Week 12

This week our lecture is on lynda.com, and the topic is testing, analysing and interpreting data. Foundations of User Experience: Usability testing with Chris Nodder.

What is usability testing?
Usability testing involves watching representative users working with your product so that you can make improvements based on what you see. Usability testing gives you invaluable feedback about how your users behave with your product. Knowing how users behave helps you create a much more suitable site or application. Rather than just guessing about what people might like or need, you can see their reactions firsthand and than make sure your product contains just the right features. Learning about issues early in the process saves development time and money.

Usability testing can be broken down into three stages.
1. you have the pre-test tasks, like finding and scheduling participants.
2. test sessions themselves.
3. post session analysis and reporting.

First we need to recruit some participants to use my application. The amount of participants is important so we tend to stick to only having 5 people. After running sessions with 5 participants you'll have seen about 80% of the issues that exist on your app. Of course you can run more people but running 5 is the most suitable.
There are two ways of finding the right participants for your study. Option one is to find them yourself and option two is the pay someone to recruit them for you. Option one is the most popular. With choosing people yourself you need to work out what attributes your study participants should have and than find a large number of people who are interested in helping who have these attributes.

Secondly we need to figure out what questions need to be asked. Asking the users direct questions doesn't always work very well so we need to be smart on how we ask the questions. People are usually ok with answering questions that relate to things they have done in the past, and these are called behavioural questions. So in order to get the users to act like they would in the real world, we typically phrase our questions as tasks. We than get the participants to complete the tasks with the interface and testing.
Once we know what questions we need to ask we than have to turn those questions into tasks so that our participants can perform for us. Because the tasks are usually written down for them to read out loud its best to keep the instructions very short.
After we do this we need room and equipment preparation. Its likely you will bring the participants to your workspace to take part in the usability studies, so setting the space up correctly is important. Firstly its not about fancy setups its is about quiet places where you can interact with people from outside the company without being disturbed.
We are now ready to create a test plan. A test plan is a great reminder and to do list. Its a simple way to keep track of everything you need to do. This is a document that tells everyone involved whats going on.
Next is the moderation of a session. This is an incredibly hard step. It requires a combination of patience, empathy, professionalism and relationship - building that only comes with practice. On top of this you need to be a good observer, recording participants actions and thinking ahead. The observer has a very specific role in usability test sessions. The usability sessions are all about active observations.

The last stage in the usability testing is the analysing and reporting of results. As soon as each session is over each observer should go back through their notes and make sure that everything they have written is understandable. The observer and the moderator should work together and discuss what they saw. After each participant you can also write up on a white board or a slip chart, any of the quantitative metrics that you are tracking for the study. Always remembering you should re test and always record your results.

The usability testing is important when creating an application for a certain group of users. I will complete my testing for my application this week, so than i can finish off my report for my last assignment. My application is fully designed on InVision i now just need to do all my testing and take note of the things that need to be changed and the elements that are good.

Week 11

This week our lecture was on 'High fidelity prototype and user experience evaluation."

A high fidelity prototype is a prototype that is quite close to the final product, with lots of detail and functionality. From a user testing point of view, a high fidelity prototype is close enough to a final product to be able to examine usability questions in detail and make strong conclusions about how behaviour will relate to use of the final product.
This high fidelity prototype I am creating is an app which is based on a problem that first year university students are having. My app is being created on a great website called InVision. InVision allows you to upload a wireframe to the site and than you can style and create the app how ever you like. I created my wireframes in InDesign first than uploaded them to than complete it. Today I spent most of my time making the app feel like a real app by creating buttons that jump from one page to the next and so on.

Usability testing is a very important aspect but the low fidelity prototype that we created in the first assignment has already addressed the usability issues.

The high fidelity prototype should;
1. look and feel very close to the finished product. And have
2. some functionality to test interactivity.

The next step is usability testing and they are;
1. Heuristic evaluation
2. User evaluation.

User experience evaluation is a very important step as it evaluates the high fidelity prototype and helps with finding problems and fixing them. Most of these evaluation tools help capture abstract indicators of experience.

