Investigation 6: Prototyping

Assigned

Friday, 7 May 2021

Summary

In this assignment, you will practice constructing and demonstrating prototypes to explore a design problem in depth.

Collaboration

You should work in a team of three or four students. You may consult other students in the class as you develop your solution. If you receive help from anyone, make sure to cite them in your responses.

Part 0: Form teams and decide on approaches

In class on Monday, we will form teams centered around the ideation projects. You need not join a team associated with your ideation project. However, you should be prepared to adapt as needed to one of the projects.

As a team, you will decide which approach or approaches to the problem you will take. Each member of the team will be responsible for creating their own prototype, but multiple members can use the same approach to the problem in creating the prototype. (E.g., If you have decided on a calendar-based reservation system for common washers and dryers, there are still a host of ways to build the interface for such a system. Just don’t make it 25-live.)

Part 1: Construct your prototypes

Depending on your task, you may find it best to create paper prototypes, to use a computer-based prototyping tool, or to develop role prototype (e.g., a short video prototype, a few short storyboards, a longer storyboard, etc.). Your goal is to envision in greater detail how your design concepts address your design problem.

Do not spend more than 2–3 hours constructing each prototype.

Part 2: Test your prototypes as others

Recruit two people to give you feedback on your prototypes. If you have built interactive prototypes (e.g., paper prototypes or computer-based prototypes), you should ask them to carry out a task using the prototype and note any problems they experience. (That is, you will carry out an informal usability test.) If you create a non-interactive prototype, have your participants watch or view the prototype and interview them informally to get their feedback.

Part 3: Test your prototypes with classmates as a focus group

You will be assigned another team to serve as a focus group to give you feedback on your prototypes. Only one member of the team need interact with each interactive prototype, but all should observe and provide comments.

Assessment

In the Assessment 6 channel on Teams, each member of the team should a short document that explains your work, according to the following standards.

Prototype explanation (4 points)

• Restate the design prompt, either verbatim or rephrased.
• Describe the design concepts you included in your prototype.
• Provide any further exploration you feel necessary to make your prototype clear.

Prototype (6 points)

What you submit will depend on the type of prototype you created. You might choose to submit photographs or screen captures, or create a video that demonstrates the prototypes in use. If you wrote scenarios, you may append them to the written report.

In evaluating your prototype, I will not look for polish, but rather to see how clearly it conveys your design ideas.

Process reflection: Development (6 points)

Reflect on the process you used to create the prototype, making sure to highlight any challenges you faced and what you’ve learned from those challenges.

Report on feedback (6 points)

You may write this section with your teammates. If you do, make sure to indicate that this section was collaboratively authored.

• Describe your subjects. For the two you chose, explain why you chose them.
• What feedback did you receive / what did you learn from the test process? Make sure to discuss any common themes among different participants.
• What aspects of the feedback should you pay the most attention to? What might you ignore? Why?

Process reflection: Gathering feedback (6 points)

You may write this section with your teammates. If you do, make sure to indicate that this section was collaboratively authored.

• Discuss how comparative exploration of UIs was different than the more focused exploration we did in investigation 4.
• Discuss the differences between working with individuals and working with a focus group.
• Given the opportunity to do this again, what would you do differently?

Conclusions (4 points)

You may write this section with your teammates. If you do, make sure to indicate that this section was collaboratively authored.

• Suppose you decided to move ahead with the project, which of the prototypes would you start with and why?
• What changes would you make to that prototype?

Acknowledgements

This assignment is loosely based on investigation 6 from Janet Davis’s Spring 2015 session of HCI-232. Dr. Davis’s version provided more options, did not include a focus group, and used a different rubric.