Assignments

Individual Assignments

There will be 3 assignments in this course. 

• A1 - Observe your World (due on Tuesday, 4/4)

• A2 - Level Up Your Skills (due on Thursday, 5/1)

• A3 - Heuristic Evaluation (due on Thursday 5/11)

Team Project

The project is an opportunity to engage in the full spectrum of human-centered design and development.

Objective

Design, implement, and evaluate an interactive computing system that seeks to address an identified user need within a well-defined population. 

Important: See class slides from studio 1 (3/31) for more details on the project and expectation.

Teams

Students will work in ~3 - 4 person teams (groups will be assigned and include a mix of undergraduate and graduate members). Diversity in backgrounds, skillset, and interests is important to design and develop a successful and useful product.

Milestones

There are 6 main components of the project that will be due at various points during the term:

• P1 - The Pitch: Identify opportunities for a niche population or within a domain of interest

• P2 - User Research: Consider real users in the context of real activities to understand and identify key needs

• P3 - Ideation, Lo-Fi Prototype & Test: Brainstorm and iteratively develop/build ideas quickly and cheaply

• P4 - Mid-Fi Prototype: Implement a digital version of your interactive user interface or system

• P5 - Final Prototype: Implement important features of the interactive user interface or system

• P6 - Final Portfolio: This includes a final presentation and complete website to showcase the project. Final presentations will include both an in class and outside of class component

Deliverables

Each team is expected to document and report on all project components (P1 - P6).

The final portfolio (P6) will include:

1.  A final presentation to showcase to the user-centered design project and final product

2. A website to showcase the process & highlight various parts of the project/process

As an example, imagine a project website with 1 homepage (i.e., overview) and separate tabs for each project component/milestone. Each page on the website should communicate the highlights for that section and then have a link to the detailed report. Inclusion of visual aid (via images and videos) is highly recommended for the project website.

Final Presentation/Demo: To round up the project phase, student teams will give a final presentation to the class about their project and human-centered design process. This presentation must include a demo of the final product.