Seminar 1 - Group discussion

Chapter 2:  

We talked a lot about the approaches and which ones might be applied in our project. After discussion we think that the The activity centered design and the genius design approach seems like a good way to go since we won't be able too meet the users too much after our visit to the museum. Therefor the user - centered design approach probably won't be our major one.

Easier to design for a target group we are in.

Test on other people that is not in the museum to see if the interaction is working. We won't necessarily need our users for that, but people within the target group.

Mix the approaches as much as we can.


Chapter 4:

Hunt statement - I'm going to research X so that I can do Y.
This statement is something we think we should use before going into the field. Always thinking why the question will be relevant before asking.

Observation and interviews.

Unconscious bias - be careful to not choose people we feel match our expectations and instead also taking in regard people that are the opposite of our expectations.


Chapter 5:

Pain points as a conceptual model.

Personas - Creating different personas to help our evaluations during the development of the process.

Taking research information that are very distant and trying to combine them could give us new ideas and perspective.


Questions:

We think we can evaluate our working process by using different approaches we found to be relevant in chapter two and also creating personas.

Follow up on the interviewed people not necessary since the visitors can vary.

Mixing the approaches could give some disadvantages but we think they are the same as using only one. Therefore we are going to mix the approaches since the advantages are more by doing so.

Thoughts about our own project:

Think about the relation parent - children. Do parents want to leave them alone?

What do parents do during that time?

Will the parents have more fun if they can explain the experiments?

They want to be with their kids or they take them there to have some time alone?


Other group's tips and thoughts:

Be "a part of the environment" while interviewing a child

Observing gave more data than the interview

Hard to get answers without introducing them to the idea

Seminar 1 Sebastian Münzner

The first chapter of the literature to our first reading seminar provides us with four theoretical approaches of interaction design. This covers a user centered design (UCD), which focuses on the needs and goals of the user, and an activity-centered design (ACD), which focuses on tasks and activities that have to be able to be accomplished. Furthermore there exists system design, which is aiming to control each single component of the system and enables a very analytical way of usage. Finally there is an approach called genius design, which applies for experienced designer, who build up designs on their intuition and longterm experience.

I admit that we are not as experienced in such a way as to enable us to use genuis design. In addition our application should be more fun to use as an system design will provide. So we are ending up with UCD and ACD. I guess UCD fits best to our goals thus we want to fulfill the user's need of information to offered activities.

The second chapter is about research design. This offers different ways and guidelines how to collect data. First of all a hunt statement should be created. This emphasizes the goals of research and gives reasons why research has to be done. As we are admonish to interview our target group an prepared moderator script is a matter of importance. There are many more ways to acquire data, but in this case those are not suitable.

The third chapter briefs how to reduce big data into useful information.
Many ways are shown such as analysis, summation, extrapolation and abstraction. One way to personificate target groups is to create a persona for each. This generalizes each group to a fictious person, whose behaviour and goals conforms to those of the target group. In our case I propose to create two personas: parents and children.

Apparently our end users will be parents, but as they have different needs as children, for instance regarding motivation of using this app, I guess it is the best to relate to them as different target groups. This consequently leads to my question.

Question: As children are too young to answer interview questions or tell us about their needs / goals / motivation, how can we acquire information about them?

Reading seminar 1 - Rebecka Rönnbäck

For the first seminar we’ve read three articles and some chapters from a book called Designing for Interaction.  They have all been about usability and design between the producer and the user, but in different ways. To begin with there are four ways of designing.

The first is called User-Centered Design (USD). This way of designing assumes that the user knows best and therefore the design is adjusted for the user’s needs. The process of designing is interacted with potential users and their input on how it should be.

The second is called Activity Centered Design, and is based, as you can hear from the name, on activities, behaviors around certain tasks.

The third is called System Design and is a structured design for big and complex problems.

Last but not least, Genius Design. The designer makes all the choices on how the product will end up by knowing the users need. It is not like in the USD though, where the user actually get to decide on looks.

The texts also discuss how to gather information and say that qualitative research is to prefer rather than quantitative research. So what is the difference?

Qualitative research is based on interviews and opinions, on behaviors and expectations, questions beginning with why and how, instead of quantitative which is collected data and statistics.

For our project, I believe we will use a mix of the first and the fourth designing technique. We will get a picture of our target groups and our users and what they want and need, and work from that. For this, we will use qualitative research.

My question for this seminar is:
How do we continue the research after the first interview when we have found the target group? Is it a good idea to stay in touch (using the USD method) or bring new people in if we want to make more research?

Reading Seminar 1 - Matilda Carlson

There are four major approaches when you are working with interaction design projects; User - centered design (UCD), Activity - centered design (ACD), Systems design and Genius design. Which one or which ones that is used is up to the designer and what the project looks like, but using it is the winning key for a successful project. The best designers even move between approaches to get a better result, since you get a look at it from different point of views. The User-centered design feels like one of the approaches we will use the most when we develop our project. Since this project is a lot about the client and what the client needs it seems legit to focus on that one. Also the activity - centered design seems like a good way to go. But we will probably find that out during these couple of weeks.

