Each deliverable includes one or more manifestations of
your design ideas, such as sketches, prototypes, or videos, and a
design narrative. The required design manifestations are
specified for each deliverable below. Your design manifestations
will be graded based on the extent to which they 1) satisfy the
design brief, and 2) reflect your use of the tools that we have
been studying and practicing during and outside of the class
sessions.
The narrative describes "the story behind the design" (to use
Dorst's terminology), i.e. the reasons why your design
is the way it is and not some other way. It needs to answer all of
the why questions that another designer would have about
your design. In telling this story, it is important to connect the
design to:
- the design brief,
- what you learn from critiques (by students and instructors),
- what you learn from working with people (some of whom may be
users),
- what you learn in your work together as a group,
- what you learn from readings.
In discussing your work with users, make sure to indicate how and
when you interacted with which particular users for what purposes.
Your design narrative should include images of six (6) design
artifacts. A design artifact is either a
design manifestation (but not one of the required ones) or something
that represents the process of creating your design, such
as a photo of a whiteboard brainstorm, notes from an interview, or
images from a usability study. Since your design narrative is
electronic, any artifact that was originally in some other media
(e.g. whiteboard, paper) needs to be captured in digital form.
Your narrative should be a single pdf document with between 1600
and 2000 words of text, and each artifact needs to be represented
in this narrative by a single image of not more than one page.
Caption each image with a label that you make specific reference
to in the document. Unless there is a compelling reason to do
otherwise, your narrative should interleave images and text so
that it clearly tells the story of your design.
Your narrative will be graded based on 1) the extent to which it
has coherence, i.e., does it make sense as a story, 2)
the narrative's completeness, i.e. does it account for the main
decisions that your group made in developing your manifestations,
and 3) the connectedness of your artifacts to the narrative, i.e.
do your artifacts provide insight into the story that you are
telling?
- Deliverable 1: User Inquiry and
Sketches
-
- Check-in 1
Post to your website a single document that has
- a user profile on one page that
personifies the target population on whom you will
focus. This population must significantly differ from
all of your group members on at least two of the
following dimensions: age, gender, country of origin,
computer experience, level of education. It should
differ on many other dimensions as well. One of the
most important lessons of this course is to recognize
that the user is not you. You are not
designing for someone familiar with the Web 2.0+
jungle. If you absolutely must, on another page you
can include an additional user profile, but this will
not be your main target user population.
- A summary of your user inquiry in one page that
identifies the needs and goals of these users, key
ways in which these needs and goals are currently
satisfied, and the main breakdowns ("pain points") in
trying to meet these goals that you learned about from
your user inquiry to date.
- Check-in 2
Post to your website a single document that has
- Everything from check-in 1, updated to take into
account comments from classmates, the instructor, and
additional user inquiry.
- A statement of the central goal that your design
will allow the user to do. Include a one paragraph
rationale that addresses Why this goal matters in your
target populations' lives?.
- A one-page storyboard that illustrates how this
population currently satisfies this goal(s) (the
status quo). Are they using software systems? Are they
cobbling together several systems? Are they using
physical artifacts, at least partially? What is the
nature and extent of any software that they use? The
storyboard should be illustrated with screenshots
and/or photographs.
- In one paragraph, identify where is the current
pleasure? That is, what are the aspects of the status
quo that are worthwhile (important, pleasurable, ...)
to the users that you should preserve?
- In one paragraph, identify where is the current
pain? That is, what are the breakdowns in the use of
the status quo?
- Deliverable
Post to your website and upload to Catalyst CollectIt
- a single document that has:
- a clear statement of your target population
- your main persona--you can include a secondary one
only if you feel that it is important
- a statement of the "one-pointed vision" that your
design is intended to satisfy
- your storyboard of the status quo
- a small set of "core" scenarios for the key
tasks-in-context that your person will use your
design (yes, the one you have not yet built) to
carry out. Use Jenson's format on p53.
- a textual narrative that tells the "story behind the
story" as a single document. Your artifacts should NOT
be any of the required ones just indicated in the
bullet list. Rather, you should choose artifacts that
evidence your choices (such as notes from user inquiry
or data analysis). This narrative needs to (among
other things) provide the details of your user
inquiry, what you learned from your readings,
critiques, ...
