Week 12: User-Centered Design 2/4
How is Project 4.2 Going?
Any remaining issues with your student group or organization?
You should be making observations and interviewing now
Next steps to be introduced in class today
Housekeeping
You may choose to have your Project 4.2 grade count for Project 4.1 as well, if you choose to do this please notify your mentor by email
Project 3.2 Observations
A lot of people seemed to enjoy the project.
Most of groups gave a design recommendation based on their usability tests. The recommendations addressed well the issues they discovered though research.
Balancing user needs and business needs is a critical lesson to be learned here. We cannot simply remove ads from a site - it's an important source of revenue.
Most group found some important usability issues from the test, like, lacking of feedback inconsistency layout of different OS and did design recommendations based on them.
Almost all teams had sketches/ illustrations for their design recommendations and they did a pretty good job.
Review Potential Quiz Questions:
What are the five modes of design thinking according to the dSchool? Please summarize the nature and characteristics of each mode.
Empathy is the foundation of a human-centered design process. To empathize, we need observe, engage, and immerse.
Define is when you unpack and synthesize your empathy findings into compelling needs and insights, and scope a specific and meaningful challenge. It is a mode of “focus”. Two goals of the define mode are to develop a deep understanding of your users and the design space and, based on that understanding, to come up with an actionable problem statement: your point of view.
Ideate is the mode during your design process in which you focus on idea generation. It is a mode of “flaring” that “going wide” in terms of concepts and outcomes. The goal of ideation is to explore a wide solution space.
Prototyping is getting ideas and explorations out of your head and into the physical world. Prototype is used for empathy gaining, exploration, testing and/or inspiration. We also prototype to learn, solve disagreements, start a conversation, fail quickly and cheaply and manage the solution-building process.
Test is the chance to refine our solutions and make them better. We do test for three main reasons: to refine our prototypes and solutions, to learn more about our user, to test and refines our POV.What are Personas, or Composite Character Profiles? What are their characteristics and what purpose do they serve?
A persona is a fictional description of a model user based on high-quality user research of actual users in the target user group. It will include details about the user’s education, lifestyle, interests, values, attitudes and patterns of behavior. Personas make the design task less complex and the goal of creating a good user experience for the defined group much more achievable.
What is the relationship between Personas and Scenarios? Please be specific.
Personas can be given life by creating scenarios that feature them in the role of a user. Scenarios usually start by placing the persona in a specific context with a problem to solve. When used alongside personas, scenarios can provide really useful pointers to a design team striving to provide a good user experience.
What, according to your textbook's authors, are the five steps in building a prototype?
- Preparing to build;
- Make the interface and interface elements;
- Build;
- Try it out;
- Test it.
What are the benefits of assuming a beginner's mindset?
So that you step out of yourself, recognize that different people have different needs and expectations, and avoid constraint of your design experience.
Final Exam Study Topics
Now available in Canvas Assignments under Exams, Final Exam
Review Next Set of Methods
Empathize: observation, interview, etc.
Define
- Saturate and Group (p. 14)
- Composite Character Profile [Personas] (p. 17)
- Impose Constraints (p. 32)
Ideate
- Brainstorming (p. 28)
- Facilitate a Brainstorm (p. 29)
- Selection (p. 30)
Findings, based on what you found in your research create a “Composite Character Profile” (or Persona) of the potential users of your design.
Design Brief, What are the parameters for your prototype design project? In other words, what (specifically) are you trying to accomplish through your design? What is the key question in the design, i.e. what must be addressed for your design to be a success? (You may find it useful to apply the “Impose Constraints” method from the Bootcamp Bootleg document at this stage).
In this interim phase each team should start with their Design Brief and develop and test a paper prototype with your client/user group.
Each group’s write up should show the evolution of your prototype – its iterations, indicate the rationale for them, highlight the response from testing, and indicate how your understanding of client needs improved through the prototyping process. Video might well be usefully incorporated here.
Prototype and Test
- Prototype for Empathy (p. 33)
- Prototype to Test (p. 34)
- Testing with Users (p. 35)
- User-Driven Prototyping (p. 38)
Group Meeting Time -- and discuss your progress with your mentor (for a Professionalism and Participation grade)
Assignment for Thursday, 12 November:
Continue work on Project 4.2, specifically:
- Identify your organization to work with
- Do structured observations of the physical space
- Observe the activities taking place
- Prepare to conduct interviews of relevant stakeholders
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