i213 Spring 2011: UI Design and Development

January 12, 2012

First Assignment

Yes, already, but its short and hopefully interesting.  If you have an idea that you would like to pursue in the course, be prepared to make a short “pitch” to recruit other students in class on either  January 19th.  This should be about 2-3 minutes, laying out as best you can 1) who your user is, 2) what their pressing need is, 3) why this is an opportunity and 4) any partners or users you already have lined up.  Preferably you can do this without Powerpoint, but if you need it, it will be there.

Welcome to i213!

Welcome to i213, the UC Berkeley School of Information’s graduate-level course in User Interface Design and Development.  Please make sure to follow this RSS feed for announcements and assignments; and this one if you want to keep up with comments.  There is also a tentative schedule with readings posted.  To access protected readings, you will need to request an I-School account here. There is also a wait list for the course this year, so make sure to attend all classes to ensure your spot.  Your participation in the class will partially depend on being part of a project team by the end of the second week.  See you next week!

April 28, 2011

Design Tradeshow on May 6

April 25, 2011

Final Presentations

Please join us for the INFO213 User Interface Design & Development final project presentations, Tues 4/26 and Thurs 4/28 330-5 in South Hall 202! These projects represent the culmination of a semester’s worth of user research, prototyping, assessment and iteration. This year’s projects include:

Tuesday 4/26 330-5

April 7, 2011

Final Submission

Due: April 26th, 2011 (Presentation and Prototype)

Due: May 10, 2011 (Report)

Objective: In this assignment, you will complete your final project. There are three deliverables: 1) a demonstration prototype of your software, 2) a report that describes your project’s motivation, design method(s), implementation (concise) and evaluation, and 3) a 10-minute presentation describing your design process, prototype, evaluation and results.

What to do:

1. Revise your software demo based on feedback from other students, potential users and obtained during class. The functionality included in the demo should be based on two factors. First, supporting all of the tasks and activities that you would like during your user testing. Second, making a compelling demonstration for the final class presentation. You should be able to make progress from your first and second prototypes, including additional functionality, a refined look-and-feel, help features, interaction with live data sets, etc.
2. Conduct your user testing, based on your experiment design, and feedback from the TA and Instructor. Make sure to follow appropriate policies with regard to informed consent and records release. (Example forms are provided here and here). You should include the TA as a subject in at some part of your user testing protocol.
3. Prepare a presentation that summarizes your process, focusing on the most interesting observations and results, and demonstrates the capabilities of your software. Again, your goal is to describe what is really new and innovative about your approach, and how you have demonstrated its usability and benefit. You should aim for a ten-minute presentation, with five minutes for questions. Practice beforehand, with an audience if possible! If you go over, you wont be given extra time.
4. Make the presentation in class on April 26th or 28th (your position will be determined by random lottery). Your final project grade will be determined in equal parts by the final presentation and the final report.
5. Draft a report, describing your project’s motivation, design method(s), implementation and evaluation. Be concise – up to a maximum of twelve pages single-spaced 12-point text. Your goal is to describe what is really new and innovative about your approach, and how you have demonstrated its usability and benefit. Some sections your report should include are: Abstract, Introduction, Problem Statement, Design Process, Final Prototype Implementation (very concise, use images where appropriate, and include a description of what features have not been implemented), Evaluation Method, Evaluation Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References. In your report some of these sections may be combined, but in general all these topics should be covered. Refer to recent CHI proceedings for examples of how interactive systems are described and evaluated.

What to turn in:

E-mail to the professor and TA a link to each of the following before 3:30 PM on April 26th:

1. Cover sheet including yourself and your partners’ names, and the title of your project. Include a paragraph about what each person contributed to the final prototype, evaluation, analysis, presentation and report. Describe the tools you used to develop your final demo, how they helped and/or created additional obstacles [1 page].
2. A link to your final demonstration software, including any instructions on how to install and/or run it, if needed.
3. Your final presentation slides, movies and/or any supporting materials.

Additionally, e-mail to the professor and TA a link the following before 11:59 PM on May 10th:

1. Your final report, accepted in PDF format only! [maximum of 12 pages]

Please contact the professor or the class TA if you have any questions with this assignment.

March 15, 2011

Experiment Design Assignment

Due: Thursday, April 19th, 2012 at Noon

Objective: In this assignment, you will develop a plan for testing your user interface. This includes deciding the tasks to support, the users to test, where to test, the method of testing and the metrics used to evaluate success.