Than we get to the user experience: emotional response.
Emotions are important in the users everyday lives and it is important to have an emotional impact on them.
We can ask ourselves questions like;
Is it fun? Is it exciting? Is it innovative? Is it engaging? Is it motivating? Is it desirable? Is the visual layout attractive? Is the visual layout creative? Will the design delight the user visually, aurally or tacitly? Is the first touch point exciting? Can the product add the the users self esteem? Does the  product convey the branding and organisation?
And these are all questions we need to ask the users to make sure we are hitting the mark with our apps.

When we measure emotions we can use a simple creation like this.

Unpleasant                                       Pleasant emotions
Indignation                                        Desire
Contempt                                           Pleasant surprise
Disgust                                               Inspiration
Unpleasant surprise                           Amusement
Dissatisfaction                                   Admiration
Disappointment                                 Satisfaction
Boredom                                            Fascination

There are 2 dimensions of emotion variants and they are pleasantness and activation.
 - Pleasantness to unpleasantness
 - high activation to low activation

This is a diagram that helps with the measuring of emotions, called Circumflex of affect. 

And this is just a simple quiz like thing to help know what the users are thinking emotionally. 

There are three dimensions when dealing with measuring emotions and they are;

- Visual and sensory: Pleasant to see, feel good to handle, easy to use, looks and feels like fun.

- Sociological: Makes you proud to use it, enhances your social image.

- Idealogical: Make you feel better to use it and makes a statement about you. 

And to find out how well your app creates these things you need to use a simple questionnaire to give to the users to find out. An example is a questionnaire like this;

When receiving this type of questionnaire back we need to take into account how the users are feeling and work with it. If they are not content with the colours you have used, than use different colours, if they feel it is boring, add some excitement into the app. Its all about testing and evaluation with products we create. 

High fidelity prototype

Visual and information design is another important step in this application process. Hierarchy is created based on users expectations. Schemas patterns e.g., going up (increase) going down (decreasing). 

Another important part is to use conventions when designing products. Design conventions are important as they are a flowing design elements that continues through peoples work. You use design conventions so the users can understand what they are doing. 

The principles of this are:

Consistency:establishing or adopting appropriate patterns

Hierarchy: calling attention to the most important things

Personality: choosing appropriate expressive characteristics

There are always common mistakes that are made. Some elements to take note of are;

- Don't provide too much information, just the right amount

- Align elements unless emphasising difference

- Group like elements

- Position elements to help make hierarchy clear

- Use one clear typeface with a variety of weights

- Use type styles as the grammar of your visual language

- Pick colours that draw the eye 

- Use colour to emphasize similarities and differences

- Only interactive areas should feel interactive

- Apply design to form controls. 

These are the main elements you need to think of when creating a product for visual effect. 

My product is very brightly coloured as I want my users to feel happy and excited to use it. The font is Arial, with different weights. All the elements on the page are aligned in a nice style. My app helps first year university students of fixing their problem they are having with time management between studying and socialising. The app is exciting to use as it gives out free vouchers when you earn a certain amount of points. The app encourages students to want to do well with their studies. All these elements on my product are positive, and will hopefully make the users enjoy using it. I will be doing my testing and evaluation sometime through this week, as I have only just finished putting my app together in InVision. This assignment is enjoyable and I've have fun making my own product. 

References

Usability first. (2002). High Fidelity Prototype. Retrieved from http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/high-fidelity-prototype/ 

Gudue, Raghavendra. (2015). 9291 User interface and experience. Lecture 10, week 11: High Fidelity prototype and user experience evaluation. [powerpoint slides].

Usability, (2015). Prototyping. Retrieved from
http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/prototyping.html

Week 10

This week our lecture was on "Design for Experience"

We are finally up to our second part of the user interface and experience course.

Firstly what is user experience design?
User experience design (UXD or UED) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the product.

So what is user experience?
User experience (UX) is a term used to describe the overall quality of experience a person has when interacting with a product or system.

