Prototyping, Testing and Development

Saffer, D. (2009). Designing for Interaction. Berkeley: New Riders. -Second Edition

Chapter 8: Prototyping, Testing and Development

Interface design is the experienced representation of the interaction design, not the interaction design itself. The interface is what people see, hear or feel. ( iceberg example where the part that can be seen is the interface, what is below surface what is not seen is  where the main part of interaction design lies: the design decisions, the technical underpinning. Interface design is where the invisible functionality of a product is made visible.

• the placement of controls and navigation.
• on screen colors, font, lines, boxes
• positioning and alignment of objects
• do the squint test

Prototyping: it is where all the pieces of the design come together in a holistic unit. “This is what it could be like”. Creating a clearer vision among the team. Choose the 5-6 most important concept of the design to prototype.

Testing: It is testing the product or service with users. Designers should not be defensive about their design. Most experienced designers know you seldom get it right the first time.

Development: Actual development for physical objects and manufacturing. Designers should get involve with this development process.

Note: End of the design document is seldom the end.

Interface Observation and Analysis

Interface Observation and Analysis

My very first critic is about my house door which I have to open everyday.  When I want to open my door, my natural intention is turning the handle and the key to the left. However, I have to turn the key to the right as if I were locking the door. Even though I know the fact that how it opens, it always confuse me.

My second critic is about kitchen appliance. The picture you see below is a "Kitchen Robot" which is supposed to help pretty much anything in the kitchen. You buy it, they send a giant box to your house. You open it and after a while you decide not to use most of the parts because you cannot get how they work. There is not any mapping on the pieces. I am sure machine itself is functional; however, you do not know how to take advantage of all those pieces. It is very poor defined interface. They want the magic happen without giving any information. Nobody is going to buy this and sit and read every single time before they use. At least my mom did not do so and we ended up using the ones we could figure out and the rest stays on the box for almost 10 years. 

They should have a clear map. They could have some icons on the pieces to let user what they are for. Instead of making "how to use book" like a text book, they could make it less word more picture and maybe colorful. 

My third  critic is a mystery, I will just share the picture and let people guess what it is. I will let you know guys what it is in the class. I always hate using kitchen supplies because they are very complicated to use. 

Ideation and Design Principles

Ideation and Design Principles

Creating concepts

Generating many concept as rapidly as possible quantity not quality

brainstorm over several days and have hundreds of ideas

Rules of brainstorming 

• There are no bad ideas
• Stay Focused
• Don’t spend a lot of time on any one idea
• Use the whole room
• No multitasking

What a Senior Designer does:

• Observe the ethnographic studies to design a product
• Short words
• Consider radical alternatives
• Make the design simple enough

Ideation:

• It requires being able to make fast mental leaps and connections .
• start with a warm up activity to get everyone’s brains working
• Set aside a fixed amount of time for brainstorming ( nor more than 2 hours)

Samples for brainstorming techniques

Brainwriting : Each person writes their idea on a paper silently

Break the rules

Questioning: How - Why.

Swiping: Stealing a good idea from another domain.

Organize your concept:

Creating Design Principles: When you organize all your concept, how do you decide which concept is the one worth pursuing.

Design principles are a combination of three things:

• What is known about the users, the context of use, and the design strategy.
• The best ideas /themes that emerged from ideation sessions.
• What the designer thinks is necessary for a successful project, based on experience or subject matter expertise.

The Best Design Principles:

• Pithy ( a short phrase)
• Memorable
• Cross-feature ( applicable across the product)
• Specific
• A differentiator
• Non-conflicting

Saffer, D. (2009). Designing for Interaction. Berkeley: New Riders. -Second Edition

10 Rules for Brainstorming

10 Rules for Brainstorming Success.

(http://ideastogo.tumblr.com/post/16127057158/rulesforbrainstormingsuccess)

1. Free them from the fear.  
2. Use the power of the group.  
3. Get some outside stimulus.  
4. Encourage the crazy.  
5. It’s a numbers game.
6. Laugh a lot.  
7. Homework is required.  
8. It’s not for amateurs.  
9. If it looks like a duck, but doesn’t act like a duck, it’s not a duck.  
10. You’re not done until you decide.  

The Design of Everyday Things Chapter 2

In this chapter, the author of the book explains why people are tend to blame themselves for technological problems.  Even though the problems might be caused by bad design, people are always mad at themselves and they feel like stupid. Later he explains the seven stage of action:

How easily Can One:

Determine the function of the device?

Tell what actions are possible?

Determine mapping from intention to physical movement ?

Perform the action?

Tell if system is in Desired State?

Determine mapping from System state to interpretation?

Tell what state the system is in?

Donald A. Norman

Autobiconography

Telling a story is quite challenging because you have a limited time and words. I mostly use person images because I wanted to give brief information about my family. First I start thinking about what to include in my story. I asked questions like should I include my parents school, should I include the fact that I have been a student in four different colleges including NYU so far?  Then it got complicated. Then I remind myself what my aim is which is giving a brief information about my family. I made it quite clear to understand maybe too simple than I though.

The Psychopathology of Everyday

Norman-The Design of Everyday Things

Chapter 1: The Psychopathology of Everyday

In this chapter the author of the book mentions the weakness design part of everyday objects. Later he explains the reasons of poor design. Visibility is one of the key component of good design.

Visibility indicates the mapping between intended actions and actual operations and crucial distinction.

People learn how to use a tool  from the appearance of the it so designers should make it clear enough. Visual structure: affordances, constraints and mappings.

Fundamental principle for designing people are provide a good conceptual model and make things visible.

The characteristic of good conceptual model:

• predicts the effect of outcome
• not to be complex for everyday objects
• immediate feedback

Principle of Visibility

• good mapping natural relationship
• single controls - single functions
• understandable system
• results are sensible, non arbitrary and meaningful

Principle of Mapping:

• mapping: the relationship between two things ( between the controls and their movements and the result in the world.)
• easy to learn and remember
• natural relationship between the control and its function.( natural mapping)

Principle of Feedback

• feedback: What result has been accomplished as a result of an action.
• problem more features and less feedback so give more frequent feedback

Information Design

What is Information Design: "Information design is defined as the art and science of preparing information so that it can be used by human beings with efficiency and effectiveness."

• comprehensible 

• rapidly and accurately retrievable 

• easy to translate into effective action 

• information overload comes with navigational problems.

• the right information to the people at the right time in the most effective and efficient way.

Reasons why we have information design profession;

Examples: Reference Page in books, iconic language for transportation

What you see in the website,

approach to your teaching strategy (open ending -cognitive)

and 

content are

the information design.

Information architecture: structure of an experience , structural side of information 

such as home page, section.

Information Design: Emergence of a New Profession. Robert E. Horn
(https://files.nyu.edu/fm9/public/Downloads/1/Horn.pdf)