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Term Project
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TERM PROJECT
HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION - LIB251 - Term Project (50% of final grade)
(Adapted from HCI course materials developed by Dr. Christine Borgman
at UCLA with her permission).
A Practical, Design Approach to the Term Project
While we can study human-computer interaction in the abstract, it is best
understood through the
design process. We all have experience with poor designs that are difficult
to learn and use and
appear to have been created with minimal understanding of how people might
actually make use
of them. The purpose of this assignment is to help you learn how to design
real interfaces for real
people and for a specific service.
Scope
Your assignment is to pick a very small aspect or a set of tasks
for a service, build an interface for it, evaluate the interface and refine
it during the term. The purpose of the project is to have a system and
its interface to evaluate with real users, rather than to have extensive
functionality. Invest your time in making the system easy and simple to
use, not in adding features.
Structure
The assignment will be done either by one person or in teams of three.
Each team / person will make one class presentation during the term and
submit five written assignments, the last of which is your final
report with a full description of the system. The first written, brief
description of the system's scope will be submitted as part of your in-class
presentation on March 8, 2003. At the end of the semester you can use
all of your previous written assignments as content for your final report.
Audience / user community / assumptions
Your audience must fall in the "every citizen" category by not
requiring any formal training in computing and minimal experience with
personal computers.
Use of the system / interface should be self-evident: that is, there
are no training courses or manuals, just a 3 page "How to get started
... " document. These users need to have the capability that the
system provides. Be sure that the functions the system is able to perform
are indeed simple to do, fast, and easy.
Pick your user community first, and keep it focused: e.g., high school
students, parents, retirees, nurses, blind, cat owners, music lovers,
landlords and tenants. Do not choose librarians or MLIS students. Do not
choose other class members.
Tailor your service and your interface to your user community or user
group. Select a user group for which you have access to at least 3 participants
on which to evaluate your system / interface. In other words, you must
recruit and conduct tests with at least 3 participants. Assume that you
have a personal computer with keyboard, mouse, and graphic display, and
a network connection if your application requires it.
Examples of sample projects
- Phone book containing contact information for local government and
consumer agencies (maximum of 100 entries)
- Bulletin board for exchanging information within a school, class,
local community, or community of interest (e.g. Cat owners, bird watchers,
gourmet cooks) (maximum of 100 entries)
- Networked information application: client, agent, or web site
- Application to identify information in one area of education, work,
leisure, social, or political activities (maximum of 100 entries, or
two layers deep in a hierarchy)
- Application to find people
- Directory of services for one agency
- Also consult all the many examples in the class textbook, particularly
Chapters 6-9
Design tools
Select a software environment that already you are familiar with and divide
up tasks accordingly. The point of the assignment is to construct and
evaluate a user interface based on principles you learn in the course,
rather than to spend time learning new software tools. Development software
may include HyperCard, HyperStudio, Filemaker Pro, and several HTML tools.
Director also is available, but harder to learn; it is recommended only
if you are facile with it already.
Tasks and timeline (Week 1 below is March 8). Brief statements about
the tasks below are also listed in the class schedule.
Week 1:
- Form groups of 3 persons (or you can work alone, but there will
be more to do with just one person working on the project)
- Select project scope (set of tasks, functions for the interface .
. . )
- Submit brief description of service tasks to be developed for
access through the interface (due in class March 8, 2003)
- Read about the task(s) you are proposing to explore as part of
your project
- Look at user interfaces that do your tasks or similar tasks
- Start identifying subjects for your evaluation
- Start a journal in which to keep notes throughout the design
process of your decisions, how and why you made them, and the process
of decision-making. These will be essential in writing reports
Week 2:
- Generate multiple scenarios for design of the user interface.
- Team members should work independently to generate at least one
scenario, then compare them
- Establish all the tasks the user interface is to perform and
related criteria (see readings)
- Select the best scenario to develop
- Storyboard the user interface
Week 3:
- Continue development of the interface
- (Continue taking good notes . . . they will be useful for the final
report)
- Submit a report of your activities to develop the interface thus
far (3-5 pages, due 3/21). In your report, please address each of the items listed below:
- Identify scope, purpose, tasks, audience, software tools
- Include scenario chosen, as well as scenarios rejected, explaining
your choice
- Discuss your design criteria by referencing the readings
- Include progress report on system, storyboard, working prototype
if completed, and screen dumps.
Week 4: SPRING BREAK -- ENJOY!
Week 5:
- Revise plans based on feedback from instructor and maybe if we
can figure out a good way you may also receive feedback from the rest
of the class. Complete work on a prototype.
- Write and submit user documentation (max 3 pages - due 4/4)
-- "how to get started"; Assume that the program is already
running -- no discussion of power switches, operating systems, etc.
- Start planning your user evaluation / usability study. Make contacts
with subjects for study.
Week 6:
- Finalize your interface and make appointments with your test
subjects for testing the interface. In order to conduct a usability study
you need to have an operational interface.
Week 7:
- Conduct your user evaluation study. Give explicit things for your
users to do with the interface. Use a mix of observation and quantitative
evaluation. "How to get started" should be only instructions
-- do not give oral instructions (cannot control content).
- Each team member must study at least 3 subjects.
- Prepare a list of tasks for the test users to perform (e.g., "Add
an entry describing your cat." "find the phone number for
the social welfare department."). It should take no more than 10
minutes for a user to perform these tasks
- Run your subjects individually (not in groups). Subjects must be
drawn from your target user community and cannot be class members
- Give them the "getting started" documentation you wrote
and the list of tasks, start up the system, and ask them to perform
the tasks
- A common method is the "thinking aloud" protocol; you can
use others that are more suitable to your application. In thinking aloud,
ask your subjects to say what they are thinking as they try to figure
out and use the system. Watch quietly and take notes on problems they
run into and possible solutions. In addition, ask each user to fill
out a debriefing questionnaire asking how they liked the interface and
what problems or misunderstandings they had while using the interface.
Week 8:
- Complete usability study; determine how to adjust design based on
what you learned.
- Write-up and submit results of your user evaluation / usability
study (length at your discretion - due 4/25).
- In the usability report, identify your method, including tasks, measures
and criteria for success. Report your results as clearly as possible.
Include whatever forms or instruments the subjects filled out. Discuss
what you think the results mean. Discuss changes you will make in the
user interface based on the results. Work on revisions to the user interface.
Week 9:
- Revisit your initial intentions for a task or tasks in this project
- did you do what you said you would do in this project? Is the project
complete? If you desire, submit a preliminary report for comments from
instructor
Week 10:
- Put together, revise and complete a draft of the final report.
Put your report aside and consider all the questions listed for week 11.
Week 11:
Submit final report (25 pages with bibliography) after you have answered
all of the questions below in the affirmative:
- Does your final report describe your user group along with tasks
for the interface and its functions?
- Does your final report present and discuss a final interface
/ system? (You may present and discuss a final interface in the form of
screen dumps and / or any other visual way you wish to employ in your
paper. There is no need to turn in disks or CD or a zip-disk with the
actual interface, unless you wish to do so. Keep in mind that I am happy
to see everything and anything you give me.
- Does your report explain tasks, criteria, and results of evaluation
and how you revised the final user interface based on findings from your
usability study?
- Does your report discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your
user interface?
- Does your final report discuss the design process briefly - what
you have learned about design, what processes were more / less effective?
- Have you included a cover page, table of contents, page numbers
on each page, an appendix if one is needed, and a bibliography?
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