The next question is can we design experiences?
The answer is no we can not. We can only design occasion for experiences; experience themselves are personal.
As designers we try to observe peoples patterns and recreate them to evoke desired emotions, for example Christmas.
So in order for this answer to be a yes we must rephrase the statement as designing for user experience.

So why do we design for experience?
Because it is hot! Being an emergent discipline, User Experience does not yet have a strong, formal body of knowledge. Formal books that include the term in their title often cover only subgroups of user experience.

And why is design for experience hot?
Because their is always changing of consumer demands.
When people get used to something, they than start to look for something more.

So how can we design for experience?
Apple is a perfect example. It is one of the first organisations that understood the important of UX for staying competitive. Apple is constantly updating their software and introducing innovative elements
into their user experiences.

When designing for experience, it is about creating a product that elicits positive emotional response from target users. It involves three main elements, and they are;
1. Functionality design, usability (perception of ease of use)
2. Aesthetics/sensorial design (perception of visual attractiveness)
3. Hedonic quality/pleasurable to use(perception of positive emotion/pleasure of use)

Emotional design is another important aspect of the User experience design. This framework analyses products in a holistic way to include their attractiveness, their behaviour, and the image they present to the user and the owner. This framework not only allows us to understand how people react to the product but also helps us to design a product to elicit desired emotional responses to them.

There are 3 levels of processing in the emotional stages.
1. Visceral: refers to primarily to that initial impact, to its appearance.
2. Behavioural: refers to the look and feel, the total experience of using a product.
3. Reflection: refers to ones thoughts afterwards, how it makes them feel, the image it portrays.

And in order to use this framework you need to understand difference between need pleasure and appreciation pleasure.

- Need pleasure can be seen as pleasures that accrue by moving a person from a state of discontentment  to one of contentment.
- Appreciation pleasure are those that accrue because a person finds something positively pleasurable, no matter what their current level of contentment.
These pleasures are really important to know as they play a vital role.

Now comes designing for experience
Three main elements
1. Functionality
2. Usability
3. Pleasure/fun (aesthetics)

Aesthetics are very important! Attractiveness is biased. People tend to see attractive people as more intelligent, competent, moral, and sociable than unattractive people.
To make something aesthetically pleasing you can follow the norm or you can create something innovative. I believe that making things more attractive do attract the eye of the users and make it more enjoyable to use.
"Beauty in the eyes of the beholder" is a common quote that is used and this tells us that each individual has different likes on aesthetics.

The homework this week was to add our wireframes into Invision and start creating our apps, like a real application designer would.

In class today we continued to work on creating our apps. I added my wireframes in class as I did not get time to do that through the week. I have started doing my basic layouts in Invision. The website for high fidelity prototyping seems easy enough to use and I feel like I won't have much trouble with using it. Making our apps in this program is a huge part of our next assignment. This is the most important part for the assignment.
The lecture this week was very interesting and I feel like I have more of an idea of how I want my app to look and feel, and how I want the users to feel when using it. The lecture helped me with understanding that aesthetics are very important and that creating an app needs to be focused on the users needs and wants.

References

Gube, J. (2010). What is user experience design. Retrieved from http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/05/what-is-user-experience-design-overview-tools-and-resources/

Gudur, Raghavendra. (2015). 9291 User interface and experience. Lecture 9, week 10. Designing for experience. [powerpoint slides].

Norman, D. (2015). Emotional Design. Retrieved from http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/emotional_design_pe.html 

Week 9

Last week was week 8 which is our week semester break. Our assignment was due on Easter Sunday at midnight. I submitted my assignment well before the due time, and I'm feeling confident I will do well with this assignment. I put in a lot of effort and done exactly as the template had told us to.


