Establishing Requirements and Paper Prototyping

Establishing Requirements

Establishing requirement is the process of establishing the services that the customer requires from a system and the constraints under which it operates and is developed. Requirements themselves are the descriptions of the system services and constraints that are generated during the requirements engineering process. But identifying requirements is one of difficult tasks in SDLC due to reason.

Above cartoon video demonstrate well why establishing requirements are not that much easy in real world scenarios. In some cases, stakeholders fail to articulate requirements well and all the requirements of the product may not be explored in detail. Requirements as gathered are invariably incomplete. They are in various stages of preparation; they contain mistakes, design choices, and ambiguities. All requirements are not of equal importance to the customers and users of the planned system. Some are critical, some of relatively high priority, some of normal or average priority, and some even of lower priority. Fixing error at late stage of SDLC is expensive in terms of money and time. So establishing complete and consistent set of requirements is very crucial to project success. 

Paper Prototyping 

Paper prototyping is a widely used in the process of user centered design the attached video demonstrate the process of prototyping and discuss its advantages of applying into designing UIs.

With paper prototyping, software products can be tested before its implementation saving time and money due to its simplicity. Modification to the design is easy and inexpensive. As no specific experience is required to draw the paper prototype, everybody in the team can be involved so that it eliminate the chance of missing some key personal in design process. 

Above cartoon video demonstrate well why establishing requirements are not that much easy in real world scenarios. In some cases, stakeholders fail to articulate requirements well and all the requirements of the product may not be explored in detail. Requirements as gathered are invariably incomplete. They are in various stages of preparation; they contain mistakes, design choices, and ambiguities. All requirements are not of equal importance to the customers and users of the planned system. Some are critical, some of relatively high priority, some of normal or average priority, and some even of lower priority. Fixing error at late stage of SDLC is expensive in terms of money and time. So establishing complete and consistent set of requirements is very crucial to project success.

Positive and negative usability issues of ubiquitous devices.

What is Ubiquitous computing?

Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality. In virtual reality, People put into computer generated world, but according to the concept of Ubiquitous computing, computers come to man’s world, it lives with man and it vanished into the background.

Ubiquitous computing support a world of fully connected devices and it ensure, information can accessible anytime, anywhere. There are different size of Ubiquitous computing devices (Inch-scale,, foot-scale, yard-scale) for different tasks. Based on the size of these devices, there are positive and negative usability issues. We will discuss usability issues with sample Ubiquitous computing devices.

• Point of Information for Transportation (Foot-scale device) more details

This devise allow users to buy a train or bus ticket by selection destination. Instead of printing a ticket, it send the ticket information to mobile phone. then mobile phone can use as the ticket.

How Point of Information for Transportation is working.

Positive and negative usability issue of Point of Information for Transportation system.

• All mobile phones should support common communication model.
• New infrastructure required.

• Data traveler (inch -scale)

Size of device is inch size. user can find details and reports inside data-traveler. This data traveler use the surface as it's screen to show details inside data traveler. User can arrange and do operations on these data using projected virtual screen.

How data traveler is working.

Positive and negative usability issue of Data traveler.

• Computing devices consume power, mobile devices has limited power storing capability.
• Device is use surface as screen. Then depend on the quality and colour of the surface, visibility to user is changing.
• Hard to use in open area.

Design considerations for social media platforms

(1) Research Paper: Supporting More Inclusive Learning with Social Networking: A Case Study of Blended Socialized Design Education

This paper made a qualitative research to develop the concept of perceived affordances and examined to measure the effectiveness and inclusiveness of online socialized learning in education. 
The research was conducted by integrating the traditional face-to-face studio environment with an online studio environment using an online social network platform called ‘Ning’. The aim of this study was the potential to add affordances such as connectedness between students and with the design process whereas the face-to-face environment was not able to support such features. 

 Figure (1). Components of the front page, Design Studio 1 Ning

Figure (1) shows the features, marked as A-E, included to facilitate social presence. These are: (A). Latest Activity feature block constantly updates with the activity of student blogs and comments (B). Personal settings for every member, including email and list of friends (C). Events feature block is used for announcements (D). List of course members (students and tutors) displayed as customized avatars (E). Features such as groups and blogs can be dragged onto the front page as condensed blocks

 Figure (2). Students' preferred online learning mode

I selected this paper because it provides the details examining and assessments on how perceived affordances effects the interaction design by using a social media platform as a learning tool. It can theoretically approve the integration of Web 2.0 technologies into conventional teaching approaches does have a clear advantages and support the future models of hybrid teaching environment.

