A.Hornof -- 10/8/07
CIS 443/543, Fall 2007

Project #3
Design Useful Activities

Due: In class, Wednesday 10/17/07 at 10 AM.

Each student must complete and submit their own project. Students may openly discuss the project with each other and they may do their field work together, but each student must write and submit their own assignment. Also, you should always acknowledge everyone that contributes to your project.

The purpose of this assignment is to start following a scenario-based design process to build a user interface that is easy to use, easy to learn, and that addresses an unmet need. This initial requirements analysis and activity design will be followed with more design in Project #4, implementation in Project #5, and evaluation in Project #6.

The main two activities of this exercise are to conduct a requirements analysis and to conduct the very early stages of a system design. The specific deliverables will be the results of a field study, a brief scenario (including a discussion of the social context, activities, and artifacts, with photos), at least ten metaphors, and two activity designs. PLEASE! IT CANNOT BE OVERSTATED THAT ACTIVITY DESIGNS SHOULD NOT MAKE ANY DECISIONS OR COMMITMENTS WHATSOEVER REGARDING THE DETAILS OF A SYSTEM.

You may wish to consult Rosson and Carroll's online case study library for ideas. Note that some of the case studies are more complete than others. Use anything at the site provided that you give credit for ideas or material that you take.

Field Study

Read Chapter 2 of the course textbook if you have not done so already. Conduct a field study as described in that chapter. Observe real users doing real tasks. If it is absolutely impossible to observe the activities that you want to support, then you should interview people who would be directly involved in the activities. Your users should not be from this class and, if possible, not from the UO.

Conduct the field study as discussed in the book. For example, prepare an interviewing guide in advance of your interviews. Include these questions and your handwritten notes with your paper submission, along with a summary of your findings.

Scenario

Your scenario should be more brief that most students did for Project 1 (see other students' work online), but should adequately capture the same primary components: social context, activities, and artifacts. As in Project 1, include photos.

Metaphors

Before you write your metaphors, you will need to identify brief one-line activities that were in or implied by your scenario, such as the activities listed in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 in the book. Identify the activities that a system might support. This should start with a brainstorm session and end by selecting and organizing a list of activities. You could do this, for example, by extracting activities from the problem scenario and then organizing those activities around the common high-level tasks or goals, themes, information needs, types of interaction, social contexts, or some other grouping.

Identify ten to fifteen real-world metaphors. Each should be associated with a one-liner activity thay you identified. Essentially, create your own Table 3.1. This is a good time to "think outside of the box." For example, selecting the plants to put in your garden is like making a mixed CD of songs to play at a party. That is a metaphor. The "implications" are that you would consider different combinations of sensory qualities, think about relationships of juxtapositioned elements and the resulting aesthetic synergy, evaluate numerous different arrangements, evaluate the proportions of the physical arrangements, and sample and evaluate based on your personal tastes and the projected final enjoyment atmosphere.

Activity Design

Identify and analyze two distinct activities that a system could support, and write two brief activity designs, similar to those on pp. 96-99 in the book. The activities should relate to the problem scenario but not to the details of the system. For example, "Select the plants to put in the garden" is a good activity because it is independent of the details of the system, but "Drag and drop the desired plants into the garden-design workspace" is not a good activity because it makes too many assumptions and commitments about the details of exactly how the system will work.

PLEASE! IT CANNOT BE STRESSED ENOUGH THAT ACTIVITY DESIGNS ARE NOT SYSTEM DESIGNS AND THAT ACTIVITY DESIGNS SHOULD NOT MAKE ANY DECISIONS OR COMMITMENTS WHATSOEVER REGARDING THE DETAILS OF A SYSTEM, OTHER THAN VERY MINIMALLY DISCUSSING VERY ABSTRACT AND VAGUE COMPUTER TASKS SUCH AS "SHE LOGGED ON TO THE SYSTEM". CAREFULLY STUDY THE ACTIVITY DESIGNS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SCIENCE FAIR CASE STUDY IN THE BOOK ON PAGES 94 - 102. NOTE THAT THE ACTIVITY DESIGNS EMPHASIZE THE HUMAN ACTIVITY AND NOT THE SYSTEM.

The activity that you propose does not need to lead directly to a system that is practical to implement, though magical or miraculous activities such as creating food from air should not be proposed. Try to think abstractly about the problems and solutions independent of the technology. PLEASE DO NOT jump from the problem straight to talking about GUI components. The point of this exercise is to stop and think about the fundamental activities that could be supported.

Submit on Paper and via a URL

As you did with Project 1, at least a day before the due date and time, email me the URL where the scenario will appear on the web, even if it's not there yet. Any time before it is due, put your scenario on the web at that URL. The URL should be a single long scrolling web page, with clicking only required to enlarge images. (Use typographic conventions such as section headings to break it up. Put appendices at the bottom.) Print out the web page and submit a paper version in class, stapled.

Grading criteria

Were real users (ideally not from UO) interviewed in a real context that is truly relevant to the activity design? Was an interviewing guide used? Were the in-class interviews incorporated into field study discussion? Does the scenario capture the social context, activities, and artifacts? Did photos help to illustrate the scenario? Were ten metaphors, each associated with a one-liner activity, generated in the same style and format as Table 3.1 in the book? Are they creative? Were two distinct activity designs proposed? Do the activity designs relate in some way to the scenario and/or classroom interviews? Are they interesting and creative? Did the activity design avoid making system design decisions? Is the paper well-written? Is the web site for the project easy to use? The assignment should be about 1,500 to 2,000 words and include about 4 to 8 photos.

Acknowledgments

This assignment is derived in part from a project designed by Susan Palmiter at Portland State University.