CS124: Investigation 3

Simple Interface Design

Due: Friday, Sept 28, 11:59pm on Sakai

This is a pair investigation. You should find a partner and complete this investigation together, submitting only one writeup between the two of you.

Goals

The goals of this Investigation are:

To get more practice with user and task analysis
To apply the design principles we have discussed to design an effective user interface
To prepare for the first stage of evaluation: Paper prototyping

Before you Begin

Before you begin this assignment you should find yourself a partner. Feel free to use the class email list (cs-124-l@hmc.edu) for this purpose. You should also have completed all of the reading assignments through Monday, Sept 24.

Assignment

In this investigation your goal is to construct an initial design for a user interface to support the task of your choice. This interface may be traditional (e.g., menus and buttons) or non-traditional (e.g. include speech or pen input) but it must involve some visual component (e.g., there should be a screen with which the user will interact). You will integrate Norman's design principles and user and task analysis in designing your interface. The end result of this assignment will an interface that is directly translatable into a paper prototype.

Part 1: Choose your problem

Your goal is to design an interface to support some users performing some tasks, but the exact problem you choose to build your interface to support is totally up to you. Here are some guidelines to help you choose your problem area:

Your interface must have a visual, interactive component. It may involve non-traditional input, such as speech or handwriting (including recognition), but it cannot be an ephemeral interface (e.g. a light controller than magically turns on the lights by detecting your motion through the house)
Creative problem areas are encouraged, but not required. In other words, your interface does not have to support an original problem area. It is perfectly fine to develop an interface to support digital photo organization, even though there are a million interfaces out there that do just that. However, if your problem area is not original, be careful to design your interface from first principles, rather than being influenced too much by an existing design.

To spark your imagination, here are some ideas of possible problem areas that you could build an interface to support. Feel free to use one of the ideas listed below, or choose your own:

Software design and implementation. Design an interface to support the software engineering design process, particularly focusing on the diagrams created in this field.
Museum visits: Design an interface that guides patrons through a museum exhibit.
Riding public transportation: Design an interface that helps people choose what public transportation they can take from point A to point B (a particularly challenging task in the LA area!)

The only tasks that you may not choose are the tasks you examined in Investigation 1: buying coffee, or teaching lecture.

Part 2: User and Task Analysis

Similar to what you did in Investigation 2, identify the target populations for your interface, including the characteristics of each population.

Then identify three tasks commonly performed by your users that you will design your interface to support. You should perform a tasks analysis as you did in Investigation 2, but for each task you should also include a scenario that describes a concrete, realistic example of the task. E.g., your task might be "turn on the light". A corresponding scenario might be, "Jim is reading on the couch at 5pm and notices that the sun is going down and his eyes are starting to strain. There is a reading light next to him and he decides to turn it on."

In identifying your users and tasks you may use observational techniques (as in I2) or you may informally interview members of your user population. In your writeup you will be asked to justify your user and task analyses, so you must involve potential users at some level.

Part 3: Interface Design

Based on your user and task analysis, as well as on Norman's design principles that we have discussed, design your interface. You will likely want to make several design sketches before you settle on a "final" design. When discussing the interface design with your partner, remember that you are not the user. You must justify your design decisions using your user analysis, task analysis, and formal design principles. It's tempting to argue about interface decisions based on your own personal preference. If you ever catch yourself (or your partner) saying "I would like this interface better if..." or "I wouldn't ever use this button...", stop and rethink your position. Don't waste time arguing about what you would prefer. You'll probably find that people react differently than you expected anyway.

What to Turn in

Except for the UI Design Sketches, this investigation should be submitted electronically through your Sakai dropbox. Be sure to follow the submission guidelines on the main Invesitgations page.

Problem description: Write one or two paragraphs describing the problem that you are designing your interface to support. In this section you should not describe your interface at all.
User and Task analysis: Include your writeup of your user and task analysis as described in Part 2. Include justification for the specific tasks and user characteristics you include by referring to your observations/interviews of users.
Interface Design Sketches: Submit a sketch (or sketches) or your final (preliminary) UI design. If at all possible, please submit these sketches electronically (e.g. by scanning them in), but if this is not possible, you may place them in the box outside my office.
Design Justification: Justify the major components of your design by referring either to your user/task analysis or to the design principles we discussed in class. Include a discussion of decisions that ended up being somewhat arbitrary (e.g. you and your partner talked about it and couldn't find a compelling reason for one design over another). Sometimes these "guesses" are necessary, so it's not bad if you have some of these.

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