Project Selection & Team Formation (Fall 2016)

Due: Sunday, September 11th, 2016, by 11:59PM UTC-12 (Anywhere on Earth). This assignment is submitted via this survey on T-Square.

Assignment Description

For a variety of reasons, projects for this course are restricted to a subset of pre-selected project domains. This is primarily to secure the proper IRB permissions to perform the desired research in advance. We also want to ensure projects are chosen in domains on which classmates are prepared to collaborate and which graders are prepared to evaluate. We also want to ensure that the project domains themselves present significant opportunity for exploring the HCI space.

Early in the semester, you will be asked to complete a survey indicating on which of the four projects you are most interested in working. In addition, you will be asked to describe briefly what area of that project you might be interested in working. We will form teams based around these interests.

All work except for the final project is to be completed individually; however, your Methods assignments should be completed in the domain of your selected project. These individual assignments will then provide the foundation for the team project; you will have each individually explored the area which you will work together on in the end.

For this semester, here are the project options:

Redesign ATMs

ATMs are Automatic Teller Machines. They allow users to withdraw cash from their bank accounts, to deposit checks, to check the status of their accounts, and oftentimes more complex operations. ATMs present an interesting HCI question because they exist at the intersection of universal design and security. On the one hand, ATMs are ubiquitous devices; nearly anyone with a bank account will use ATM machines at least occasionally, and so we need to design for diverse physical abilities, technological competencies, and demographics or nationalities. On the other hand, banking presents high demands on security and privacy, and oftentimes designing around security and privacy introduces more complex issues for usability. And still on the other hand, this is all occurring in one of the few places where people must still interact one at a time, and so efficiency for all guests remains a need.

In tackling this project, you could choose one of the following angles; or, you could propose your own:

  • Develop usable (but realistic) ways to ensure the user’s identity before dispensing cash or revealing account information while preserving privacy.
  • Develop new ways for facilitating user login that minimize cognitive load while preserving security and addressing common problems (such as easily lost cards and compromised PINs).
  • Develop ATM machines that address limitations to users’ abilities, like creating a language-neutral system for areas heavily trafficked by travelers or an audio-only system for people with visual impairments.

These ideas are just to get you started; feel free to propose your own. Note that the idea you propose should be narrow enough to be evaluated in small sessions with users; don’t redesign the entire banking industry, but instead redesign only particular task and its corresponding interfaces. You are welcome to borrow inspiration from existing interfaces, but your interface should have some novelty to it; your project should be about prototyping and evaluating an interface you design, not merely evaluating someone else’s interface.

Redesign Netflix

Netflix is one of the most ubiquitous entertainment channels in modern society, totaling over 100 million subscribers. With everything provided on-demand, Netflix breaks many of the traditional models of delivering television entertainment. As part of this, Netflix simultaneously plays multiple functions: searching for known content, browsing recommended content, tracking watching habits, organizing libraries, keeping up to date on new releases, and more. It also must accomplish all of these functions across multiple devices (computers, smartphones, home televisions) each of which has their own input mechanisms (keyboards, touchpads, touchscreens, remote controls, voice input). Netflix also has similar constraints as other entertainment interfaces like Hulu, Xfinity OnDemand, and HBO Go, which could be used for research.

In tackling this project, you could choose any combination of device, input mechanism, and user task, such as any of the following (or you could propose your own):

  • Develop a voice-based interface for browsing recommended content.
  • Develop a touch-based interface for organizing a virtual library of favorited or desired content.
  • Develop a remote-based interface for receiving alerts on content changes and new arrivals.
  • Develop a keyboard-based interface for comparing shows and selecting what to watch.

These ideas are just to get you started; feel free to propose your own. Note that the idea you propose should be narrow enough to be evaluated in small sessions with users; don’t redesign all of Netflix, but instead redesign only particular task and its corresponding interfaces. You are welcome to borrow inspiration from existing interfaces like Hulu or HBO Go, but your interface should have some novelty to it; your project should be about prototyping and evaluating an interface you design, not merely evaluating someone else’s interface.

Redesigning In-Car Navigation

In-car navigation can be any approach to navigating while driving, whether it be the dedicated GPS navigation system in the console, an app run on a smartphone or tablet, or something more complex. In-car navigation exists in an environment where the user has a high cognitive load based on monitoring traffic, monitoring their own driving, as well as very often interacting with other people or interfaces at the same time. An in-car navigation system must present a low cognitive load, but at the same time, it presents important time-sensitive information. Such a tool mediates between the user and an incredibly large amount of information about routes, traffic, and maps, of which only a subset is important at any given time. All of these challenges exist in the context of the possibility for multiple modalities for feedback to the user, as well as multiple levels of integration with the car itself.

Note that for this project, you should focus on the user interface, not the back-end; for example, developing the artificial intelligence for optimal route-planning among multiple destination would not be within the scope of this project. You may, however, develop a user interface that assumes the existence of some back-end infrastructure that does not yet exist but may be plausible (e.g. a system for communicating why the route was chosen). In tackling this project, you could choose one of the following angles, or you could propose your own:

  • Develop an effective notification system that delivers alerts at the right level of granularity at the right time.
  • Develop a navigation system that differentiates the tasks of routine commuting from those of novel driving to a new location.
  • Develop a navigation system that more intuitively allows vocal control over the route.

These ideas are just to get you started; feel free to propose your own. Note that the idea you propose should be narrow enough to be evaluated in small sessions with users; don’t redesign the entire navigation system, but instead redesign only particular task and its corresponding interfaces. You are welcome to borrow inspiration from existing interfaces, like Google Maps or Waze, but your interface should have some novelty to it; your project should be about prototyping and evaluating an interface you design, not merely evaluating someone else’s interface.

Redesigning Gmail

Since its debut in 2004, Gmail has become the industry standard for web-based email clients (which themselves have largely displaced desktop-based email clients). Over a billion people are estimated to use Gmail and its related app Inbox. In addition to its web-based email client, Gmail also attempts to integrate with numerous other applications, from Google’s own Hangouts and Calendar apps to third-party apps for airline ticketing, dinner reservations, and more. With so many users and so many integrations, Gmail walks several fine lines: it must simultaneously support power and novice users, it must simultaneously provide lots of features while remaining relatively simple, and it must simultaneously integrate with lots of services while remaining stable and predictable. Thus, Gmail provides an enormous number of individual interfaces that could be created, altered, or improved.

In tackling this project, you could choose one of the following angles, or you could propose your own:

  • Develop a system for smoothly teaching a novice user to be an expert power user within the context of everyday interaction.
  • Develop a system for intuitively integrating emails into to-do lists, calendar items, or other Google apps.
  • Develop an interface for visualizing email chains more naturally, especially across multiple chains between the same users.

These ideas are just to get you started; feel free to propose your own. Note that the idea you propose should be narrow enough to be evaluated in small sessions with users; don’t redesign all of Gmail, but instead redesign only particular task and its corresponding interfaces. You are welcome to borrow inspiration from existing interfaces, like Outlook or Inbox, but your interface should have some novelty to it; your project should be about prototyping and evaluating an interface you design, not merely evaluating someone else’s interface.

Submission Instructions

You will complete this assignment via the survey provided on T-Square.

This is an individual assignment. Every student should submit an assignment individually.

Late work is not accepted without advanced agreement except in cases of medical or family emergencies. In the case of an emergency, please contact the Dean of Students.

Grading Information

This assignment is not graded explicitly; however, failure to complete this assignment will prevent you from receiving credit for participating in any of the Methods assignments or in the final project.