Assignments & Grading

Assignments

Assignment 1

Project descriptions Feb. 18

Assignment 2: Usability Test Feb. 26  Comments

Assignment 3 Field Observation March 4

Assignment 4 Interviewing March 18

Assignment Guidelines

Assignments are due at the time of class on the due date.

I want both printed and electronic copies of your work. If you are an iSchool student, please upload here — use the link for i214, naturally. The password and username are your usual iSchool one. If you are not an iSchool student, email me a copy.

Most assignments give page limits. These are guidelines, not requirements, to give you a sense of how much work I’m expected. Page limits are figured based on single spaced 10 or 12 pitch type.

I have not yet decided on which assignments I will make and how many. The purpose of assignments is to give you a chance to practice and get feedback on many of the methods we are discussing. I encourage you to coordinate your assignments with your project. For example, for a survey assignment you might write a survey related to your project (regardless of whether you decide your going to actually do a survey).   I will probably give you the option of skipping one assignment or dropping your lowest grade on the assignments.

Grading

  • Periodic assignments: 50%
  • Final project: 40%
  • Class participation: 10%

Final Project

Your major project for this course is an applied piece of user experience research.

This may be:

  • an investigation of user needs for a proposed software product, information system, web site, or similar; or
  • an evaluation and assessment for a prototype or an existing system or service

The more real it is, the better the project. The best projects are for an actual client. But you can also pick a site or product with which you have no direct connection.

You must use a minimum of three substantive methods that we address in the course. (We’ll discuss this further.)

Given the constraints of the semester, this is likely to be more of a pilot project than an actual, completed project for a client. It’s most important that you get to practice a variety of methods and the entire process from planning to to analysis and delivery of a product. It’s unlikely that you’ll have time to go into enough depth with each method to have defendable results.

This can be an individual or a group project; group projects are recommended.

Due date: TBA. You will do a class presentation on your project at the end of the semester.

This page last updated Jan. 17, 2010