In week 7 we were not given a lecture so we had no homework or lecture for this week. Our teacher than wrote on moodle that we do not have a tutorial this week as he is on sick leave.
Instead of a tutorial we were asked to make an account with InVision. This is a program that will help us with our second assignment. He also put some videos on Moodle that we need to watch so we know what the next assignment is all about. We were also given our brief for the next assignment. The brief is;

Emotion and design: Attractive things work better *
*Norman’s (2002)
Introduction
You have so far done user research to identify a problem, proposed a solution, listed its requirements based on your research and prepared and evaluated a low fidelity prototype. In other words, you have a solid idea and are sure that you have a very functional and usable application at hand.
Now, we’ll move to second and final phase in development. You’ll take your proposed design from project 1 and work on its aesthetics and emotional qualities.
The following 3 steps are involved in this project.

1. Developing an interactive high fidelity prototype using inVision app.
   
2. Evaluating the prototype
   
3. Preparing a client presentation and a report.
   

Note: The InVision application can be found at www.invisionapp.com. InVision app expert will conduct an online session to provide you more information regarding this app. Make sure you don’t miss the online tutorial.
Deliverables
You will produce an interactive response to the brief that will include clearly defined information, design and interaction. The prototype will provide the user with screens and controls to perform the system critical tasks defined in your project 1 report. You will evaluate this prototype and submit its outcome as:
Presentation (video/slides with audio): Submit maximum ten minutes or less video to present your idea.
Project Report contents: Submit a report that contains the following:

1. Cover page with title and your details.
   
2. Project background and objectives
   
3. Prototype: Introduce and show your design as if it were produced for-real.
   Break down the features of your design that make it effective in relation to
   the brief.
   
4. Evaluation: Iterative process of refining the design based on prototype
   evaluation.
   
5. Design Element Break-down & Justification: Individual graphic elements that
   make up the design and explain their inclusion in relation to the brief.
   
6. Conclusion. 
   

This is our brief for the second assignment. Its all about creating the aesthetics and emotional qualities of the app you designed in assignment 1. 

This is to be a presentation that goes for 10 minutes or less, and we also have to submit a report to Moodle, that explains everything. 

This assignment is due on the last day of classes for semester 1. 
I feel like this assignment will take less time as we have already done the background research of the problem. We are now just having to design the aesthetics and a working app. Im excited to complete this assignment as its something that I have never done before. 

Week 7

This week our lecture was on design direction.

The lecture was very short as it was just explaining our assignment in more detail. The steps that we need to take in detail are:

1. Identifying the problem

2. Getting insight and researching into the nature of the problem: symptoms versus disease.

3. Developing/proposing a solution to the problem.

4. The iterative design process:
- Investigation need/acceptability for the proposed solution.
- defining users and product requirements.
- designing the product and testing its usability.

5. Presenting and discussing the final solution.

These steps are the steps we need to follow to complete our assignment and thats all the lecture was on today. We were given no homework as we are expected to be working on our assignment until it is due.

Today in class we were allowed to work on our assignments since we did not have any homework and it is not far away from our first assignment due date. I have been working on my assignment at home, I have completed the steps 1, 2 and 3 and I'm currently doing step 4. Im half way already and have done 1500 words. I feel like this assignment is making me think outside the box, with creating an app that will help the users with their goals and objectives. I feel my app will be successful in helping first year university students with time managing their time between studying and socialising. The layout of the app is very simple, as we don't need it to be complex and too hard to use. Today I want to have the assessment completed so I can spend the last few days before submission to go over and fix up mistakes and clean up my report.

References
Gudue, Raghavendra. (2015). 9291 User Interface and experience. Lecture 6, week 7: Design direction. [powerpoint slides].

Week 6

Our lecture this week was on low fidelity prototype: paper prototype and evaluation.

Prototype and Evaluation
This is the process of paper prototype development and evaluation.

What is a paper prototype?
Paper prototyping is the first time in the user-centred design process that you put together the elements of your new interface design, in a way that approximates what users would see on screen. Although it might seem like it is taking a long time to get to the point, all of the previous steps have been designed to ensure that your paper prototype is as close as possible to the interface that your users will want to work with. Paper prototyping involves creating a minimal version of your interface using easily movable and replaceable interface elements, created from pieces of paper.

