Group Assignment on Designing Interactive Artefact or Environment for Social Change

The learning outcomes (LOs) for this module are:-

LO1: Understanding human-centred design principles, approaches, and techniques

LO2: Understanding design skills for social change

LO3: Understanding of specific application areas of contemporary HCI

LO4: Group development of an interactive artefact or environment to support social change

LO5: Demonstrate critical engagement with research, including with research papers, articles, etc.

This is a group assignment. You will have the opportunity to self-enrol or form your own groups for the assignment. Anyone that has not joined a group by the deadline in Week 2 will be assigned to a group by the module team in class/on blackboard (ELP). Your group must respond to the Social Change Design Brief (we will announce this in class and release the design brief via Blackboard) by designing and prototyping an appropriate interactive technology. The deliverables for this assignment are (1) a 10-minute presentation of your design process and a live demo of your interactive prototype, (2) a report documenting your design process and interactive prototype, following the guidelines below, and (3) your interactive prototype. Your prototype can be lowfidelity but it must be interactive (e.g. interface mock-ups, wireframes, and user journeys).

You should demonstrate an Understanding of human-centred design principles, approaches, and techniques and an Understanding of design skills for social change through your documentation of the design process and your rationale and critical reflection on the prototype you produce. You should use your group report as the basis for your presentation.

You must work together as a group to assign responsibility for and coordinate the group activities. Not every group member needs to take part in every activity. It’s advisable to take advantage of the individual strengths of your group members in figuring out how each member contributes. For example, some members may not be comfortable giving presentations and might only play a small role, or no role at all, in the final presentation. If so, they should compensate by making a larger contribution in another part of the project, e.g., design or prototyping.

Groups are expected to use their Assignment Group space on Blackboard to record summaries and reflections from their group meetings and report on the individual contributions that each member has been making.

Each group member will peer-assess the contribution of themselves to the group work, as well as the contribution of each of the other members. These assessments will be used to weight the average group mark for each of the individual members (see Appendix 1—3). Peer assessment forms will be due 1-week after the other assignment materials to give you time to reflect on the contributions made by each of the group members (including yourself) having gone through the whole process. You will be able to make use of you group discussions within the Assignment Groupspace on Blackboard to support detailed reflections on those individual contributions.

Each group will have 10 minutes to present their digital artefact (i.e., design process and interactive prototype) and to demo their interactive prototype. This will take place during the timetabled lectures in Week 9. All parts of the group report should be presented. At least one member of the group must present your work. Multiple or all of your group members can participate in the presentation and demo if you choose. Details of the presentation will be provided in class/on Blackboard (ELP).

You MUST use the template and follow the formatting guidelines on Blackboard (ELP). Your group report MUST document your design process (including formative prototypes and group activities), present your interactive prototype, and explain your group’s rationale for both of these, making reference to any secondary data, literature, or design concepts that these relate to e.g., design fictions that your group may have produced. It should demonstrate the following:

• Understanding and application of design concepts, qualities, and skills
• Use of appropriate methods and prototyping materials to design and develop interactive prototype(s)
• An appropriate design and development process and rationale for design decisions,
• Evidence of the relationship of the designed artefact to research (using citations to academic literature)
• Critical reflection on the value of the designed artefact for addressing a social change challenge
• Individual contribution statements and personal critical reflection on the aspects of the group work you contributed to (reminder: this is not included in the word count). Your group report must be submitted via Blackboard. Each member will be required to prepare an individual submission consisting of the shared group report with their individual contribution statement appended to the end of the document. The submitted file should be in the form of a PDF (.PDF).

You are not required to submit your interactive prototype, but you must provide a demonstration of it in your presentation, you may choose to pre-record a video demonstration to play during your live presentation. Your prototype can be low-fidelity but it must be interactive (e.g. interface mock-ups, wireframes, and user journeys), and your demo should clearly illustrate how a user might interact with it.