GOAL-DIRECTED DESIGN
An effective UI design process
Quick Overview/Recap
Persona
Hypothesis
Who might use this app?
Inexperienced cook
Daily cook
Curious cook
How often do you cook?
Interview
Questions
Who are they really?
What do they do/want?
Do you enjoy cooking?
Do you like to try new recipes?
What information sources do you use to pick recipes? Do you need pictures? Detailed
instructions? Have you used any online recipe sites? If yes, what do you like/dislike?
What’s most important: saving money, spending little time cooking, enjoying the meal?
What’s the most frustrating part of planning your meals?
What would encourage you to cook more?
What do you use as a grocery list? Does this process work well, or could it be improved?
GDD continued
Interviews
semi-structured interviews
Behavioral
Variables
combine interviews based
on characteristics
struggling/curious/perfectionist
representative user
Name, context
Primary and (maybe) secondary
Persona
What will the app do for this user?
Persona
Expectations
goals not features
GDD continued
Market
Research
Who’s the competition?
Brainstorm
Ideas???
Let them go…
Design
What will we do?
Persona Hypothesis
Don’t make it too broad
 Students learning about logic gates.
 Students and Teachers in courses with Logic Gates
 Elements
of Computing Systems, CSCI 410
 Digital Logic, EGGN 284
 Introduction to Computer Science, CSCI 101
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Anyone designing logic chips.
Anyone who does electrical engineering in their free
time.
Turning Interviews into Design
What was the most fun aspect of the [shuffle board] game?
 Trying to get the puck close to the edge
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Hitting other pucks
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Screeching sound?
Collision sound? Animation?
It's fun knocking my opponent off the board
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Opponent falling animation?
Turning Interviews Into Design - 2
What part of shuffle board are boring/do you dislike the most,
and why?
 Waiting for your turn perhaps
 When your puck flies of the edge
 I dislike the game when it's too hard because it can make it less
fun.
 Walking to the other side of the board. Keeping score. Often
missing the back end
 My depth perception is poor, and the table is rarely consistent
Timing and difficulty
Interviews with options
What type of style do you think would best engage your child/children
in the learning process?
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Game format with a story line: 3
Game format with just a point system: 2
Selecting subjects: 1
Tutorials followed by questions: 2
How many questions do you think a child would answer before getting
bored?
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0-5: 1
6-10: 4
11-15: 1
16-20: 1
21-25: 0
Getting lots of detail = Good!
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What is your occupation?
How often do you interact with children?
How interested do you think children are interested in math?
Do you think children will want to interact with a tablet?
Do you think children will benefit more with having to choose between two or three answers or being able
to pick any number?
Does the orientation of the problems matter?
What are ways you keep children engaged?
What would be the best form of feed back? (red x/ green checkmark, right or wrong popup, etc.)
As a parent or teacher, how important is tracking a child’s progress?
Do animals bring in a new element to teaching math?
Would you be willing to sit down with a child and use an app such as this?
Would you be willing to buy an app such as this?
How often would you like your child to use this a day?
Do you think children are concerned with personalizing this app and having preferences? Would a parent
or teacher?
Interview Questions – Avoid Bias
Not “Would feature X be helpful”
 What is the most important thing that you want a to-do list
on your phone to do?
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What problems do you normally encounter on the todo list
on your phone?
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Keep track of dates of homework assignments
Can’t do partial completion.
data entry needs to be easier
Is it more important for a todo list to be uncluttered or fullfeatured?
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For me, a to do list is a form of managing my time, but also
relieving stress; therefore, I would prefer an uncluttered todo list.
Interview Questions – User != Designer
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Would this be useful to
you?
When would it be useful to
you?
What would you hope to
accomplish by using this
application?
What would you like to see
in this application?
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Have you taken CSCI410, EGGN
284 or CSCI 101?
How difficult was it for you to
understand logic gates?
(unless they say it was really
easy): What was the most
difficult aspect to understand?
What did you do to get ready
for the exams related to logic
gates?
Do you enjoy creating circuits
using logic gates?
etc.
Persona
Persona
 Our persona is an 8 year old boy named Ben, he is having trouble
learning fractions in school and has access to an Android tablet. His
mother found our fraction app and wants him to try it, to see if it
helps more than the typical teaching style at his school.
Persona’s Expectations
 Ben expects the app to be fun and interesting, something he can use
for a short period after school, before he starts his homework. It
should seem more like a game but something that he can learn from
as well. Ben’s mother also wants him to learn fractions from the app,
not just spend time playing and not learning. She will only continue
to let him use it if his grades improve in math.
Considers context
Personas have names
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The persona for this application is a person who is
currently enrolled in an algebraic physics class who
is looking for quick and easy solutions to physics
problems. This student might also be looking to
study from previous questions that were entered for
solutions.
Persona is not one interviewee
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Anne is a mother of 2. She herself is mid-age,
around 35. Her oldest child is Jake, age 7, and is in
2nd grade. Her daughter is Becca, age 5, and in
kindergarten. Jake is not a fan of school and
struggles with math. Becca is just learning math and
seems to enjoy it. Anne is a stay home mom and
wants to see both her children strive. One day she
gets a note from Jake’s teacher saying Jake is
struggling in math and asks if Anne can help at
home. Anne has a Google Nexus, and goes looking
for an app to help both of her children.
Good detail, as long as this isn’t just a real person
Persona shouldn’t be just someone you make up
Michael Scarn
○ Is not familiar with the rules or nuance of Yahtzee.
