Interactive Product Design: Questions and Tasks

Question 1 Introduction (6 marks)

Question 1 Introduction (6 marks)

 

Introduce your project and write a brief description of the requirements that you have identified for the interactive product that you are designing in your project work. These should relate to the user experience and should broadly correspond to a summary of the requirements that you identified as part of  taking into account any feedback that you may have received from your tutor, and any other reflections on requirements that you may have had since then.

 

Question 2 Conceptual model (10 marks)

 

Describe the conceptual model for the interaction with your design, specifying

 

• The overall concept

• The anticipated environment for your interactive product

• Any objects or other concepts with which your interactive product will work

 

• Actions that can be carried out on those objects

• The user experience for your interactive product.

Question 3 Interface types (14 marks)

 

Discuss, with justification, which interface type has the best fit with the interactive product you are designing based on your assumptions about user capabilities, cognitive aspects and your conceptual model.

Question 4 Scenario storyboard (16 marks)

Provide a scenario storyboard of your interactive product in use by participants. Your method of describing the scenario can be in the form of paper and pencil sketches, a set of photographs, a video, text, diagrams, or some combination of these. Annotate them as appropriate.
If using video format, make sure that your file size does not exceed 20 MB, and submit along with your TMA. You may want to read the Advice on compressing images and video files.

Question 5 Interface design (18 marks)

 

Provide a design of the interface for your project. You can use any form of sketching or prototyping appropriate to the interface, as described in Unit 3, or using the techniques described in the appendices to Block 3. In the case of a GUI or web interface, provide detailed screen designs. In the case of hardware prototyping, include photographs or sketches of the intended product. It is acceptable to focus on one aspect of the design.

 

• Supply no more than five images

 

• Make it clear what inputs and outputs are necessary

 

• Describe any sequencing or processing necessary to understand how the interaction works.

 

Question 6 (36 marks)

 

Note: this question is based on the paper cited below as well as your project work.

Imagine that you have been given the time and resources to carry out an open-ended informal exploration of the community relevant to your project. You are being encouraged to find inspiration for new and innovative approaches likely to promote engagement from your intended users. Before you answer the question, read the following research paper, which outlines one possible approach to engaging a user community.. Gaver, B., Dunne, T., Pacenti, E. (1999) 'Design: Cultural probes', interactions, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 21-29. 10.1145/291224.291235
Drawing on the paper, how might the cultural probes approach be adapted to deepen your understanding of your target community and design problem? You should structure you answer in the following way:

• For your specific problem:

 

o How could this approach be adapted to apply to some version of your project? Justify your answer.

 

o Identify aspects of your project that this approach might successfully be used to explore. Justify your answer.

Note: Bear in mind that the ‘cultural probes’ approach is not about using your prototype as a probe in order to evaluate it. Probes are objects that can be used to engage a target community and help designers deepen their understanding of both the target community and the design problem they are addressing. (12 marks)

• Identify three different kinds of materials you might use in your cultural probes and for each of the three materials, indicate:

o Why that particular material might be a good fit for your particular target community 

o Why each material might be especially suited to provoke a deeper understanding of your particular design problem. (24 marks)
 

Question 1 Introduction (5 marks)

 

Summarise your chosen project. Your summary should include a description of the product and specify its users, environment and activities.
You should link back to your previous TMAs, taking into account any feedback that you may have received from your tutor and any relevant reflections that you may have made since then.

 

Question 2 Heuristic evaluation (25 marks)

 

This question refers to Block 4, Unit 1 and Chapter 16 of the ID book. You should now carry out a heuristic evaluation of the prototype you developed for TMA03. For this question, you will take the role of a usability expert who is assessing your prototype.