- Powerpoint slides for a 5 minute in-class
presentation of the elements above.
Remember that each group member should complete their own
Group member evaluation and upload this to Catalyst.This
is NOT posted to your website.
- Grading Rubric
Here is what I value:
- Your persona has the form of either Kuniavsky's or
Jenson's, and clearly identifies a representative
member of your target population
- Your scenarios have the form from Jenson, and
clearly identifies the set of tasks that your
application will support.
- Your storyboard makes clear the status quo for
someone who has not been involved in the user inquiry
- There is a clear, one-pointed vision for the
application that focuses on needs/goals, not
technology.
- Your narrative provides clear and compelling
evidence that your persona is representative of your
target population, for the identification of the
vision and scenarios, and for your storyboard of the
status quo. This evidence will come from primarily
from your user inquiry, but also from classmate and
student critiques, and your reading.
A grade of
4: Achieves all of the above, with
perhaps some inconsequential weaknesses in the design
elements or narrative.
3: There are several minor problems with
the design elements, several minor problems in the
evidence presented in your narrative, or a single
significant problem in either.
2: There are two or more major problems
with the design elements and narrative.
1: There are significant problems with
the design elements and narrative throughout. 0:
You fail to hand in anything.
- Deliverable 2: Runnable prototype
and user test
-
- Check-in 3
Post to your website a single document that contains:
- Your target population, persona, one-pointed vision,
and Core scenarios.
- images that capture at least 5 sketches that
represent (in some way) one or more design ideas that
you have generated to explore the design space.
- a storyboard for your paper prototype showing how it
carries out the most important scenario for your
design.
- one to two pages of text that represents the notes
that you took for each of the usability studies that
you carried out using your paper prototype. Each
individual in your group should carry out at least one
usability study, and each should use a paper prototype
for a different Core scenario. Make sure to include in
this text who did your usability study (in
terms of how closely they match your target
population), how you recruited this person, when the
study occurred, how long the study took, which
scenarios you went through, and where the study took
place.
- one to two pages of text that represents what
you learned across all of your usability studies
and summarizes the main changes that you will make to
your design (and possibly earlier elements) as a
result.
- Check-in 4
Post to your website a single document that contains:
- Your target population, persona, one-pointed vision,
and Core scenarios.
- a storyboard for a computer-executable prototype (in
html, powerpoint, javascript, or some other executable
form) showing how it carries out the most important
scenario for your design.
- one to two pages of text that represents the notes
that you took for each of the usability studies that
you carried out using your executable prototype. Your
prototype should allow the user to carry out at least
two of your Core scenarios. Each individual in your
group should carry out at least one usability study on
all of the Core scenarios that you have implemented.
These should include the information about users as
indicated for check-in 3.
- one to two pages of text that represents what
you learned across all of your usability studies
and summarizes the main changes that you will make to
your design as a result.
In addition, every person in your group should be
prepared to demo your click-through for this check-in.
- Deliverable
Post to your website and upload to Catalyst CollectIt
- your computer-executable prototype (in html,
powerpoint, javascript, or some other executable form)
that "executes" at least two of your Core scenarios.
- Your target population, persona, one-pointed vision,
and Core scenarios. In addition, it should include a
storyboard for your prototype showing how it carries
out the most important scenario for your design.This
should be different from what you demo'd for check-in
4, altered to reflect the changes that you made based
on what you learned during all of the usability
studies and class discussion.
- a textual narrative that tells the "story behind the
story" of your current design as a single document.
None of your artifacts should be the storyboard
indicated in 1. Rather, you should choose artifacts
that evidence your choices (such as sketches,
storyboards from your check-ins, notes from usability
studies, ... ). This story should start with a single
paragraph that summarizes the deliverable 1 story and
then continues from there to the end of deliverable 2.
- Powerpoint slides for a 5 minute in-class
presentation of the deliverable.
Remember to complete your Group member evaluations.
Grading Rubric
Here is what I value:
- Your target population, persona, one-pointed vision, and
Core scenarios are clearly stated and have coherence, i.e.
they make sense all together.