This process has two essential steps
1. Development process: Developing ground work and prototype.
2. Evaluation process: Methods of testing and evaluation.

The development process looks a little like this;

System requirements -----------> Information structure ----------> Wireframes ----------> Use scenarios

System requirements is the stage where you have to list all the tasks and goals that your application will be helping with.

Information structure is the stage where you describe how the users can complete different tasks to achieve their goals.

Wireframes is the stage where you sketches what the app will look like.

Use scenario is the last stage and this is where you state the different situations under which your system will be used.

The evaluation process is formative in nature.
But what are we evaluating?
There are 5 principles of usability an they are;

• Effectiveness
• Efficiency 
• Satisfaction
• Learnability
• Memorability

What is the point of evaluation process?

The evaluation process helps the users pick up the problems, and the difficulties they are having with it. It is to help suss out all the problems the app has so we can than change it to make it better. 

In saying this in the evaluation process their is two methods and they are;

1. Inspection method: does not require users. The process is conducted by usability experts.

2. Testing method: products evaluated by testing with real users. 

In the inspection method, their is another 2 methods used and they are;

1. Cognitive walk through

2. Heuristic evaluation

In the testing method, their is also another 2 methods used and they are;

1. Co-discovery

2. Wizard of oz

The lecture was finished with our homework for the week. Our homework for this week was we had to finalise requirements of the solution in terms of tasks and workflow. We also had to prepare information structure to show how our users accomplish their intended goals. We had to prepare wireframes of our solution.

This week I really struggled with the homework. I was not sure what I had to do, so I waited for class on Wednesday so I could tale to me teacher. 

In class, their were quite a few people that struggled with this weeks homework. The teacher sat us down and explained in more detail as to what he wanted than he gave us time in class to than do this. All he wanted was a simple mind map of the tasks that the application would help with and sketches of our app which are called wireframes. This week meant I was a little behind in my assignment but overall I am feeling confident that I can do well. After class I will sit down and do my wireframes and do my mind map. 

References

Gudur, Raghavendra. (2015). 9291 User Interface and experience. Lecture 5, week 6: Paper prototyping and evaluation. [powerpoint slides]. 

Nodder, C. (2014). UX design techniques: Paper prototyping. Retrieved from http://www.lynda.com/Web-Prototyping-tutorials/UX-Design-Techniques-Paper-Prototyping/161093-2.html 

Usability first. (2002). Low fidelity prototype. Retrieved from http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/low-fidelity-prototype/

Week 5

Our lecture this week was on understand users: creating user profile for designing.

Understanding the users is about finding out about the users through;

• Introspection
• Observation
• Interviews
• Questionnaires

These are 4 simple ways of finding out specific information about the users. 

When you have understood the users it is time to analyse the information. Analysing the information is where you collect critical information from interviews and observations and put them into a graph or table. 

The next part is to create resources for design. There are 3 main parts to this section and they are;

• Use scenario: A realistic description of events of one or more of the users. 
• User profile: A description of the characteristics and needs of the users
• Persona: An imaginary person who represents a member of the target users.

User profile

When thinking about user profiles you need to consider;

• Who is the audience for the system you are designing?
• What are the key problems to solve?
• What are the users most important, relevant characteristics? 
• Which of the users needs will you address 

And when building a user profile it is Demographics versus Psychographics.

Demographics is categorised by the target users, based on factors such as age, gender, race, profession, education, income and geographic location. 

Psychographics is categories by the target users, based on personalities, behaviour and lifestyle. 

Persona

When talking about Personas it is about having a multi-dimensional understanding of people, and it is the key to designing the products and services that people will want to buy and they they will find useful and enjoyable. 

There are three types of personas and they are; 

• Primary users: These users are the main focus, this is who we have designed the product for.
• Secondary users: These users also use the product. These users goals are different to those of the primary users but some of their needs overlap with the primary users.  
• Exclusionary: These users are people we have not designed the product for. Its often useful to specify this to prevent nonusers from creeping back into product development discussions. 

