Welcome TC518: User-centered Design

1. Welcome TC518: User-centered Design

2. Mapping out Day 1 • Introductions • Tell me about yourself • Go over syllabus • Introduce yourself to the class • Finding potential project teammates… • Introduction to User-centered Design and Usability • Lecture • Two activities • Revisit syllabus – focus on readings • Project • Overview of activities

3. General Name (and preferred way to address you) Best way to contact you (e.g., email, phone, etc.) Place of employment Domains of interest (e.g., medicine, e-commerce, etc.) Going Deeper Evaluation criteria: What criteria you would use to evaluate a) a hair dryer, b) a website Design process: Write down the sequence of five or so major steps one should go through in developing and evaluating a new computer system for end users. Techniques: What techniques do you use (have you used) to focus on users in your work? Tell me about yourself Please record the following information on an index card:

4. Syllabus – Learning Objectives+ • Following the course, students may need to • Do user-centered design activities • “Sell” user-centered design activities • Plan user-centered design activities (and make choices) • Continue to educate themselves • By the end of the course, students will be able to: • Critically discuss the concept & complexities of UCD • Identify and explain a variety of factors motivating/enabling UCD • Plan and execute activities that collectively instantiate a UCD process • Identify areas of scholarship useful in design to address user needs • Class elements • Project (70%) • Readings and discussion (10%) • Final exam (20%)

5. Syllabus • Review Detailed Schedule • Class Structure • Students read about topic • Posting on EPost regarding topic • Discuss topic in class • Students do project work related to topic • Students turn in exercise or deliverable for topic • Share results of project work in class

6. Syllabus - Class Structure Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 • HW: • Readings • Online Discussion • Project Work • HW: • Readings • Online Discussion • Project Work Share results from project exercise 1 (topic B) Share results from project exercise 2 (topic C) Discuss New Concepts via Readings (topic A) Discuss New Concepts via Readings (topic C) Discuss New Concepts via Readings (topic D) Discuss project exercise 1 (topic B) Discuss project exercise 2 (topic C) Discuss project exercise 3 (topic D)

7. Syllabus – Project (70%) • Description: • Follow a user-centered design process to explore the redesign of a product/process of your choosing. • Examples: Students may redesign • Blood pressure cuff in local drugstore • Informational website for engineering educators • Check-out process for Internet retailer • Instructions/documentation for photo processing software • Educational toy designed for 5 year old • Student Responsibilities • Project exercises (6, weekly homework, collectively 15% of grade) • Project deliverables (3, milestones, 10%, 20% & 25% of grade)

8. Syllabus - Readings & discussion (10%)

9. Syllabus – Course Design Principles Assumptions • Learning involves construction of knowledge • Students are diverse, and have knowledge to offer Principles • Provide varied ways for students to learn & demonstrate knowledge • Ensure students have opportunity to learn from each other • Manage participant burden Elements • Practice user-centered design activities • Reflect on user-centered design activities through discussions • Learn from perspectives of others • Various interactions w/ readings (summarize, discuss, synthesize) • …

10. Activity 1: Let’s move around… • Your task: • Identify one or more domains that interest you • Find/meet other students who share domain interests • Talk about • Your motivations for taking this class and • Nature of your interest in the specific domain. • Motivation for this activity: • Projects involve teams • Teams organized around domains • Project is easier if teams have prior domain knowledge

11. Activity 2a – Difficult Products • Individually: Think about some product/ process that you have found to be difficult: • What was the nature of the difficulty and the consequences? • What do you think contributes to (causes) the difficulty? • Group: Share your experiences.

12. UCD vs. Usability • User-centered design is what you do to achieve usable systems • Usability is the way a user-centered design product is evaluated • We will talk about usability then about user-centered design

13. Defining Usability • “The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals in a specified context of use with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction” (ISO 9241-11) • “The measure of the quality of the user experience when interacting with something – whether a web site, a traditional software application, or any other device the user can operate in some way or another” (Nielsen) • “Usability means that the people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their own tasks” (Dumas and Redish)

14. Defining Usability (Barnum, p. 6)

15. Benefits of a usable system (Maquire, p. 589)

16. Usability and User Experience Usability stems from entire user experience: • Device Interface – Visual, tactile, input devices… • Support manuals • Packaging • Computer system • Workspace Each of these aspects of a product/process can be redesigned to enhance usability…

17. Recap and apply… Recap • Usability definitions and dimensions • Benefits of usable systems • Aspects of the user experience Links to activity…considering your “difficult products”: • What does usability look like? • What would be the benefits of usability? • What would be included the comprehensive user experience? • What would we need to know in order to design?

18. Activity 2b: Difficult Products (cont.) Building on your discussion of a difficulty and contributing factors, discuss the following in your group: • Is the difficulty a usability issue? If so, what aspects of usability are relevant? If not, are there other difficulties that are usability related in nature? • What might be included as part of a “user’s experience” with the product? How does the answer to this question affect your diagnosis of contributing factors? • What might be the benefits of a more usable version of this product? • Also (time permitting)… What did the designers fail to take into account, such that the original design was difficult? Why might the considerations not have been taken into account?

