Back-end review summary

Good and Bad

• Good• Design concepts which hit

current trends (Atkins diet)

• A nexus of projects about public infrastructure (trains, buses, parks, schools)

• Speculative ideas (affecting emotions, m-macking)

• Bad• Many projects are based

around you and your life and things you the understand because you live that life

• Projects which attempt to PeeDeAfy an activity “for the heck of it” without a clear benefit

• Some projects which are stuck due to lack of …

Categories

Social

Individual

Purposeful Everyday

CITY ROAD FORECOURT ARTWORK

BAD DANCING

HYDE PARK INTERACTIVE DISPLAY

SHOPPING LIST

INTERACTIVE MENU

ISTHISPLACEHOTORNOT.COM.AU

AREA OF OPPORTUNITY?BUS, TRAIN, RESTAURANT INFO

Empty words & expressions

• Easy to use

• Efficient

• User’s experience

• The nature/atmosphere/ambience of

• Simple, effective and adaptive

Reflection (1)

• On you the designer• When you “got stuck” how did you proceed?• How easy or difficult was it for you to make

decisions?• What have you found to be your strengths and

weaknesses in doing design work? What skills or knowledge should you improve?

• What is your plan for completing the design project?

Reflection (2)

• On the design process• How confident are you that your chosen design

concept is the right one?• What aspect of the project have you found most

challenging? Finding user needs? Developing concepts? Choosing a concept? Writing functional requirements? Building a prototype? Time management? All of the above?!?

• How would working in a team have affected your design process?

What I’m looking for

• Representational fluency• Communicate your design through

• Coherent verbal explanations• A concise and unambiguous design brief which also

captures the intent & rationale behind the product• Diagrams, photorealistic 3D models, animations,

interactive media, and programming to give users a first-hand appreciation of what the product will be

Photorealistic 3D Models

A “good” designer

• Visually driven people that need to “see” and “make”

• Often quiet, but can be seen sketching in their notebooks

• A bit egotistic• Very intuitive about cultural, cutting edge

movements• Prolific conceptualists (can come up with

100s of ideas with little effort)• Good at understanding the “bigger picture”• Good communicators and often act as a liaison

Review of the design brief

• Product description – what it is, what it does, and the principal benefits to the users

• User needs – what people want; best stated as complete sentences rather than bullet points; stated in the affirmative not the negative; the user is the subject of the sentence

• Functional requirements – follows from user needs; describes what the product must do without specifying how; the device is the subject of the sentence

• Technical specifications – follows from the functional requirements; describes product structure and behaviour to satisfy the functional requirements

What defines a good product?

• It gets used• It satisfies the right

needs and wants according to the context of use

• It doesn’t stand alone but is part of an infrastructure

• It defines the culture

Prototyping

Definition of prototypes (1)

• A prototype “is an approximation of the product along one or more dimensions of interest”• Models which look and feel like the product• Proof of concept prototypes used to test an idea

quickly• Experimental hardware used to validate the

functionality of a product

Definition of prototypes (2)

• Experience Prototype is any kind of representation, in any medium, that is designed to understand, explore or communicate what it might be like to engage with the product, space or system we are designing. (Buchenau and Fulton-Suri 2000, p. 425)

• “active participation”

Role of prototypes

• Functions performed• Learning• Communication• Integration• Milestones

• Constituents served• Marketing: To test customer acceptance• R&D: To test product performance• Manufacturing: For manufacturability

Types of Prototypes (1)

• Physical• Actual embodiment

• Analytical (Mathematical Model)

• Focused• Appearance (structure) – “looks-like”• A few functions (functional chunks) – “works-like”

• Comprehensive

Types of Prototypes (1)Physical

Analytical

Focused Comprehensive

AlphaPrototype

BetaPrototype

FinalProduct

Not GenerallyFeasible

When To Stop

• There is a limit and a trade-off between development time and quality

Development time

Des

ign

qual

ity

“Switching point”

Experience Prototyping

• Understanding existing user experiences and context• What would it be like to be the user in the actual

context?

• Exploring and evaluating design ideas• Evaluate concepts in simulated contexts.

• Communicating ideas to an audience• Motivating clients (and the design team!) to make a

confident and rational decision to proceed.

Creating experiences

• Interval Research – “Informance” = information performance

• Aim is to increase the limited communication bandwidth of storyboards and interactive digital media

• “Bodystorming” - performance and improvisation (acting out a context)

• “Repping” - reenacting everyday peoples‘’performances for living with the product

Most important role of prototype is to measure customer appeal• Define the purpose of the concept test.

• Choose a survey population.

• Choose a survey format.

• Communicate the concept.

• Measure customer response.

• Interpret the results.

• Reflect on the results and the process.

Concept Testing Plan (1)

1. Who will you be testing?1. For the purposes of this project, you only need to specify

how you’ll recruit students from the Faculty to test your design concepts on. In practice, this step is crucial (and expensive) to select the right demographic, advertise, filter, and test.

2. How will you conduct the test? You may not run a Web-based survey.

1. Will this be a quantitative usability study (to be covered in next week’s lecture) or a qualitative study?

2. What equipment and/or facilities will you need? BE CREATIVE!

3. How do you plan to create an environment as similar to your context (re-create the user experience) as possible?

Concept Testing Plan (2)

3. Provide the assessment instrument.1. Which prototypes will your users review?

2. What will the assessment instrument be? Interview? Survey (questionnaire)? Verbal protocol? Provide this instrument!

3. What task(s) will you ask your users to complete?

4. How will you communicate the design concept to your users?

1. What level of instruction will you provide?

2. Will you be an observer or participant observer?

3. Wizard of Oz? Interactive functional prototypes?

Concepts Can Be Communicated in Multiple Ways• Verbal descriptions• Sketches• Photos and renderings• Storyboards – a series of images that communicates a

temporal sequence of actions involving the product• Videos – dynamic storyboards• Simulation• Interactive multimedia – combines the visual richness of

video with the interactivity of simulation• Physical appearance models• Working prototypes

Concept Testing Plan (3)

5. What method will you use to interpret the results?1. How will you analyze the results of the assessment

instruments?

2. How do you plan to incorporate the results of the user studies into revisions to your design concept?

3. How will you consider whether the tests were successful or not? Should the results be trusted? Are you confident in them?

4. How would you revise your concept testing plan having done one and assuming you would go through another iteration?

5. Do you have sufficient data to ascertain whether your design concept accomplishes the goals you set forth in your design brief?

Several Dimensions of Customer Response Are Important to Measure

• Which product concept is most appealing to the customer?

• Why do customers respond to different concepts the way they do?

• How could the product concept be improved?• Do the respondents intend to buy the product?

(This is beyond the scope of your project.)

Summary

• Prototypes communicate your design concept to your audience, whether that audience is your design team, your customers, or your clients

• Note that the word is PROTOTYPES not PROTOTYPE!

• Use all available technique to create prototypes to increase the communication bandwidth of your design concept

• Be strategic about your prototypes; spend time making prototypes which help to minimize or resolve risks and weaknesses in your design