This lecture was finished with our homework for the week. Our homework this week was to finalise the proposed solution. Define what problem it is you intend to solve. List all the requirements of the product and how it addresses needs of the target users. Prepare our target user profile: who are your primary users and what defines them?

The problem I'm intending to solve is students wanting to put their studies before socialising. Socialising is a great thing but when you have an assignment coming up, it is very important you choose that first. The app I have designed is used to not annoy first year university students living on campus but to encourage them to want to put there education before socialising and using their time wisely. The product is just a simple app which requires you to upload your timetable and assignment dates. This will ensure that the app reminds you of classes that need to be attended and assignments that are due. This app addresses the needs of the students by helping them time management studies and socialising. Once you attend your classes the app will encourage you to go and have some fun for a few hours, and when assignments are submitted you will receive points and these points are added together to eventually get food vouchers. These vouchers will help the students relax and clear their heads and have some fun, just before they need to do some more of their studies. This app is not about forcing students to study, study, study but rather time management with study and socialising, and showing them its important to have both. The primary users will be the students that are having trouble with time management skills and are looking for some encouragement.

I have struggled with coming up with an app that will both be fun and engage the students but also will work. I had a basic idea of what I wanted, from observing my focus group. I have done interviews and questionnaires about the app I have designed and they have provided me with great feedback. The app i have designed its easy to use, and will hopefully encourage students to properly time manage between studies and socialising.

Referencing 

Gudur, Raghavendra. (2015). 9291 User interface and experience. Lecture 4, week 5: creating user profile for designing. [Powerpoint slides]

Hack design. (2015). Understanding the user. Retrieved from https://hackdesign.org/lessons/12

Week 4

Our lecture this week was on need analysis: requirement gathering.

What is need analysis and why do we need it?
Need analysis includes all the activities used to collect information about peoples learning needs and wants. A needs analysis can be very formal, extensive and time consuming, or it can be informal, narrowly focused and quick. Some of the resources that are used to collect information include; surveys, questionnaires and interviews. The information collected for the need analysis can be used to help define the goals of these people.
We need to identify the needs of our target group so we can than produce requirements.

So what are requirements?
Requirements are something that a person needs or wants. It helps propose the product that specifies its goals and tasks so we can accomplish them. A question which will help understand this is "How can a user interact with the product to achieve their goal?"

The next step is needs vs wants.
A need are things that are necessary for survival.
A want are things that are not necessary for survival (Raghu, 2015).
When we talk about needs and wants, we need to observe and record what our target audience needs and wants are.

So in order to find out their needs and wants you need to undergo data gathering. Data gathering is a systematic approach to gather information from a variety of sources to get a complete and accurate picture of the problem.
You can use multiple methods, but it is best to stick with qualitative methods. Qualitative methods include observations, interviews and focus groups to name a few.

The steps to follow when you are wanting to gather information.
Preparation is the first step. Preparation involves observing and interviewing your target group. You need to have a clear idea on what you intend to investigate.

Preparation: approach. These are a few methods for data gathering and analysis

• Observe
• What users say is important
• Contextual enquiry
• Interviews
• Focus groups 
• Analyse

Observe: Observing your target group is important, this is when you find out the problems they are facing without having to acknowledge them. 

Contextual enquiry: Thinking out loud. this is where you sit down with a user and encourage them to verbalise what they are thinking. There is no right or wrong way of doing this. 

Interviews: Have a plan and be specific. Make sure you keep the interview open to different directions. At the end always ask them if they have anything else they feel is important to say. Always record interviews. 

Focus groups: These groups need to have at least 3 people and it is important to use a mix of target users. Always starts with specific questions than slowly move to more open ended questions.

Analyse: Compile collected data in numerical, textual and AV databases. Prepare a report and present findings.

The lecture was finished with our homework for the week. Our homework this week, we had to refine our selected idea for an app. Review how it addresses identified problem of the target users. Making sure we investigate if the target users find a need for proposed idea. Than based on the data list requirements of my proposed solution prepare a short write up listing; methods and methodology used, how my idea conformed to users needs.