- Your prototype allows the user to "carry out" at least
two of your scenarios.
- Your storyboard clearly shows how your current prototype
carries out the most important scenario.
- Your narrative provides clear and compelling evidence
for why your current executable is the way it is and not
some other way, and why you might have made any changes to
your target population, person, one-pointed vision, and
Core scenarios. This evidence will come from primarily
from your user studies, but also from classmate and
student critiques, and your reading, particularly
concerning good interface design. Please see the
definition of and requirements for the narrative provided
at the top of this document.
A grade of
4: Achieves all of the above, with perhaps
some inconsequential weaknesses in the design elements or
narrative.
3: There are several minor problems with the
design elements, several minor problems in the evidence
presented in your narrative, or a single significant problem
in either.
2: There are two or more major problems with
the design elements and narrative.
1: There are significant problems with the
design elements and narrative throughout.
0: You fail to hand in anything.
- Deliverable 3: Final design and
envisionment video
-
- Check-in 5
Post to your website two pages of images, text, tables,
or any combination that reflect what you learned from
usability studies with at least three users from the
design from deliverable 2. In addition, post an
"envisionment video" of approximately 3 minutes of using
this prototype to tell the main story of what your
design is to users and other stakeholders. This video
should compellingly illustrate how you have satisfied
the design brief (see the top of this document).
- Deliverable
Post to your website and upload to Catalyst CollectIt
- A document describing your target population, persona,
one-pointed vision, and Core scenarios.
- your final executable design, in whatever form,
- an "envisionment video" that compellingly illustrates
how you have satisfied the design brief, i.e. that your
design "significantly improves on what
currently exists" and "
address[es] observed breakdowns
and/or unmet needs and goals of your target population
in their use of the status quo."
- a portfolio for this deliverable. The narrative should
tell the "story behind the story" starting from the
start of the term through the end of the term. Your
portfolio artifacts should include your initial sketch
and an image representing your final design. You are
free to reuse artifacts and text from prior deliverables
or check-ins. Please see the definition of and
requirements for the narrative provided at the top of
this document.
- Powerpoint slides for a 15 minute in-class
presentation. The presentation will tell the "backstory"
(i.e. what your narrative is about), present your
design, and include your envisioning story.
Remember to complete your Group member evaluations.
Grading Rubric
Here is what I value:
- Your target population, persona, one-pointed vision, and
Core scenarios are clearly stated and have coherence, i.e.
they make sense all together.
- Your final design allows the user to "carry out"all of
your scenarios.
- Your envisionment video tells a compelling story for how
your design satisfies the design brief.
- Your narrative provides clear and compelling evidence for
why your current final design is the way it is and not some
other way, and why and how you made changes to your target
population, person, one-pointed vision, and Core scenarios.
This evidence will come from primarily from your user
studies, but also from classmate and student critiques, and
your reading, particularly concerning good interface design.
Please see the definition of and requirements for the
narrative provided at the top of this document.
A grade of
4: Achieves all of the above, with perhaps some
inconsequential weaknesses in the design elements or narrative.
3: There are several minor problems with the
design elements, with the envisionment video, in the evidence
presented in your narrative, or a single significant problem in
either.
2: There are two or more major problems with
the design elements, envisionment video, and/or narrative.
1: There are significant problems with the
design elements and narrative throughout.
0: You fail to hand in anything.
- 4 March 2013. Clarified deliverable 3 and grading rubric.
- 21 February 2013. Added deliverable 3, including check-in 5.
- 4 February 2013. Added deliverable 2, including check-ins 3
and 4.
- 31 January 2013. Added small clarification that scenarios for
deliverable 1 are for the yet-to-be-done designs, not the status
quo.
- 30 January 2013. Added "target population" and "one-pointed
vision" to deliverable 1
- 25 January 2013. Added grading rubric for deliverable 1.
- 24 January 2013. Added scenarios to deliverable 1 and
clarified what the presentation should contain.
- 22 January 2013. Added to check-in 2 that everything from
check-in 1 needs to be included.
- 25 October 2012. Original version. Adapted from previous
quarters.