(2) Technical Report:Technical Report: A Usable Security Heuristic Evaluation for the Online Health Social Networking Paradigm

This research describes the development of usable security heuristic evaluation in online health social networking websites. The result is 13 high-level heuristics with checklist items that help examine usable security. The results can identify which security and privacy features are lacking from a usability perspective and would, therefore, require design improvement. 

 Figure (1). The three-phase process to develop heuristics for specific application domains. Note. USec = usable security; HE = heuristic evaluation (color figure available online).

I selected this article because it highlights the need to design applications with security and privacy that is usable for their respective users in health Social Network (SN) environments with thorough analysis, step-by-step guidelines and a complete demonstration.

References:

Rodrigo, R., & Nguyen, T. (2013). Supporting more inclusive learning with social networking: A case study of blended socialised design education. Journal Of Learning Design, 6(3), 29-44. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/jld.v6i3.127
Yeratziotis, A., Pottas, D., & Van Greunen, D. (2012). A Usable Security Heuristic Evaluation for the Online Health Social Networking Paradigm. International Journal Of Human-Computer Interaction, 28(10), 678-694.

How To Evaluate The Usability Of The Software

Article  that describes how a major company evaluates its software

A Comparative Study of Two Usability Evaluation Methods Using a Web-Based E-Learning Application by Samuel Ssemugabi and Ruth de Villiers is a research paper that written on a research done to compare the two methodologies  on evaluating  usability of web based E Learning system. 

We found this paper is very interesting for us as usability engineering students because it provide detailed comparison of two evaluation methods heuristic evaluation by experts and survey evaluation among end users. In this research paper they described both evaluation methods in comprehensive way and also they mentioned that how both evaluation methods were used to evaluate the same E Learning system.   By reading this research paper we could understand how can we customized Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics suite in to our domain. We could learn how to develop a good questionnaire for survey evaluation and the problems faced during survey. Quantitative and qualitative results of the evaluation by both methods were presented in this paper so it increased the interesting to read this article.

We could learn many good lesions about the software evaluation from this research paper.  Most important lesion we can learn is accuracy of evaluation process depends on the selected evaluation method. Another key lesion we can learn from this article is ensuring ethical aspects and social responsibility while doing the evaluation.  Identifying and Defining the Heuristics, how to select      

elevators   and  how to brief the evaluates about the application are also can learn from this.

This research is a very valuable research in the usability engineering contest   so the above research paper is worth to read.

Reference:
Samuel Ssemugabi, Ruth de Villiers , A Comparative Study of Two Usability Evaluation Methods Using a Web-Based E-Learning Application, School of Information Technology
Walter Sisulu University

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ruth_Villiers/publication/200553122_A_comparative_study_of_two_usability_evaluation_methods_using_a_web-based_e-learning_application/links/564304cc08ae997866c51719.pdf

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Participatory Design

Two Research Papers

Paper 1 : How was it for you? Experiences of participatory design in the UK health service

This paper is about participatory outpatient service design for older people at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital using experienced-based design (EDB) that co-design services with participants like patients. Describing participatory design with EDB is interesting. There are four phases of EDB: capture phase, understand phase, improve phase and measure phase. In capture phase, twenty-one older patients, carers and healthcare staff are formed for their respective story-sharing records.  For understand phase, telephone semi-structured interview  was done to eleven participants. Recorded transcripts are coded and cross-checked by interviewers and analyst for reliability. The obtained positive and negative emotional reactions are used to create a map. In improve phase, a group is formed to steer the project. For measure phase, a new template of patient appointment letter, new signage and map of design proposal and street design around the outpatient building are identified. By reading this paper, it is able to know step-by-step approach for participatory design with four phases of EDB.

Reference

Bowen, S., McSeveny, K., Lockley, E., Wolstenholme, D., Cobb, M., & Dearden, A. (2013). How was it for you? Experiences of participatory design in the UK health service. CoDesign, 9(4), 230-246.

Available full research article at : http://bit.ly/1Tj39IJ


Paper 2 : Designing technology for children with special needs: bridging perspectives through participatory design

This paper describes about the development of participatory design (PD) in ECHOES research project with low-tech activities for developing children and children with Asperger’s syndrome (AS) or high functioning autism spectrum conditions (HFA). It is interesting because of its co-creation technology with children with special needs. Two groups : developing children and children with special need are formed to understand of both types and make design trade-off. The desert island is carried out by allowing children to express their idea by drawing and writing on the paper with island and palm tree picture. Besides, the Odd-One-Out is conducted to observe how children interact with four set of objects that have functional differences, auditory properties, tactile theme and visual affordances. Moreover, the comic is taken only for developing children due to logistical difficulties. Series of digital prototypes are developed with participants while low-level design activities are carried out. From this paper, it is able to know about design stages of ECHOES.

