Project 4: User Experience

DUE 12/9 5:30pm

Project/Presentation Groups

Objectives

We will use Figma, Canva, Adobe Xd, or any other suitable UI/UX design tool to implement prototype User Experiences.

  1. Using your selected feature(s) from Project 3, For a specific role in your behavior diagram, construct a mockup of how that role will interact with the UI to perform at least one task. Choose appropriate and accessible icons, fonts, and colors (e.g., taking into account factors like screen size, colorblindness, and contrast issues for users with vision impairments).
  2. For each task, identify, describe, and (when appropriate) label the how you chose to use the 5 fundamental principles of interaction as identified by Norman:
    • Affordances
    • Signifiers
    • Constraints
    • Mappings - especially spatial, or what he calls "natural mappings"
    • Feedback

    Note: If you chose a comprehensive vendor-based solution, using their product literature or a demo, recreate or adapt the UX using your chosen tool(s).

  3. Perform a root cause analysis to identify the subtasks involved and describe why each particular step is important. Simplify actions and skip nonrequired steps whenever possible.
  4. Using Norman's model of the 7 stages of action below, walk through the subtasks, identifing each of the steps as it applies to the action sequence. Describe how your design choices can inform and clarify the user's Conceptual Model of the system: conforming to their expectation, increasing understanding, and leading to a feeling of control. Identify the way that you are supporting positive responses, appealing to emotion, and encouraging pleasurable experiences - be specific, and show concrete examples of desgn principles (such as signifiers, feedback, and constraints) in action (i.e., dialogues or control state changes) that can support and empower the user (especially when the input requires precision).
    1. Goal (form the goal)
    2. Plan (the action)
    3. Specify (an action sequence)
    4. Perform (the action sequence)
    5. Perceive (the state of the world)
    6. Interpret (the perception)
    7. Compare (the outcome with the goal)

    This specific advice from Norman can be helpful:

    • Eliminate all error messages from electronic or computer systems. Instead, provide help and guidance.
    • Make it possible to correct problems directly from help and guidance messages. Allow people to continue with their task: Don’t impede progress—help make it smooth and continuous. Never make people start over.
    • Assume that what people have done is partially correct, so if it is inappropriate, provide the guidance that allows them to correct the problem and be on their way.
    • As in all Humanc-Centered Design, put human needs, capabilities, and behavior first, then design to accommodate those needs, capabilities, and ways of behaving.

Submit this documentation as a collection of flattened/screenshot/preview PDFs and construct slides from this information. If you have interesting interaction animation or can demonstrate flow-through on a laptop or the projection equipment, please let me know what you plan to do ahead of time so that we can make sure output will be viewable by the class. On Monday, Dec 9th (5:30-7:30), we will have each team give a short slide presentation of no more than 10 minutes for the instructor and the rest of the class, who will pose as the end users, with a discussion and Q&A to follow each presentation.

Final Project special considerations:

What to turn in? Your team should collaborate to organize the project artifacts as though they belonged in a real-life Project Workbook.

I will distribute a sheet for team members to evaluate themselves and each other during the Final Exam period, which should be brief and take no more than 10 minutes.