What to do:

1. Decide 3-4 tasks that you would like to support during your user testing. The tasks should provide the user with a complete and realistic feel for how the eventual application will work (or, for large projects, how some aspects will work). This should include both high-level user tasks (decide where you want to eat dinner using this interface), as well as specific, low-level tasks (use the interface to search for a restaurant open at 10PM).
2. Decide the context where you will test each of these tasks. The location should be as realistic as possible, while allowing for controlled measurement and evaluation.
3. Decide how you will recruit participants for your final user study. Aim for testing each task with between 5-15 users. Each task should be tested by appropriate users fitting the characteristics outlined in your persona descriptions.  Make sure to conduct a pilot test with design team members or other students before subjecting real users.
4. Determine whether it is possible to include a control condition for the testing. For example, if you have designed a new interface for web search, a control condition could be using Google search. This allows you to measure how your new interface compares with current alternatives. Ideally, you should test each task using both your own prototype and at least one control condition. Those without a suitable control condition should compensate by either including more users and/or more performance measures (see below).
5. Decide the methods you will use to evaluate performance for each task you want to test. This could include quantitative methods for metrics such as efficiency and error rate, as well as qualitative methods for metrics such as subjective satisfaction. Ideally, you will test each task using at least two quantitative and one qualitative method. Decide how you will measure user performance (for example, task execution time or number of errors), behavior and/or responses (for example, using audio, video, screen recorders, interview transcripts and/or detailed notes) .
6. Decide how you will address any learning and/or fatigue effects – either between tasks, and/or between the control and experimental conditions.
7. Decide the conditions of success. For experiments with a control, this may be some relative improvement over the control condition. For experiments without a control, this may be some absolute measure of efficiency, accuracy, subjective satisfaction, etc.
8. Decide the materials you will need to conduct the usability test. This includes the script you will use to conduct the test, the prototype itself, and any questionnaires you will administer before and/or after testing. This should include a demographic questionnaire capturing important user details (age, gender, education, experience with your proposed kind of technology and/or application, etc), as well as informed consent and records release forms allowing you to conduct the test with the user and/or capture audio, images and video. (Example forms are provided here and here).

What to turn in:

The preferred method of turn-in is a PDF document, including each of the following components. To avoid a late penalty, e-mail a link to your group’s submission to the professor and TA before 12:00 PM (Noon) on Thursday, April 19th:

1. Cover sheet including yourself and your partners’ names, and your chosen focus. Note the time, duration and attendance of each brainstorming session. Include a paragraph describing what each person contributed to the assignment [1/2 page].
2. A list of tasks that you intend to test during your usability testing.
3. Description of your control condition(s) and experimental variants, if any (it is highly recommended to include a control if possible) [1/2 page].
4. Details about how many users that you will test for each task, and how you plan to recruit participants, including for the pilot test. If the same persona applies to multiple tasks, it is fine if the same user is tested for all of them, making sure to account for any learning / fatigue effects [1 page].
5. Description of the methods that you will use to evaluate the usability of each task, and how you will measure document user behavior and responses. It is recommended to evaluate each task using at least two quantitative and one qualitative methods. Mention how you will address any learning and/or fatigue effects – either between tasks, or between the control and experimental conditions. Provide the location where you will test each task [2-3 pages].
6. A list of conditions of success for each of the tasks [1/2 page]
7. A description of the supporting materials that you will need for conducting your user test – including forms, testing scripts, questionnaires, props, and the prototype itself [1 page].

The total length of your report should be less than 8 pages. Brevity, clarity and focus on the goals of the assignment will be rewarded.

E-mail a link to your group’s project page to the professor and TA before 12:00 PM (Noon) on Thursday, April 19th.

Please contact the professor or the class TA if you have any questions with this assignment.

Functional Prototype Assignment

Due: Thursday, April 7th, 2011 at Noon

Objective: In this assignment, you will refine your interactive prototype based on the heuristic evaluation. You will also provide enough functionality so that your prototype can be tested by users in a realistic way.

What to do:

1. Review the formative evaluation you have collected, and that provided by the other group. Decide the points that you plan to address in your next prototype, and any general changes you would like to make.
2. Decide the tasks that you would like to support during your user testing (see the next assignment). The tasks should provide the user with a complete and realistic feel for how the eventual application will work (or, for large projects, how some specific aspects of the future application will work). The interface should support both high-level user tasks (decide where you want to eat dinner tonight), as well as specific, low-level tasks (search for a restaurant open at 10PM).
3. Revise and/or re-implement your interactive prototype based on the tasks that you intend to support. It is not essential that you implement all of the back-end functionality, or that you provide a completely refined graphic presentation (polished icons, visual design, etc.). However, your prototype should be complete from an interaction perspective – the user should be able to use all of the functions that he/she needs to perform the tasks that you have outlined. Moreover, the interface should provide sufficient functionality to gracefully allow exploration the user might do to perform these tasks. Any potential user errors should also be handled gracefully. In short, the system should provide a realistic and complete experience for the user while performing the tasks you have described.
4. In class on April 7th, be ready with your interactive prototype. Prepare a presentation describing its functionality, and providing an overview of your experimental design. You will receive feedback from the rest of the class, including the TA and instructor, on your prototype and experimental design, including whether or not you have provided enough functionality to support testing with real users.

