Seminar 2 - Individual Post - Amanda

Today I have read chapter 13 and 15 and this is my reflection of the literature and my suggestion for how we could apply it to our project evaluate our prototype.

By questioning our design and reflecting over if it satisfies the requirements, we can evaluate our design. This is done by having the target group (foreign tourists) where the product will be used and the context in mind. We can do the evaluation by using a framework called the Decide method.

The Decide method is used by first setting goals. This could in our case be to evaluate if our paper prototype meets the requirements set by the pain points. Next step is to ask several questions and then to break down the questions to sub questions to make the evaluation more fined-grained. We could for example ask our self’s if there are any better ways to approach the problem and what these ways would be. We could also ask our selves if there are alternative ways to sole the problem and what they would result in. These sub questions can then be broken down to issues, which leads us to the next step: Choosing evaluation method. Here we could address the problem by for example data gathering by using an empirical method. In our case we could make a clickable prototype and then let our target group test it to identify the practical issues or some how stimulate the user experience. Data could be gathered by asking the users to use the “think out loud” method so we can get an insight in what they find hard and confusing. We could also interview them afterwards to get feedback and more information about their user experience. We could also ask them what the pros and cons are of the prototype vs. the machine used today.

To deal with the ethical issues it is important for us to be clear with the goal of the project, time consumption and how the data will be used. The points listed on page 467-468 (3^rd edition) should also be taken into consideration to avoid misunderstandings.

After doing the evaluation it is important to evaluate the findings to get the most out of it. This is best done by determination the reliability, validity and if the results are biases.

For the seminar I would like to go trough the decide model and for each point discuss and write down our thoughts so we can use the model I our project.

In chapter 15 we are introduced to models that do not require users present when evaluating.

Heuristic Evaluation and Walkthroughs

Instead of involving users the Heuristic Evaluation and Walktroughs suggests that experts within the field can provide feedback. By using the heuristics we can evaluate the menus and navigations structure. In our case this could use our personas scenarios and try to predict how they would use the new machine. In this case the experts would be group members.

Walkthroughs

Another method is walkthroughs where the characteristics of the typical user are documented and then the system is walked trough with developers and experts. The system is then analyzed through different perspectives. We could use this method by doing the walkthrough and analyzing it from the four scenarios we created for our two personas. This would give us four different points of view on the interface and allow us to analyze and identify problems of every step. From this we could then improve our interface.

Analytics

Analytics is a method where data is gathered to understand what parts of the website is used and when. This method is not applicable on our project since user data cannot be collected in and analyzed. 

-       What method of evaluation suits us best?

-       Which ones can we get the most out of?

//Amanda