ICS 463: Intro to Human-Computer Interaction Design, Spring 2006

Assignment 8: Physical Design (previewed 4/4, due 4/10) (updated 4/2)

Objectives

  • To develop the physical design (information displays and interaction tools) of your project.
  • To learn that physical design can be conducted without prototyping, and how to do so.

What to do

First, review the slides 8-Refinement and 9-Prototyping-and-Users and other notes you have on Scenario Based Design and Usage Centered Design. For SBD, see the garden.com example on their case study web site. For UCD, read the paper on abstract prototypes. Review also chapters 8 and 9 of your textbook.

A physical design is not the same as a prototype. Your textbook notes this distinction, but does not make it as clear as I would like, tending to merge design with prototyping.

Physical Design

Individuals may choose either a SBD or UCD approach (described below). Group projects should do both one of the SBD approaches and the UCD approach. Larger groups or those seeking to fully explore design should try PICTIVE. Make sure that your physical design is accountable to the requirements that you did for Assignment 6 and is based on the conceptual design of Assignment 7.

Interaction and Information Scenarios, as practiced in Scenario-Based Design: Rewrite your activity scenarios into information and interaction scenarios, updating your claims analysis accordingly. The scenarios illustrate the details of the interaction with the system, including information displays and how one acts on the interface. The written stories should be accompanied by sketches or storyboading as needed to show the visual design. There should be enough stories to fully illustrate and explore design alternatives (especially if you are in a group), and they should be accompanied by a Claims Analysis indicating what you learned from the stories. Discuss the stories with users to get feedback. (The stories are a cheap way to "prototype" and "test" ideas!) I have not yet found a good introductory paper on SBD, but see http://ldt.stanford.edu/~gimiller/Scenario-Based/scenarioIndex2.htm

UCD approach: First, read the paper on abstract prototypes. Then translate your UCD contexts (the post-it note things) into abstract prototypes using canonical components placed within wireframe diagrams. I will expect that the contexts have all of the information items and tools needed to do this. If they don't, update your contexts first. When you are done amking the abstract prototype, describe how your essential use cases are enacted by acting on these interfaces. This will expose any missing information or functionality.

PICTIVE (for larger groups): Carry out intensive collaborative design sessions with more than one user (a different session with each user). See the original Muller article and http://www.oohci.org/cs617in2000/pictive.html (inaccessible the last time I tried). NOTE: this was moved from Assignment 7.

Regardless of which method(s) you used, show these designs to potential users and get their comments. There is no point in adding a design step if the designs are not evaluated!

What to turn in

  • Add a summary of your physical design to your project web site. There should be a single web page giving an overview of the physical design of your project, with links to details as needed. Each page should tell the reader what they are seeing, and summarize the value (or lack thereof) that each method provided (i.e., do the reflective practice thing).
  • Submit the URL of this physical design page (NOT the project home page) as your assignment.

Due week of 4/4 (we look at it in class that day)

Pau