Information System Design Info-440

1. Information System DesignInfo-440 Autumn 2002 Session #18

2. Agenda • Usability approaches • Soft vs. hard • User-centered Design Process • The big picture • Break • Cases example

3. Admin • Announcements • Visio lab • Tuesday, Sept 3, 3:30 – 4:30 (or other time in afternoon) • Monday, Sept 9th, 3:30 – 4:30 • Tuesday, Sept 10th, 3:30-4:30 (or other time in afternoon) • Anyone?

4. Upcoming • Assignment #4 • December 4 • Quiz #4 • December 9 – On Nielsen, Chap. #5 • Interactive Prototyping Project • Friday, Dec 13, Noon (or earlier)

5. Last time: Heuristic evaluation • Some key points: • Aim for good coverage • Aim to be systematic • Aim for nuanced judgment • Aim to develop special-purpose guidelines • Practice, practice, practice

9. Framework for thinking about usability

10. A general framework (after Scriven, in Carroll 2000)

11. Definitions • Formative evaluation • Seeks to identify aspects of a design to improve, priorities for redesign • Summative evaluation • Seeks to measure a design against a scale • Payoff • Direct empirical testing (solid facts, hard to interpret) • Intrinsic • An inquiry (no solid facts, many possible interpretations)

12. A general framework

13. Case study • Goal Double the conversion rate at My Lycos • Metric: Conversion Rate CR= no. visitors/no. of signups • Current metric CR = 8%

14. Solution • You’ve been asked to develop a plan to improve the conversion rate… What would you do? • Hint…

15. User-Centered Design Process

16. Process: Where we are now? • Week 1: Introduction • Week 2: Requirements Analysis, Part I • Week 3: Requirements Analysis, Part II • Week 4: Conceptual design • Week 5: Conceptual design • Week 6: Interaction design, Part I • Week 7: Interaction design, Part II • Week 8: Evaluation, Part I • Week 9: Evaluation, Part II • Week 10: Special topics (UCD Process & Examples) • Week 11: The literature, personalities, and history

17. Affinity diagramming Card sorting Comics for summarizing workplace data Cognitive walkthrough (lab) Conceptual models Contextual inquiry Design-space analysis Focus groups Guidelines Heuristic evaluation Information architecture diagrams Inspecting objects (Norman’s vocabulary) Metaphors Prototyping & participatory design Personas Scenarios Task analysis Trade-offs: Representation technique Usability evaluation Methods (Approx 20)

18. What’s the bigpicture?

19. Answers • Methods fit within a process • Select the methods that make sense • Methods serve as springboard • Many more methods • With experience, you’ll invent your own • Methods are tools for design • Use them to deal with vagueness/ambiguity

20. Some processes • Code  Launch • Code  Usability Test  Launch • What’s wrong with these?

21. A process Version Release Define: Vision/scope Needs assessment Deploy: Delivery stable technology Beta software Vision/scope document Develop: Build the technology Design: Invent the technological solution Design specifications document

22. IDEO process

23. The elements of user experience (Jesse James Garrett)

24. Carbon IQ | User Centered Design Methods • Inquiry • Participatory design • Profiling • Testing • Inspection

25. Inquiry • Focus groups • Log analysis/logging • Questionnaires • Contextual inquiry • Surveys • Ethnographic study

26. Participatory Design • Prototype testing • Rapid prototyping • Card sorting

27. Profiling • Persona development • Scenarios • Task analysis • Conceptual modeling

28. Testing • Thinking aloud protocol • Question protocol • Performance measurement • Eye tracking • Teaching method • Coaching method • Journaled sessions • Self-reporting logs

29. Inspection • Consistency inspection • Standards inspection • Pluralistic walkthrough • Cognitive walkthrough • Heuristic evaluation • Feature inspection

30. Activity scenarios Information scenarios Interaction scenarios Scenario-base design (Rosson & Carroll) Analyze Analysis of stakeholders, field studies Problem scenarios Claims about current practice Design Metaphors, information technology, HCI theory, guidelines Iterative analysis of usability claims and redesign Prototype & Evaluate Summative evaluation Usability specifications Formative evaluation

31. A General Way to Think About Design Methods • Research • What facts bear on the problem? • Invention • What are the possible solutions? • Evaluation • How good are those solutions? • Different design methods serve different needs

32. Case study • Product manager says: “We think we should make the search results page accessible to all blind and visually handicapped users… We are going to build a special-purpose page and launch it in 6 weeks” • Some facts • The company has no experience with accessibility • The search page gets 500K hits/day • The audience for the site is diverse

33. Your analysis • Questions: • Do you have any questions? • What design process would you suggest? Possible format: Method Outcome Expected time Rationale …

34. Next time • Case studies of applying User-Centered Design methods