What to turn in:

The preferred method of turn-in is a PDF document, including each of the following components. To avoid a late penalty, e-mail a link to your group’s submission to the professor and TA before 12:00 PM (Noon) on Thursday, April 7th:

1. Cover sheet including yourself and your partners’ names, and your chosen focus. Note the time, duration and attendance of each brainstorming session. Include a paragraph about what each person contributed to the assignment [1/2 page].
2. The list of changes that you decided to make based on the heuristic evaluation. Include the original comment, the severity rating provided by the other group, your own assessment, and what you to did to address it [1-2 pages].
3. Describe the tools you used to develop your prototype, how they helped and/or created additional obstacles [1/2 page].
4. Provide a link to your second interactive prototype, as well as directions about how to install and/or run it. Supplement with screen shots [1-2 pages].
5. Be ready with your presentation, supporting material and your interactive prototype to be presented in class on April 7th.

The total length of your report should be less than 4 pages (not including any prototype screen shots). Brevity, clarity and focus on the goals of the assignment will be rewarded.

Please contact the professor or the class TA if you have any questions with this assignment.

March 10, 2011

Formative Evaluation Assignment

February 22, 2011

Balsamiq Prototype Assignment

Due: Thursday, March 10th, 2011 at Noon

Objective: In this assignment, you will test your low-fidelity prototype(s) and use the results to inform the design of the first interactive prototype for your final project.

What to do:

1. Select the low-fidelity prototype(s) that you would like to start with. The prototype(s) should support walking through at least three of the tasks described in your scenarios.
2. Each member of the design team should evaluate the low-fidelity interface with regard to the design heuristics (both Neilsen’s and Norman’s) we have learned in class. These evaluations should be done independently of one another, making sure to take detailed notes of your observations.
3. Select one other person to “test” your low-fidelity prototype. Ideally this would be someone from your proposed user group, or at least someone not from the design team (for example, another member of the class).
4. Ask the test user to step through at least three of the tasks outlined in your scenarios using the low-fidelity prototype. Utilize the “Think-Aloud” protocol described in class. Once again, take detailed notes of the pilot user’s observations.
5. Schedule a design team meeting to integrate your observations and the observations from your initial user study. The output of this should be a set of revisions / suggestions / design directions to be implemented in your first interactive prototype. Make sure to note the source of each of these revisions / suggestions / directions, whether they came from one or several of the heuristic evaluations conducted by the design team members, from your initial user study, or emerged during the brainstorming.
6. Design the prototype using Balsamiq Mockups. (This software has a 7-day free license.  You can ask the professor for a key if you need it for longer then that.)  You are free to use another tool (Powerpoint, Flash, HTML, etc.) if thats easier for you.  Once again, the prototype should be sufficient to at least “walk through” three of the tasks that you have included in your final project proposal. Utilizing wizard-of-oz techniques is fine, and recommended when you have not implemented some of the underlying functionality.
7. In class on March 10th, be ready for your interactive prototype to be tested. This includes providing enough guidance, documentation and/or supporting material so that the user can understand the intent and operation of the prototype.

What to turn in:

The preferred method of turn-in is a PDF document, including each of the following components. To avoid a late penalty, e-mail a link to your group’s submission to the professor and TA before 12:00 PM (Noon) on Thursday, March 10th:

1. Cover sheet including yourself and your partners’ names, and your chosen focus. Note the time, duration and attendance of each brainstorming session. Include a paragraph about what each person contributed to the assignment [1/2 page].
2. If your revised and/or developed new lo-fi prototypes, please provide new pictures. These pictures should include enough detail and supporting text so that we can understand how the eventual system is intended to work [2-3 pages].
3. The final integrated list of your revisions / suggestions / design directions. Make sure to indicate the original source of each of them, whether they came from one or several of the heuristic evaluations conducted by the design team members, from your initial user study, or emerged during the brainstorming [1-3 pages].
4. Provide a link to your Balsamiq prototype.  Include directions of how to install and/or run it if it is not done using Balsamiq.  Supplement with screen shots if helpful [1-2 pages].
5. Describe the tools you used to develop your prototype, how they helped and/or created additional obstacles [1/2 page].
6. Be ready with supporting material and your interactive prototype to be tested in class on March 10th.

The total length of your report should be less than 6 pages (not including any revised lo-fi prototype pictures). Brevity, clarity and focus on the goals of the assignment will be rewarded.

Please contact the professor or the class TA if you have any questions with this assignment.

February 18, 2011

Changing office hours

I am changing my office hours (in South Hall 303B) to Mondays 230-330 to allow more people to make it.  Hope to see some of you there!

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