Blog Reflection #8 – ypar4284

1/ What kinds of information and insights did it give you about the usability of the prototype?

As a user my task was to go to Sydney Opera house website and buy two tickets to “the magic flute”. This was my first experience with the Sydney Opera house website and it was very easy to use, when the keyword of the magic flute was typed on the search bar section the exact record of the intended “the magic flute” came up with some general informations.
As an observer there were two tasks to complete, one records video of user’s interactions between the computer and user’s expressions, another task is to record informations of user’s verbal expressions as user talks about their experiences. This tasks clearly provides an direct feedback of user’s usability while using the prototype, and is useful for creating better prototype after the task is completed and getting questionnaires also helps to find out how user felt during the interaction of prototype.

2/ What aspects of the technique worked well or were frustrating? 

As a user’s point of view think aloud was quite embarrassing experience as we had to talk what we were doing and thinking about the prototype, I was quite frustrated that having to talk about every step that I’m about to go on and tasks that I performed.

Taking video clips were helpful as a notetaker concentrating to dictate important informations of user’s think-aloud performances it was difficult to look at user’s facial expression at the same time. However, some of the video we took it was impossible to see user’s face as the angle of camera was not pointed towards the user.

Evaluation

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Blog Reflection #7 – ypar4284

1/ Choose one of the objects you selected and describe how your initial understanding of its affordances changed over the course of the exercise?

The object chosen for this tutorial is a travel tumbler which is made of stainless steel with removable screw type lid. The contents comes out at the top of the place which has a small push button which acts as a switch to open or close the lid (plastic gasket inside). If a person did not notice there is a pushable button in the middle he/she will have to open the screw lid to get the contents out the the bottle. From that information my initial understanding of this object were hidden affordance. And I added a annotation “push/press” just below the button to imply there is a pushable button.

As a result hidden affordance -> perceptible affordance

2/ Given that affordances is a relational property between a person and an object, how did the manipulation of the object and the person’s abilities inform your understanding of the concept? Did it give you inspiration or insight for how to work with affordances as a designer? Discuss this through the specific objects you explored in the exercise.

Different affordances gives user an alternative experiences and it directly relates to the user’s usability, by manipulating of the object it gives direct information about the object and how it is used. Also user’s ability to understanding about the object has increased as well as handling of an object is better as it gives user a handle to hold on. This exercise gave me an inspiration of how affordances are used in various objects and as a designer’s point of view affordance should be carefully selected to not only make design better but give user a better usability.

Interrogating Affordances

Report Summary Poster – ypar4284

Summary Poster

Feedback

I didn’t know that…

• About the technology
• About the liberator
• Braille e-book reader

Tell me more about…

• The disability awareness chart
• The interview
• Sign language software
• Rating/Questions used (Questionnaire results)

Have you thought about…

• On disability awareness chart to place legend for the info and put a more specific need and questions
• Asking more specific questions
• Going specific on just 1 type of disability

Blog Reflection #5 – ypar4284

1/ How did taking the position of an Extreme User influence your thinking in relation to the design challenge?

This exercise helped me to think more imaginative than usual and as extreme users theme was trekkie which is sci-fi geek and person who is really into high-tech gears. My character wasn’t extremely though, I tried to create something creative and ideal. By taking it to the extreme I didn’t have to worry about whether the product is going to work or not, I could take any ideas into design prototype.

2/ Was it different to how you usually generate ideas and empathy?

Yes it was very different to how I used to generate ideas as I tend to generate ideas based on reality that it is going to work and is possible for final product. By creating story within the design it was enjoyable experience with so much fun hearing other peoples stories about their characters and ideas.

3/ Did any of the other design thinking techniques (design provocation cards, stories, storyboards, etc.) help you to work through ideas and collaborate with your group members?

In our tut class we were not told about how to use the provocation cards but as I looked into it was quite useful when stuck and run out of ideas. Creating stories about their characters created empathy and it allowed group members to work constantly and focus on their characters needs.
Finally, storyboards helped me to create my stories into actual prototype of ideas, generated by the stories of my character, I was able to put things in details as I was not able to describe in stories. Due to lack of my ability to draw I was not able to produce great storyboards and later I realised that it is important to annotate things to allow viewers to understand the concept without a hesitation.

Ideas and storyboards

Blog Reflection #4 – ypar4284

1/ Describe your experience of creating personas from different users’ perspectives gathered in the interview data. Was there enough commonality between the 4 people interviewed to form a coherent persona? Or did it make more sense to create a second different persona?

Creating personas from different users perspectives were totally new experience, the data was collected using interviews between pairs. As a pair we exchanged informations informations about experience using supermarket. My interviewee Jeff and I gathered few datas and as a group of 4 we then shared our resources and made into one persona.
We had few things in common but not all the data were similar, out cultural background were all different and ages were varied from early 20’s to 30’s and we had different interests in shopping experiences. As a final result we created personas generated from commonalities of ourselves (4 members in our group), and it wasn’t coherent persona but relatively similar.

2/ Do you think your final persona(s) was successful in generating empathy with users? What would you change to make it better?

To be honest I don’t think our final persona was successful in our way that it did not generate much empathy with users, and I felt that we were force to match things that are not quite related to each other.
It can be improved by asking general question to create empathy between partners and then ask questions related to the subject. Taking time and having Q&As in a relaxing environment may be better for interviewer and interviewees so that both feel relaxed and thus they are comfortable to each other to talk. As a result this may create coherent persona(s) and it will be ideal persona in result.

Creating personas

Blog Reflection #3 – ypar4284

1/ How did this exercise help you build empathy with prospective users?

The whole exercise was reading an interview script and finding interviewee’s motivations and frustrations, highlighting informations about need and problems and transferring these ideas onto post it was next exercise, it helped me to find exact interviewee’s need and problems as well as motivations and frustrations. By completing this exercise I found out that most interviewees had similar motivations and frustrations, and thus I felt empathy within peer groups I worked with.

2/ How did the clustering of information help you to understand user needs?

Clustering of informations helped me to find users needs from different groups of interviewees. Placing informations on post-it helps to connect relevant ideas together to form a collection of data, we as a group found it useful to analysis data easily and find users need and interests just at a glance. Also by clustering informations we understood different users needs are similar throughout entire interview topics.

3/ What was difficult or challenging with the technique? How would you do it better next time?

It was challenging to connect one of the users need to other users needs because there was no connection between them and no relations to each other. In addition, some of the lists were related more than one items so it was very difficult to find the right spot to place users needs or problems. Another difficulty I encountered were time management, because I focused word by word I didn’t have enough time to go through the whole interview script, I had to skim read it to be able to finish cover to cover read and was not able to obtain as much informations I needed. As a consequences, next time I will try to find important informations and write down users needs/problems as fast as possible. Then paying attention to details I will look further on users alternative needs even more.

Interpreting Data