The research is a given factor for this progress, none the less since we don’t have much experience in this yet. To meet the future users will help to learn about and  to empathise with the group we want to reach. It’s easy to believe you know what they want and need, but it’

I want to discuss with the group if it is possible to let the users affect the design project in a wrong way, and in that case, how?

Seminar 1 - Lisa Torekull

By reading the book you get a lot of helpful information that will become useful for our project, especially this weekend when we are going to Tom Tits.

But first I’m going to explain about the four approaches that are presented in chapter two. The four approaches explain how designers can create the user-friendliest design.

·      User-Centered Design: Here the users will be in every step of the development. That’s important because as a designer some things may seem obvious, but the user might think otherwise. Using this approach designers try to solve one ultimate problem for the users. The downside with this approach is that it is very hard to find that ultimate problem for a whole target group. Using this way of thinking the designers avoid a typical trap by thinking that “you are not the user”.

·      Activity-Centered Design: Focuses on the task itself rather than the goal. This approach helps designers to focus on how they are going to help the users with their problem. It is important for the designers to show the users how to get to the goal. Good design in this step will make it very easy for the user to understand how to use the product.

·      Systems Design: Is used for big and complex systems that need an analytical approach.

·      Genius Design: Many designers who have experience and a lot of knowledge use this approach. It is required because in this approach you don’t use the users as much to help with the development of the product. They rely on their expertise on the subject instead. This is a very risky way of designing but in my point of view a very good one. That is because many designers see themselves as potential users of the product and you can let yourself think outside the box.

Chapter four explains among other things two statements that will be very useful to our project group’s field trip. Hunt statement, good tool to have when you decide the questions that will be asked during the field trip. If I ask X will I receive relevant information? And so on. Meanwhile Moderator script is another tool that helps us on how we are going to ask the question.

My question is: Can you think of a bad way to ask a question and then change it into a good way?

Notes to seminar 1 - Isabella

I found chapter two to be the most interesting chapter to read since I did not know there where four ways of handling interaction design projects. The four approaches are; user-centered design (UCD), activity-centered design (ACD), systems design and genius design. I think that all of them have advantages but also disadvantages, which I think could however be compensated by mixing them. At the end of the chapter the writer recommends the reader to not simply focus on one of the approaches while designing but to keep a flexible and open mind on switching and mixing approaches as the situation changes. I agree with the author on this point and think it could be useful to move between different approaches while doing our project. But I’m wondering if there are any disadvantages by doing so? Could things go wrong, and if so, why?

Design research was discussed in chapter four and explained as a research with the purpose of raising the products chances of being user friendly and fulfill the users needs. Using screeners, to sort out uninteresting subjects, and moderator scripts, to make sure the right question are asked, is something I think could come in handy while doing our research later on. Except for that, most of the content felt as things you already know about although it’s good to sometimes get a reminder of that it’s ideally to have four pens.

The last chapter presented different ways of structuring the collected data from the design research. There are some very good tips in this chapter on how you can break the collected data into small parts so it becomes easier to analyze and remember it.

Notes to Reading seminar 1 19/9-14 Carl Sténson

There are four different approaches to interaction design; User-design, Activity-centered design, System design and Genius Design (also called Rapid Expert design). When working most people tends to prefer one of them, but it is preferable to be able to change during a project to see everything from a different angle. One thing that is of high importance for all of the four approaches is to know your final users’ needs. User-centered design always takes the user in consideration, while Activity-centered design focus on the users’ tasks and activities that needs to be accomplished. System design on the other hand focus mainly on the components of the system to create a clear roadmap of what should be accomplished (it still has to know what the user wants to accomplish). The last approach is a bit different than the other in the way that it does not include any research of the users. Instead it is dependent on the designer’s skill, wisdom and experience. The designer makes a couple of assumptions of the future users and makes a design he/she think will satisfy them. This approach is probably the fastest and least expensive but it also includes a higher risk of a failure due to the subjective judgment (lack of research).

Research is important, especially for unexperienced designers, to get to know the users’ needs, requirements and environment. When doing research it is important to remember that things you hear twice do not have to be the opinion of all users a rule is that if you hear it three times it is a pattern. It is also important to not ask leading questions instead try to get them to tell you a story of an experienced situation. When you got the data it is important to analyze your findings to be able to take advantage of the made research in the design. Try to find pain points, opportunities and Call to actions. It is also a good Idea to create Personas to characterize your future users.

During the design work it is important to stay open-minded and keep several tracks/ideas open and to evaluate your work continuously to keep track of that you working towards your goal.

How should we evaluate our work during the project to always keep the future user in our mind?