Reference

Frauenberger, C., Good, J., & Keay-Bright, W. (2011). Designing technology for children with special needs: bridging perspectives through participatory design.CoDesign, 7(1), 1-28.

Available full research article at : http://bit.ly/1U3U6Ko

Models for Interaction

In the book of Interaction Design, four conceptual models for interaction are proposed by Preece, Rogers and Sharp based on type of user activities performed in interaction.

• Instructing – issuing commands to the system
• Conversing – interacting with the system as a conversation
• Manipulating and Navigation – interacting with virtual objects or environment
• Exploring and Browser -  users are provided with structured information

Let’s look deep in to instructing interaction and conversing interaction with sample application available.

Instructing Interaction

Instructional interactions are probably the most common form of conceptual interactions, underlying a diverse of devices and system such as VCRs, vending machines, word processors, etc.

As a sample application of instructional interactions, we can consider Microsoft Word application.In MS word application, user tells system what to do by clicking on icon, selecting menu options, pressing keys or buttons or by voice commands. Though most basic instructional interaction is thought command line, MS word has used icons, menus, buttons and control keys as ways of improving the usability of the application in instructing the system.

-Use of icon in MS word

-Use of Menu option in MS word

With the use of this model, MS word allows users to take most control over the application. Users are facilitated for quick and efficient interaction with the application. Instructing has been applied very much effectively in MS word especially in case of repetitive user command and dealing with multiple objects in the application.

Conversing Interaction

Conversing interaction model the interaction as a conversation between the system and its user. Implementation of conversational model requires voice recognition and text parsing. Help-systems and search engines are the primarily level systems which use conversing interaction.

Siri application available in IOS is one of good example which uses conversing as its interaction model. Siri works as an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator. The application uses UI of human natural language  to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions. By taking the advantage of conversational model,  Siri make the user experience more natural. As Siri requires input as voice or text and it provides output as voice or text, interaction become very much easier for system users. So that users can work with the application even without any special knowledge and expertise.

-Below is a demonstration of how Siri works

References

http://cs4760.csl.mtu.edu/2014/lectures/interaction-styles-and-mobile-interactions/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri

Usability and User Experience Goals with Sample Applications

Usability and User Experiences Goals

Usability answers the question, "Can the user accomplish their goal?"(Spool, 2007).

User experience answers the question, "Did the user have as delightful an experience as possible?" (Spool, 2007).

Figure 1. Morville's user experience honeycomb

(Source: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/usability-and-user-experience)

Usability has different kinds of theories but all the theories try to achieve following goals.

• Effective
• Ease of learning
• Efficiency of use
• Memorability
• Error prevention (Safety)
• User Satisfaction
• Utility

Here are some examples applications two of which meets appropriate usability and user experience goals, and two of which does not.

Two Applications that meets Usability and User Experience Goals

• Google Search Engine
• Its search box effectively evokes auto-complete and correct suggestions to the users.
• Simple user interface that is easily memorable to its features.
• Google logo design is attractively and relatively updated on world's remarkable dates.
• Navigation is well designed to other google apps

Figure 2. Simple UI design

Figure 3. Auto-complete suggestions for searching keywords

Figure 4. Correction of suggestions for searching keywords

• Facebook Application
• It has a good search option, sharing’s, events and photos as the news feed,Chat, Notifications, check in facility, create events,increase effectiveness.
• Navigation is well designed and its features are clearly expressed and easy to remember.
• It has the privacy control, report and block harmful friends and posts, secure authentication increase the safety. 
• Chatting, gaming Sharing photos increase the user's satisfaction

Two Application that does not meet Usability and User Experience Goals

• PizzaHut web application
• It has less effectiveness as tasks can’t be completed accurately and not provided required information.
• Application error leads for less satisfaction.
• Not providing full functionalities leads for less motivation.
• Not providing informative error messages  leads for less helpfulness.

Example -01: Delivery order sometimes encounters error message

Figure 2. PizzaHut's order page

Figure 3. PizzaHut's order page error

Example -02: Session timeout problem

Figure 4. Session timeout

Example -03: Unpredictable User Interface

Figure 4. UI before clicking 'Delivery'

Figure 4. Result shown after clicking 'Delivery'

• One Stop @ SAC web application.