○ Likes the novelty of physically rolling the dice by a
physical motion.
○ Wants to learn the rules of Yahtzee so he can play in
real life.
○ Wants to learn some strategy for obtaining high scores.
○ Wants to have an enjoyable time for a couple of
minutes occasionally
Detailed Personas
Persona – Matt (Trail Runner/Mountain Biker)
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Requires that the application provide fast and
immediate information about nearby trails and full trail
maps
This user finds it imperative that they can track their
results including times and distances and compare their
times against previous days
Comparisons against the times of other users would also
be useful
Persona – Jennifer (Casual Hiker) Primary Persona
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It is also very important that this user can review their
elapsed time at any point along the trail and that the
path is mapped with a good deal of accuracy
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Might be interested in knowing how many people are
on a given trail, but does not care about friend
locations
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This type of user would be far more intimate with the
application and would exercise all of the features of
the app
When the hike is completed, the user is interesting in
knowing how far they went, roughly how many calories
they burned, how long the hike took
Would be very interested in seeing what other people
nearby had recommended because the best hikes are
often not very well known
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Is less interested in points of interest along a trail head,
but would like to know what the terrain is like and see
detailed maps of the entire trail head
Would like to see information from others about good
workouts
Doesn’t want to spend a lot of time looking for a hiking
trail, but is interested in the trail maps and the points of
interest along a given trail head
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Doesn’t really care about their reviews, just recommended
hiking locations
This type of user does not really care about comparing
statistics between hikes, or seeing a comparison
between other users
It is important that this application is simple and intuitive
because this type of user does not spend a lot of time
hiking or playing with the app, it is more of a quick
reference application
Doesn’t really care about the location of friends
This application would need a way to map the hike
without any type of interaction, generally the user
wants to separate themselves from technology while
they are outdoors
Persona Expectations
Feature-Oriented
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Application will provide me with a list of nearby hiking
trails with directions on how to get there and a brief
overview of the statistics about the trailhead
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Application will provide me with a list of recommended
hiking trails around me area based on difficulty or scenic
appeal
Application will provide me with a detailed map of the
hiking trail
Application will provide me with beacons or other visual
indicators along a selected trail head for points of interest
(pictures, interesting rock formations, etc.)
App will help me choose a hiking trail that is scenic
App will help me share my hiking experience with
others
Goal-Oriented – secondary persona
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App will help me train more effectively
Application will give me the ability to track statistics about
my hike/run and review them afterwards including the
ability to see my elapsed time at any point along the hike
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Goal-Oriented – primary persona
Nice to have would allow me to select a location along a hiking
trail to tag points of interest and upload photos
Application will provide me with a way to review previous
hikes and compare my results between hikes
Application must be able to run unattended as I generally
do not want to see my phone during a hike/run, but I still
want to see my statistics and my path when I’m done
Good feature list, but are we
forgetting any? Have we added
features that aren’t needed? Is
this one app or two?
Market Research
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Looking into the Android Games market, one will find a
large array of free games which would be the direct
competition for our game. The first page of free games
on Android Shock makes one thing apparent; free
games usually either excel in logic and gameplay or
graphics, but not both. Games like 'Gun Strike' have
relatively intricate graphics, however, the three
dimensional first-person-shooter interface has been
reduced to 'point and click'. A lot of these games also
hold the game play per level time somewhat constant.
Shorter to medium length levels dominate the market.
Nice overview, specific comparison would help
Market Research – good detail
Possible Competitor: EveryCircuit is an android app that allows you to make
circuits. It is a powerful app with a relatively clean interface. It costs
$10.00 on the Google Play store. However, There is a free limited
version available. The limited version only allows you to make small
circuits.
The main area of the app is a where the circuit exists. The app shows the wires
and the circuit elements connected on the grid. Using their fingers, a user
can select elements and drag them around. This is very hard to do,
because the user’s finger blocks the screen and user’s can’t see what they
are doing. In addition, there is no way to zoom in or out.
There are two panels to use.
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One panel is on the right side with some icons. A new user will not know
which icons to use and what each icon does. After spending some time
touching the icons a user will learn that:
When running the circuit there are fluid animations that show the flow of
electrons in real time. Including miniature graphs of the voltage and
current. This is the best feature of everycircuit.
○ Two icons rotate the current selected object.(Each in a different direction)
○ Another ‘runs’ the circuit.
○ Another deletes or cuts the current selected object.
○ Another allows you to see the output as a graph.
○ Another allows you to send a screenshot.
○ Another Icon allows you to start a new circuit.
○ Another icon allows you to pick from already saved circuits.
○ There is also a way to save the file.
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There is a bar across the top that you can scroll through with a fling
gesture to pick objects to add to the circuit. Possible objects to add our:
○ Logic Gates
○ Current/Voltage Sources
○ Resistors
○ Capacitors
○ Inductors
○ Some Object/icons I didn’t recognize.
○ There is no way to add circuits elements you already created.
Summary: EveryCircuit is a good app that is overly complicated for just logic
design. The app is powerful and full of features. However, it lacks the
ability to build up increasingly complex logic gates. The user interface
makes good use of gestures, colors, and visual feedback. However,
because of the small icons it is hard to understand the different
components and its hard to manipulate the app.
And the winner is….
A prize will be awarded to the team that best adheres to design principles we
have learned (NUI or otherwise). Voting will take place after final
presentations.
Sign up for Project Demos
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http://www.doodle.com/k5dhiv5prxfyhazm