UNIT 3: DESIGNING FOR CHANGE
PART 2
TECHNICAL
WRITING
2013
IN THIS UNIT…
• Our focus:
• Designing for change
• Our aim:
• Not just change, but change for the better!
• Our influences:
• Activity Theory
• User-Centered Design
• Embodied Interaction
• Our methods:
• Contextual Inquiry & inspiration from Rational Unified Process
• Our Assignments:
• Individuals revise document for the web.
• Teams create multiple project pitch ideas for midterm proposal
THEORETICAL INFLUENCES
• Activity Theory – understanding the relationship
between human behavior and the tools they use
(Vygotsky et al.)
• User-Centered Design – placing the needs of
users prominently in the design process.
• Embodied Interaction – An approach to
interacting with software systems that emphasizes
skilled, engaged practice rather than
disembodied rationality.
USER-CENTERED DESIGN
• User-centered Design: a design philosophy that puts
the users’ needs at the center of the design
process.
• It states that design is iterative in nature and users should be
considered at multiple stages of product development.
• Designers are encouraged to try to think like users when
coming up with design solutions.
• These solutions are then exposed to real users.
• Testing reveals some of the design flaws.
• Designers then are supposed to correct them and iteratively
go through this process again and again.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
P L A N N I N G WI T H T H E U S E R I N M I N D
WHAT IS CONCEPTUAL DESIGN?
• Conceptual designs are scalable drawings that
define the basic parameters of the project.
• They are usually void of detail, dimensions, and
technical notes so you can review and modify the
design with ease.
• These designs are in preliminary stages of
development.
• They are intended to explore ideas.
• Their primary function is to establish a starting point.
HOW DO WE DO USER-CENTERED
DESIGN?
• One method is to employ conceptual design in the
planning phase of any design project.
• The goal of conceptual design is to...
• Focus on what the product does
• Conduct audience analysis on how the user interacts with
the design based on the structure of work/activity
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN AIMS TO...
•
•
Identify the goals and expectations of how each
audience type interacts with the design under
different circumstances of use
•
Consider how will the new design transform the
targeted activity
•
Account for what business needs are behind product
development
Conceptual design answers the question: What
does this product/technical document do?
WHY CONCEPTUAL DESIGN?
• Quality assurance—provide a solution model for
baseline evaluation
• Formal example—team members can utilize their
strengths in contributing to the design process with
a clear understanding of design targets
Watch this video:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo2SG4JhohQ
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN REPORTS
= TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS
•
By technical, we mean that your readers/users are
insiders – often experts in both the technical area
as well as the organizational context in which the
design will be implemented.
•
Users will expect to see details about the design
features you have devised as well as the
methods/sources you have consulted to arrive at
these.
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN & PERSUASION
This type of document makes use of an implied
persuasion and should argue that...
•
•
Your design’s basic features match the needs of the client
and the end-users.
•
Your team is technically competent, thorough, and careful
to keep the clients’ interests (practical, financial, ethical,
etc.) at the forefront.
•
Your design is innovative, truly capable of transforming the
social practice you target.
USING CONCEPTUAL DESIGN APPROACH
FOR VISUAL DESIGN EXERCISE PART 2
•
Apply Conceptual Design to your web-page re-design
assignment.
•
As you map out the changes you want to make on paper, be
sure to incorporate design principles from TCT Ch.18, the Gestalt
videos, the article: ”An Exploration of Website Redesigns: Tips &
Examples,” and additional readings from this unit.
•
Use one of the suggested tools listed in the assignment
description to transform your design concept into the re-design
of the home page of a poorly organized web page.
•
Your final document should be 3-4 well-designed PDF pages that
would be representative of how the new web page should look.
•
Use this naming convention: LastName_Design2.pdf
TEAMWORK:
PUTTING CD INTO PRACTICE
• STEP 1: Make screen shots of the home page of the
website that you will redesign.
• Save as PDFs.
• Print or Display them.
• STEP 2: Discuss the website’s design with your team
• Ask team members how they would interact with this site.
• Identify problematic design choices.
• Brainstorm ideas for change.
• STEP 3: Using Conceptual Design approach, map
out on paper the proposed changes you want to
make.
PUTTING CD INTO PRACTICE CONT. 2
• STEP 4: Examine content and create a document
shell by outlining the document. (This outline may
be modified or reorganized in step 5 below.)
• STEP 5: Find the natural divisions of information and
create headings to group information together.
• STEP 6: Establish a process for drafting that includes
version control. (For example McCool_Design2_2.0)
PUTTING CD INTO PRACTICE CONT. 3
• STEP 7: Analyze the amount of information that must
be changed
• STEP 8: Determine how the document is used by this
particular information ecology.
• STEP 9: Incorporate design principles from TCT
Ch.18, the Gestalt videos, the article: ”An
Exploration of Website Redesigns: Tips & Examples,”
and additional readings from this unit.
PUTTING CD INTO PRACTICE CONT. 4
• STEP 10: Analyze information gleaned so far. What
else do you need to know? Find out by...
• Making a list of basic functionality & features for the current
system in place – where are the obvious gaps between your
user/client needs and this list?
• Going over the list carefully to add detail from your CD
work, then go over it again to separate out implementation
specific details
• STEP 11: Create a Prototype
• (We won’t actually do this part of the process b/c this is a
simulated activity. However, if it were real, you would want
a prototype.)
PROTOTYPES
THE NEXT STEP IN ITERATIVE DESIGN APPROACH
WHAT IS A PROTOTYPE?
• A prototype is a physical representation of a
design idea that the team wants user feedback
on.
• Users should be able to do work with the
prototype so that the design idea it represents
can be tested.
A PROTOTYPE IS NOT…
• A model, diagram, or other conceptual artifact.
• These are not very useful for getting real user feedback
because they are static and not functional.
A PROTOTYPE IS ALSO NOT…
A DEMO...
• With a demo (short for demonstration), the
designer does all the work, either by automating
a sequence that gets played back…or by
guiding users through a work sequence.
SO…WHY PROTOTYPE?
• Prototypes allow the user to be the final arbiter of
the design.
Consider the difference between the two approaches...
• This...
Design..Design..Design..Design
use
• Or this...
Design
use Design use
Design use
Design
use
PROTOTYPING ALLOWS YOU TO…
• Examine your design ideas to see what will work for
your users
• Explore how work practice will be supported (or
not!) in the design
• Discover emergent work practices
• Observe what the overall experience of the new
work environment will offer
• Find out if work processes (e.g. a known sequence)
are coherent in the new system
• Involve users in the design process…
USING THE EVIDENCE
• There are three main ways you’ll use the
information from prototyping...
1. To continually improve the design
2. To justify design decisions
3. To clarify issues for the implementation team
• The final step in a project cycle is moving
from prototype to finished product and the
implementation of the new design.
ASSIGNMENT: VISUAL EXERCISE PT. 2
• After you have finished reading this slide deck, go
back to slides 12-16 and work through Steps 1-10.
• Then, for Step 11—the prototype, modify this so that
your PDF re-designs of the web homepage will
represent what you would done if you were
actually redesigning a website for an employer.