So when I observed 1st year university students, I found that they have a problem in time management between studies and socialising. When observing I noticed that they would always choose to party, or get togethers with friends and leave their work to the last minute. My app idea is to encourage these students to study before party, in a cool, fun type of way. My app will have a spot where you can add your timetable and dates for assignments into like a calendar, and you will be reminded when you have class and assignments due. Added to the app will be a points system, so if you go to class you will receive points depending on how long your class is. You will also receive points when submitting an assignment, and more points if you submit it with plenty of time in advance. These points will add up and when you get to 20 points you are allowed to attend a socialising event, or a night out. If you miss classes and don't hand in assignments, your points will deduct. The app also keeps the points you have earned and when 50 points is up you get a food voucher.
This app encourages students to do their studies before their socialising and when doing a good enough job you will receive food vouchers, as we all know everybody loves food.
I interviewed my roommates as they are all first year university students and they gave me positive feedback on my app idea and said they would definitely use it.

In class we were each given time with the teacher to talk about our ideas, and he gave us feedback on what direction to go in and how we could fix up any problems we were facing.

Bibliography
Gudue, Raghavendra. (2015). 9291 User interface and experience. Lecture 3, week 4: Need analysis: requirement gathering [Powerpoint slides]

Casper, A. (2003). Need analysis. Retrieved from

http://linguistics.byu.edu/resources/volunteers/TESOLBYU_NeedsAnalysis.htm

Week 3

Our lecture this week was on User Centric Design: Requirement analysis.

So what is user centric design?
User centric design is a method used for iterative design. The method looks like this;

























The three steps include;
1. Design
2. Implement
3. Evaluate.

This method is quite expensive, so to save time and cost it is better to follow a spiral model.

These steps also include;
1. Design
2. Implement
3. Evaluate
But there is also extra information added to this model than what there is for the iterative model.

So where do we start?
Requirement gathering has three main steps; design, implementation and evaluation.
In the requirement gathering phase there is 3 main primary activities and they are;

• User observation
• Interviewing and
• Task analysis.

User observation is when you target the users. As soon as you find the target audience you can address them and observe their behaviours. 

Interviews will give you the insight into behaviours you have observed earlier. It provides insight into identity goals that users are trying to achieve through their actions.

Task analysis helps understand in detail how users perform their tasks and achieve their goals. Task analysis helps identify the task that your product must support. 

• What are their goals?
• How do they achieve their goals?
• What experiences users bring to the tasks.

Than we move onto task behaviour analysis.

Task behaviour analysis is how the users are influenced by their physical environment. 

The lecture was finished with our homework for the week. Our homework for this week was;

Go through project 1 brief "Improving university learning experience" and identify your primary user group.

Observe target user group to find issues that need attention and can be addressed with help of technology.

Make sure by addressing the identified issuers you are improving quality of university learning for the target user group.

Develop 3 ideas that cold address identified issues.

Make a short pitch for your ideas and bring them to the tutorial next week. 

The primary target group I have chosen to study is first year university students who live on campus. 

When observing the 1st year university student who live on campus group, I noticed that one major problem they all face is time management between socialising and studies. Most students I observed leave all their assessments and homework to the last minute, because they would rather spend their night socialising with friends and having a night out. Time management is an important thing in life and first year students seem to be having trouble with this. 

The idea that I had that could address the time management of first year university students who live on campus is an app for mobile users. This app will include features that encourage university students to do their studies and assignments before they socialise. It will give points when submitting an assignment and the point can be added up to get something for free. 

This homework made me think outside the box and was a challenging experience. The problem I identified was probably the easiest part but trying to think of an application for mobile users that will help with time management between studies and socialising became a struggle. I came up with the idea, and tested it out with the target group. The target group gave me feedback on if it would work and if it wouldn't work and gave me ideas on how I could fix it and improve it. Im currently happy with the app I have put forward and hopefully I can only improve it with the weeks to come. 

