User centred Interface Design: Assignment - Interactive Prototype Development
Specification:
Ubiquitous inter-connective technologies are enabling innovative and creative solutions to many problems in work, home or social life. These include mobile devices, digital media, Wireless connectivity, GPS, soft AI, software agents, intelligent materials and so on. It promises to be the future of the computing paradigm as even more functionality is combined to support users' requirements, real and imagined.
Your task is to put yourself in the shoes of a designer in a leading edge innovation company. You will produce a conceptual design and working prototype interface of a solution to an interaction-design problem that you will define. You are free to choose the problem and type of system you design as long as it meets the criteria in this document. At the very least it should be a technical solution to an identified problem. Relevant areas may include (but not be limited to) wearable computing, gaming, augmented reality, educational aids, interactive kiosks, portable digital media.
You may use any and all current and (realistically) projected technologies for the design of your system. You should demonstrate an understanding of the cognitive and ergonomic characteristics of the target users and show how your design takes account of them.
This assignment is designed to draw on many of the key themes of the module; psychological and technical, theoretical and practical, and this should be reflected within your report.
Deliverables:
This is an individual assignment.
An interactive prototype interface must be produced using client-side web-based technologies introduced during the module to include HTML, CSS and javascript-related functionality. This will demonstrate the top-level interaction between the user and system via an interactive and intuitive graphical interface including input and output functionality.
When you have completed this, produce a written document with narrative explanations and associated imagery, demonstrating your research and design justifications. This should include background theory, references and annotated design sketches. You are also required to produce a thorough user-testing plan which could be used to evaluate the usability aspects of your design. Discuss the different user-centred evaluation paradigms, and how you would obtain both quantitative and qualitative evaluation data specific to your chosen application functionalities, and the relevance of this to appropriate user-centred software design methodologies.
The prototype must be saved using the relevant file types and written work must be saved as a .pdf and include a word count under the title using Harvard Referencing. This should be a maximum of 2000 words excluding references (every 50 words over = loss of 1% in your final mark):
Assessment:
- Creation of a working prototype interactive interface.
- Psychological justifications for design choices and documentation of user-testing plan.
Learning Outcomes: This assignment assesses the following learning outcomes:
1. Specify usability requirements and advise upon possible designs for their realisation
2. Evaluate the usability of a computer system and its interface
3. Produce and evaluate a user interface design for a given scenario
4. Critically discuss the ethical, legal and social responsibility in the design of user-centred systems.