Assignment M3 (Spring 2018)

Due: Sunday, February 25, 2018, by 11:59PM UTC-12 (Anywhere on Earth). This assignment is based on lesson 3.4 and 3.5 (Design Alternatives and Prototyping), and focuses on brainstorming and prototyping design alternatives.

Assignment Instructions

Answer the following prompt in a maximum of 1500 words, with a recommended length of 1200 words. Including more than 1500 words may incur a grade penalty. Note that only the overall assignment length limit is enforced; per-section lengths are provided as recommendations, but are not enforced.

You are encouraged to complement your response with diagrams, drawings, pictures, etc.; these do not count against the word limit. If you would like to include additional information beyond the word limit, you may include it in clearly-marked appendices. These materials will not be used in grading your assignment, but they may help you get better feedback from your classmates and grader. For example, you might include copies of previous assignments, copies of your surveys, raw data, interview transcripts, raw notes, etc.: anything that does not directly address the assignment’s questions, but rather helps understand your progress as a whole.

In this assignment, you’ll brainstorm design alternatives for the task you’ve been investigating, then select and prototype three of those alternatives. Note that these two topics are merged because they require less coordination than needfinding and evaluation, not because they’re less important.

Abstract: ~50 words

First, include an abstract that briefly introduces your project and gives context on what task you’re addressing. You’ll include this abstract in each M assignment to give the grader and your peers context on what you’re working on. If you’d like to include more context than you can fit into 50 words, feel free to include an appendix containing an extended abstract.

Brainstorming Plan: ~50 words

First, outline a brainstorming plan. Explicitly note the rules you will follow, the time you will allocate to brainstorming, and the standards you will meet before moving forward. Remember, your brainstorming plan should be characterized by objective criteria to meet defined in advance.

Brainstorming Execution: ~100 words

Then, execute your individual brainstorming plan and report the ideas you provided. The ideas that you provide will depend on how you approach brainstorming: you might supply a flat list of ideas, an image of your brainstorming worksheet, an organized list of alternatives, etc. While the length of this portion of the deliverable is shorter, it is no less important, and will be evaluated as a disproportionately high percentage of the overall assignment’s grade.

Selection Criteria: ~100 words

After brainstorming several alternatives, detail the selection criteria you will use to select which three ideas to move forward to prototyping. This may take the form of the rules that will be applied to selecting the alternatives to move forward, or this may take the form of an explanation of the more situated reasoning behind why certain alternatives are selected. In short, explain how the alternatives to move to prototyping either will be or were selected.

During this phase, you may especially want to refer back to the requirements definition you posed in Assignment M2. For example, if one of your requirements was that the interface be affordable, then alternatives related to expensive hardware might be avoided.

Prototype 1: ~300 words

Create a prototype for one of the three ideas you selected. You may choose from the following types of prototypes:

A textual prototype: a plaintext description of the idea, how it will work, what its functionality will be, etc. A textual prototype should be sufficiently detailed to get feedback. This is well-suited for many types of design alternatives.
A verbal prototype: although this would be presented in text, a verbal prototype would take the form of a loose conversation script about the questions you might ask a person, the answers you would anticipate, the branches you would plan, etc. A verbal prototype is intended to be more dynamic and interactive than a textual prototype. This is well-suited for many types of design alternatives.
A paper prototype or wireframe: a hand-drawn or simplistic wireframe of the interface you intend to create. It should be thorough enough to get user feedback on its design, but not so detailed that revision would require significant effort; after all, the goal is to get feedback. This is particularly well-suited for a desktop program, tablet app, or web site.
A card prototype: a collection of smaller screens that can be iteratively shown to a user to simulate their interaction. For example, a user might be asked what they would do when faced with one screen, and then shown a different card representing the screen that would result. This is particularly well-suited for mobile apps where there is less screen real estate.
A Wizard of Oz prototype: a script of the instructions you would give a user, the commands or actions you would anticipate them making, and the responses you would return to those corresponding actions. This is particularly well-suited to prototypes that do not involve a visible screen, like auditory interfaces.
A physical prototype: a physical object that allows you to mimic the actions a user might take with your prototype. Rather than having the prototype actually operate as intended, you would note the ease with which the user interacts with the physical device, and potentially simulate the results of different actions. This is particularly well-suited to prototypes for new hardware.

Most of these approaches will be explained in your assignment in text; you should stay within the word limit for these approaches. If you need additional text to fully explain the prototype, you may include it in an appendix, and summarize the prototype within the body of the assignment. For paper and card prototypes, we recommend minimal text to explain the diagrams or drawings you supply; for example, you might include text in a card prototype to explain which other cards each action would bring up.

After creating the prototype, evaluate it from the perspective of the requirements you gathered in Assignment M2. Which requirements does it meet? Which requirements does it miss? How well does the prototype mesh with the audience described in your data inventory?

Prototype 2: ~300 words

Repeat the steps for Prototype 1 for the second design alternative you selected. You must select a different type of prototype; for example, if Prototype 1 was a textual prototype, then you must choose from the other five kinds of prototypes for Prototype 2.

Make sure to include all parts of the directions: supply the prototype itself, minimal text supporting it if necessary, and an evaluation of whether it fits with the requirements and data inventory from Assignment M2.

Prototype 3: ~300 words

Repeat the steps for Prototype 1 for the third design alternative you selected. You must select a different type of prototype from the ones you selected for Prototype 1 and Prototype 2; for example, if Prototype 1 was a textual prototype and Prototype 2 was a physical prototype, then you must choose from the other four kinds of prototypes for Prototype 3.

Submission Instructions

Assignments should be submitted to the corresponding assignment on Canvas in accordance with the Assignment Submission Instructions. Most importantly, you should submit a single PDF for each assignment. This PDF will be ported over to Peer Feedback for peer review by your classmates. If your assignment involves things (like videos, working software prototypes, etc.) that cannot be provided in PDF, you should provide them separately (either through the class Resources folder or your own upload destination) and submit a PDF that describes how to access the assignment.

This is an individual assignment. Even if you already know who you want to work with on the team project at the end of the semester, this assignment is to be completed by everyone 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

As with all assignments in this class, this assignment will be graded on a traditional A-F scale based on the extent to which your deliverable met expectations. This letter grade will be derived from internal scores assigned to each problem.

Peer Review

After submission, your assignment will be ported to Peer Feedback for review by your classmates. Grading is not the primary function of this peer review process; the primary function is simply to give you the opportunity to read and comment on your classmates’ ideas, and receive additional feedback on your own. All grades will come from the graders alone.

You will typically be assigned three classmates to review. You receive 1.5 participation points for completing a peer review by the end of the day Thursday; 1.0 for completing a peer review by the end of the day Sunday; and 0.5 for completing it after Sunday but before the end of the semester. For more details, see the participation policy.