Bibliography

Gudur, Raghavendra. (2015). 9291 User interface and experience. Lecture 2, week 3: User centric design: Requirement gathering [Powerpoint slides]

Lawton, H., Thorp, J. (2008). User centric design process. Retrieved from http://www.w3.org/WAI/redesign/ucd 

Week 2

Our lecture this week was an introduction to the course "User Interface and experience".

We have three assignments, the first one is a concept proposal, the second is a high fidelity prototype, and the third is a reflective journal. 

These assignments have all been spread out which is perfect for a second year student and I'm looking forward to engaging in these tasks. 

In this class there are two different parts;

1. Is the user interface design (UI), which we will be studying for the first half of the semester.

2. Is the user experience design (UX), which we will be studying for the second half of the semester.

What is user interface and experience?

User interface (UI) "is everything designed into an information device with which a human being may interact including display screens, keyboard, mouse, light pen, the appearance of a desktop, illuminated characters, help messages, and how an application program or a web site invites interaction and responds to it". (Rouse, 2014)

User experience (UX) "focuses on having a deep understand of users, what they need, what they value, their abilities, and also their limitations. It also takes into account the business goals and objectives of the group managing the project. User experience best practices promote improving the quality of the users interaction with and perceptions of your product and any related service". (usability, 2014)

These two elements come hand in hand with each other, and thats what this class will teach us all about. 

At the end of the lecture, we were given homework. Our homework was what is a good or a bad interface design?

• Choose one good and one bad interface design and prepare a rational for why you think one is good and one is bad.
• Important to keep in mind: Pick both good examples and bad examples from the same category and platform to make it easy for comparative analysis. For example, shopping list app for android mobile. Pick one shopping list app which you think is good and one that you think is bad and explain why.

So the user interface I went with was Cinema web sites. I chose specifically Hoyts and Dendy. 

Hoyts

Dendy

Hoyts I chose to be a bad example, and Dendy to be the good example.

First the Hoyts website is very compacted and messy in the header and top section of the body. There is one main bar up the top with the key elements but there is also one down lower which displays movie titles. I do not see the practical side of this, as people like to see the movie title and all its elements together, for example the cover, ratings and the description. You than scroll down further and the movie elements are there, so i find the movie bar to be pointless. 

Dendy also has two menu bars, but they are more practical. Dendy's web site is easier to navigate and is more clear with its layout. When scrolling down the screen on the front page it is automatically on times and tickets for the movies, which is great. Dendys also has the option of now showing and coming soon, where Hoyts does not display this option. 

On Hoyts website there is an add that is displayed multiple times over the front page, this for viewers is not appealing as they are viewing the add multiple times in just a few seconds. Dendy cinemas have no adds just one add displayed once on the page. This is more appealing to the viewers. 

It has been said that more mature aged people go onto Dendy cinemas page to look at what is showing and to buy tickets and i can see why. Dendy is a far better site to navigate, it is clean and has a great layout. You don't have to click anything multiple times to find what you are looking for, where as Hoyts you have to do more clicking of the mouse. Hoyts in saying this does have more information written on its website but sometimes when you are only wanted to see times, it can get annoying. 

Overall I do believe Dendy is a good example and Hoyts is a bad example. 

In the tutorial we discussed our homework, and had to give a quick presentation on what we thought was a good and bad interface design. Everyone had a go and there was some great examples provided. We than briefly went through our brief for our first assignment. The brief is targeted at 1st year uni students and how they sometimes fall behind in their studies due to multiple reasons. Our assignment is to come up with a tool that will help them get back on track and to not fall behind, and we will be looking into this further as the weeks go by. 

I enjoyed todays class, and the homework made me use my brain when trying to figure out why a website was good and why one was bad. The homework was interesting and no one ended with the same ideas. 

Bibliography 

Rouse, M. (2014). user interface (UI) definition. retrieved from http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/user-interface

Usability. (2014). User experience basics. retrieved from http://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/user-experience.html

Gudur, Raghavendra. (2015). 9291 User interface and experience. Lecture 1, week 2: Introduction [Powerpoint slides]