Similar to scenarios, “use cases also focus on user goals, but the emphasis here is on a user-system interaction rather than the user’s task itself.”
Categoriearchief: Design
Forcing Functions
“A forcing function is a constraint where the user ‘is forced’ to complete a task based on a limited, paired down set of features or controls.” (Spillers. Forcing Functions)
User Experience Goals
Similar to ‘usability goals’, user experience goals are a set of goals to measure the experience a user has with an interactive product.
Interface Design Patterns
Interface design patterns are solutions to frequently-occurring problems and situation in the design of interfaces. The end users and the implementation teams conceptualise the interfaces in terms of interface design patterns.
Wireframes (High-End Prototypes)
Wireframes are often simple HTML pages (or other simulated pages) with a minimum of information and links that can be produced quickly with a site design program.
(Brinck, Gergle. Usability for the Web, p 241)
Low-Fidelity Prototypes
Low fidelity prototypes are generally paper based and include sketches, screen mockups and storyboards.
(Stone, Jarret, Woodroffe, Minocha. User Interface Design and Evaluation p115)
Wizard of Oz Technique
The Wizard of Oz technique enables unimplemented technology to be evaluated by using a human to simulate the response of a system.
“Wizard of Oz”. UsabilityNet. 2006. http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/wizard.htm
Mockups (Digital)
Digital mockups are a higher-quality rapidly rendered representations of major design decisions.
(Brinck, Gergle. Usability for the Web, p 218)
Co-discovery Learning
During a usability test, two test users attempt to perform tasks together while being observed. They are to help each other in the same manner as they would if they were working together to accomplish a common goal using the product. They are encouraged to explain what they are thinking about while working on the tasks.
Mockups (General)
Mockups are primarily single-page, static representations of the design space.
(Brinck, Gergle. Usability for the Web, p 16)
Design Comics
“Design comics are a type of storyboarding used in product and web site design. Design comics include product consumers or other characters in an illustrated story that shows how the users interact with the product.”(Wikipedia “Design Comics”)
Paper Prototyping
A paper prototype is made up of interface elements sketched on different pieces of paper so that various application states and screens can be shown without redrawing the interface each time.
(Designing the Obvious, Robert Hoekman jr., p43)
Design rationale
A Design Rationale is important during iterative development and during development of any future releases of the product.
Participatory Design
Participatory Design can be broadly defined as a movement to improve the relationship between technology and people. Participatory Design was created by the Scandinavian Collective Resources group, which created a process for inserting workers into processes for the design and management of their own workplaces.
Forlizzi, Jody. “The Product Ecology:
Understanding Social Product Use and Supporting Design Culture” International Journal of Design. 2008. http://www.ijdesign.org/ojs/index.php/IJDesign/article/view/220/143
Essential Use Cases
“Essential use cases represent abstractions from scenarios, i.e., they represent a more general case than a scenario embodies, and try to avoid the assumptions of a traditional use case.”
(Preece. Interaction Design. p 230)
Photo Placement
Photo placement can be simply indicated by using a square with lines extending across opposite angles.
(Brinck, Gergle. Usability for the Web, p 226)
Experience Prototyping
Experience Prototyping is a form of prototyping that allows shareholders on a design team to understand existing and future conditions through engagement with prototypes.
(Buchenau, M., & Fulton Suri, J. Experience prototyping. In Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Designing Interactive Systems pp. 424-433)
Test Plan for Usability Testing
The Usability Test Plan describes the goals, method, and approach for usability test. The test plan includes several different components, from profiles of participants to an outline of a discussion with users.
A simplest test plan consists of a set of goals, a description of the logistics and methods and a set of questions to ask the participants.
(Communication Design, Dan Brown p49,p52 2006)
Flowchart (tasks)
A task-flow diagram (flowchart) is a flowchart that details how a user will compete all the tasks in an application from beginning to end.
(Designing the Obvious, Robert Hoekman jr., p43)
Usability Goals
A set of goals to determine the usability of a product.
Forced Association (Idea Generation)
A technique for idea generation in which you associate things with each other.
For example:
Water
Blue
Sky
Airplane
Fly