DRAFT. Approach 1: Emphasize evaluation/feedback with target users

Transcription

1 CS Class Project - Part 3 In part 3 of the project, your group will implement a detailed prototype of your interface. You will further develop one design idea from the three five that you generated for P2. Most, if not all, of the interface functionality should be working (or simulated). It is not expected that you will implement all back-end application functionality. Think carefully about the tools that you will use to develop your prototype. To make decisions about the level of visual and functional fidelity required, you should plan to follow one of the following two approaches: Approach 1: Emphasize evaluation/feedback with target users Part 1: Prototype Create a horizontal prototype based on your chosen design idea from P2 it need not implement low-level system functionality. Furthermore, you can simulate expected interactive functionality (e.g., you can use software like Keynote, Powerpoint, Flash, etc. to simulate expected UI behavior). As you finalize your prototype, think about how you will seek feedback from your target users. Part 2: Set of initial usability specifications for your system and evaluation plan a) Evaluation criteria. Develop usability specifications by considering the objectives of your design and the tasks that your prototype supports. For example, if you are working on a calendar manager, you might specify time limits in which you expect a user to be able to schedule or modify an appointment, or a maximum number of errors that you expect to occur. List a concrete set of criteria by which you can evaluate specific design decisions embodied in your prototype. You can draw from Nielsen and Molich s heuristics (also note additional principles/heuristics in the assigned reading from for Jan Sep 26th 27 ). In your evaluation plan, you should explicitly tie relevant criteria and/or principles to prototype elements that you are evaluating. You should also include relevant usability metrics (see slides from Feb Mar 924 focusing th that apply. from Psyc 6023 Research Methods on task performance metrics, issue-based metrics, and self-report If metrics) you wish in to your adopt evaluation specific metrics: plan. State state the metrics methods that that you identify idenbfy to be relevant, and explicitly state how your evaluation will measure them. For example, if you are concerned with issue-based metrics, state how you will identify issues and how you will determine the severity of the issues. Will an observer note these during users interactions with the prototype?

2 b) Study instruments. Based on the metrics that you identify, design a survey or interview guide to be used with users of your prototype. The questions that you decide to include in your survey or interview should reflect your evaluation goals. Designing this instrument well will require that you draw on knowledge of your users, the tasks that you are aiming to support with your prototype, and the specific design decisions you have embodied in your prototype. The goal is not to create an exhaustive description of a usability evaluation plan, but to motivate why the particular plan you propose is appropriate for this interface. Note that developing an initial evaluation plan is also a good way to figure out how much of the interface you need to construct. You should be able to build or simulate enough of the application functionality to be able to conduct an initial usability evaluation with the tasks you have in mind. c) Preliminary evaluation. Begin to seek feedback on the design of your prototype from your target users, utilizing your evaluation plan. We expect that your evaluation will involve sample users interacting with your prototype. Give the users a few simple tasks to complete and have them carry out those tasks with your prototype. Closely study what occurs. Use your survey or interview guide to get their subjective feedback about the interface and interaction. Use any other instruments that you created to address specific metrics that you identified as important. Your write-up for should include the following components: 1. A description of your system prototype. Include screenshots to help explain it and text to describe how the user interacts with it. Discuss the implementation challenges you faced. Were there aspects that you wanted to build but were unable to? The key component to include in this part of your project report is a justification of why you settled on the design that you chose. Why does this particular design address your users problem or need? 2. Your evaluation plan, based on the description of 2b (above). Include rationale for the evaluation tasks and evaluation materials. Also include the evaluation materials (e.g., outline of your interview guide). 3. A description of your initial user evaluation, including tasks (e.g., how many tasks and what the tasks entailed) and users involved (e.g., how many, whether they your target users, classmates, etc.). Note that you will describe the results of your evaluation and discuss implications of these results in Part 4 of the project not here.

3 Your write-up should include your team name and member names. It should be a.pdf file with embedded images; we suggest using Acrobat "High Quality Print" Conversion Settings to help ensure that the images are legible. Please name your document yourteam_eval (where yourteam is the name you have given your team). One member of your team should upload the document (and any other supporting materials) using the Assignments section of T-Square. Approach 2: Emphasize prototype development Part 1: Prototype Create a functional interactive prototype based on your chosen design idea from P2. Your prototype need not implement all low-level system functionality; however, you should implement the interaction techniques and UI behaviors that correspond to the tasks that you plan to support (rather than simulating expected UI behaviors). You can use whatever programming language you choose to accomplish this (decide this as a team). Part 2: Documentation and demonstration For part 2, you will provide the following deliverables (required writeups are described for each component): A development document. A brief user manual. Code for your working program. A video showing your application in action. Each of these is described in more detail below. a) Development document. This document should list your team name and member names and should be written for the course staff. The development document should include information about the following: Overall process. At a high level, describe your process from start

4 to finish. Include roles and responsibilities of each team member. Design decisions. Clearly state the tasks that your prototype was designed to support. Then, explain the design decisions you made, including ones that were intended to address the specific needs of your target users and the tasks you are focusing on. Your goal is to justify what you did. For example, you could reference one or more of Nielsen and Molich s heuristics. Alternatively (or in parallel) you could provide a rationale for a decision based on a user need or task. If parts of your user interface are inspired by or borrowed from any existing user interface designs or techniques, please cite them (whether or not they were covered in the course). Prototyping process. Provide a description of your prototype. Diagrams and screen shots are strongly encouraged. Software engineering. Briefly describe the programming language and tools that you used, including any third-party code, libraries, or other resources (and please let us know about these in advance, so we can confirm that it will be OK to use them). For example, if you are building a website, you might implement it using HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and one or more third party APIs. b) Brief user manual. This document should list your team name and member names. It should explain to an end user in your target user group how to use your program. Assume that the user already has basic familiarity with the tasks you will ask them to complete. Therefore, your user manual should address only the functionality provided by your program. Please use screen shots, both by themselves (perhaps with annotations labeling parts of the user interface), and within storyboards that describe how to perform specific tasks. Be sure to explain the meaning of any symbols or color coding that you use and include any special instructions needed for running your program. (If your program has any problems that you know about or if you have not completed all of the requirements, please tell us the details here.) c) Working program. Your program (submit your source code and instructions for running it) will be graded based on what it does (how it meets the description provided by your user manual). We want your code to be well-structured, readable, and commented. d) Video. You should create a brief (at most five-minute long) video showing your prototype in action. Since you are creating a running application, it's fine for the video to show one or more of your team members interacting with the application, acting as one or more of the personas in one or more of your use scenarios. You are welcome to use

5 screen capture systems such as CamStudio (open source) or SnagIt (full functionality, 30-day free trial). Alternatively, you can capture a video of your system by using a camcorder or another computer's camera. (Note that capturing a video with a camera has two advantages: It puts no load on your computer, allowing it to run your application as fast as possible, and it allows you to show both the screen and your user.) Please keep it simple: you do not need to include titles, transitions, sound effects, or other effects. Please choose a video format and codec (e.g., mp4) that will enable your file to be played by QuickTime, VLC Player, or Windows Media Player without the need for any additional downloads. Please name your video yourteam_video, where yourteam is your team name. When you have completed all steps above, please create a.zip file named yourteam_proj.zip, where yourteam is your team name. This file should contain 1. A folder that includes everything related to your prototype, including any of your images that are local files. 2. A folder containing your development document, user manual, and video. Next, just to make sure you've done this right, move your.zip file to a temp directory, unzip the file, and check whether everything is there. Assuming that things are ok, now you're ready to submit, using T-Square (under Assignments).