Objectives
- To learn from your experience by reflecting on the design process
- To practice producing a quality written report
- To have a portfolio of your project you can use to show to
others (e.g., in job interviews)
What to do and turn in
Since this is a writing intensive course I am requiring a written
formal document. This document can be written by drawing on but editing
to improve and consolidate the
results of your previous assignments. Thus you are revising your
work as you move from the web to paper format. These points are
important: Writing for paper is different
than writing for
the
web. Provide
a clear organization and a coherent narrative. Don't miss the opportunity
to improve on the work you did in the assignments. Look at the
feedback we gave you; look at others' assignments; and think about
how you could improve your work and its presentation. (Every
year I try a different typographical format for getting these points
across to students: bold, underline, now red ... and every year
someone ignores it. So I guess it's up to you. Note also items
highlighted below: students often miss these.)
While you do this I suggest you also improve the web presentation.
It might come in handy when you unexpectedly are asked to show
some of your work during a job search. The paper document
can follow this outline:
- Introduction:
- Motivations for the project. (See your Assignment 4 Memo and
Assignment 5 Root Concept, but don't just copy the memo.)
- Requirements
- Summarize how you gathered data for requirements; summarize
the results; give the requirements you came up with. (Assignments
5-6)
- Conceptual Design
- Describe the methods used (from SBD, UCD, Contextual Design)
and why you chose them. Describe the design process (with examples
of design representations created), and how
each method informed or constrained the next step of design. How
did you generate, evaluate, and choose from alternative designs?
How were users involved in this process? (Assignment 7)
- Physical Design
- All comments under Conceptual Design apply here. In addition,
it's important to
show how the requirements and conceptual
design influenced physical design. (Assignment 8)
- Prototype and Evaluation
- Identify what you are trying to find out
through your evaluation (including usability requirements).
Describe the prototype (horizontal or vertical? low or high fidelity?
what use cases or scenarios did you focus on? etc.), and identify
how the specific prototype you chose to
implement allows you to address the evaluation questions. Describe
your methods of evaluation with respect
to how they address the evaluation questions using the prototype.
Give a summary of results (not raw data); and discuss what these
results told you about whether you met your requirements and
other ways to improve the design. If you used multiple methods
of evaluation (e.g., Heuristic or Analytic in addition to Usabilty
Testing), compare the results of the different methods.
- Conclusions
- Include a discussion of the various design methods
we tried, comparing them in terms of which seemed to be the most
helpful for your project. Any final comments you care to make
about the overall project are also appropriate here.
I want a coherent
presentation, not just a bunch of stuff from your web site pasted
together. If you feel it is helpful to include supporting material
like data gathered or many design alternatives, you might put
them in the appendix so as not to break up the presentation.
If you are in a group, you of course need to distribute the writing
effectively across the group. Although one person may be a better
writer than others, everyone should have some involvement in writing.
Weak English writers
can not only contribute content ideas and proofread; they especially
should get some practice writing. Although it makes sense to divide
up the work initially, do not simply give
each person a section without some plan for integration: it
will be a poorly connected hodge-podge. Everyone
should copy edit the final draft before it goes out -- you
are all accountable for the product. This is 40% of your grade.
How many pages? As many as are needed to effectively communicate
your project as outlined above, but not more. What about individual
versus group projects? Since several of the assignment asked groups
to do more work, of course I expect that group project reports
will need to be longer to present that work.
Due 5/12 by midnight
I need to turn in grades (as well as an NSF grant) on 5/15, so late
projects will result in an incomplete.
Pau |