19. UCD - Historical context • [Pre-1975]: • Computing systems with specialized interfaces, expert users • Severe limitations in terms of interface, computing power! • 1977: Release of Apple II with graphical interface • 1985: Gould and Lewis promote User-centered Design • 1988: Norman and Draper, User-centered System Design • [1990’s] – • Interest in field methods, • Rapid increases in computing power and options, • Emergence of prototyping tools, • Global marketplace, • Internet… • 1999: ISO standards for human-centered design • 2001: Special issue IJHCI, Human-centered design • 2002: Special issue IJHCI, User-centered design at IBM

20. User-centered design • Goal: Achieving usable systems • But what is it? • Principles • Process • Philosophy • All of the above • Something else? • Questions: • How does user-experience design compare to other types of design such as software design, navigation design, interface design, interaction design, learner-centered design, and usage-centered design? • How does a user-centered design process compare to other design processes such as the waterfall model and extreme programming?

21. Principles for UCD • Early focus on users • Empirical measurement • Iterative design Gould and Lewis (1985)

22. Assumptions behind principles #1: Usability is an important goal. #2: Users are difficult to predict, variable, and hard to pin down.

23. “Principles are undervalued”(Gould and Lewis, 1985) • Not worth following • Confusion with similar but critically different ideas • User diversity is underestimated • User diversity is overestimated • Belief that users do not know what they need • Belief that one’s job does not require it or permit it • Belief in the power of reason • Belief that design guidelines should be sufficient • Belief that good design means getting it right first time • Belief that the development process will be lengthened • Belief that iteration is just fine-tuning • Belief in the power of technology to succeed

24. UCD: Process and Products (Maquire, p. 589) Plan UCD: Decisions about which methods to use Specify context of use: Description of users, tasks, context, problems Evaluate against rqmts: Data on how well system meets expectations Specify user/org rqmts: Statements about what the design should fulfill Produce Design Solutions: System specifications

25. Methods available at UCD stages…

26. Activity 2b: Difficult Products (cont.) Discuss the following in groups: • What process might you follow to explore potential redesigns? • What would you want to know in order to do the redesign?

27. Demonstration • TA will demonstrate • Posting to your design portfolio • Online discussions (EPost)

28. Where are we going from here The design of this class – students will get • Experience with user-centered design • Exposure to choices, tradeoffs, other examples • Information and sources for more information Information from the readings… • Selection of topics • Selection of sources

29. Syllabus – Project, Overview • Description: • Follow a user-centered design process to explore the redesign of a product/system/process of your choosing • Examples: Students may redesign • Blood pressure cuff in local drugstore • Informational website for engineering educators • Check-out process for Internet retailer • Instructions/documentation for photo processing software • Educational toy designed for 5 year old • Responsibilities • Project exercises – weekly homework • Project deliverables – significant milestones

30. Winter 2004 GroupHealth Net Children Toys HR Web Web checkout Online booksellers 1 Bookseller homepage Simplesite Web Email Media players Digital cameras Winter 2003 Cell Phone Epicurean Expedia Mandolin OFOTO SAM UW Past Project Topics Winter 2005 • eBay (seller) • Photo website • U-Scan • Babycenter • Civic website • Online surveys

31. Syllabus – Project, Structure • Project Exercises (6) • Almost weekly homework • Graded credit/no credit, collectively worth 15% of grade • Scaled to fit one week • One page limit • Project Deliverables (3) • Worth 10%, 20% and 25% of grade • Summarize project progress, next steps

32. Project - Structure

33. Project – Group Element • Groups of 4-5 students will jointly work on a shared product/process. • Each student will complete each project exercise independently (and be graded independently). • On the day the exercise is due, students will share the results with their group. • As project moves forward, each student can use information created by any group member in making their own decisions.

34. Exercise 1: Preliminary Analysis • Task: Interact with the product/system you are proposing to redesign, focusing on users and tasks • Consider the following • Who are the intended users and what goals might they have when interacting with the product? • What would they do with the product/system and what would be entailed in using the product/system to complete these tasks? • In what context and under what circumstances would the interaction occur? • What would be the criteria of a successful interaction? • What makes the product/process/system a good candidate for user-centered redesign? • What are some of the drawbacks of working with this product/process/system? • Prepare: A one page summary describing • The results of your analysis (i.e., information relative to the questions) • Post summary to your design portfolio • Bring to class: Copies of summary for • Each team member • Instructors

35. Wrap-up… where we’ve been • Introductions • Tell me about yourself • Go over syllabus • Finding potential project teammates… • Introduction to User-centered design and usability • Lecture • Two activities • Revisit syllabus – focus on readings • Project • Overview of activities