Reading Seminar 1, Linnéas notes

Chapter 2

The different design approaches seems to me to be philosophical differences; where a UCD works around the computer for ease of the user, a systems designer might find the user to be a necessary evil. Engineers in particular are probably prone to preferring ACD and systems design, and finding the “softer” ways the be a waste of time.

Chapter 4

This “Double diamond” looks maybe different to the one Kristina Höök showed in her lecture? I prefer hers, though there might just be a difference in word choice.

Research is an easy thing to rationalize away with, in that it’s time consuming and might not seem necessary on the surface , since as Brenda Laurel points out (I’m paraphrasing) we as appointed experts most certainly know what will work and what will not.

No leading questions! No focus groups. No recording? (I guess that depends on the length of the interview, I can’t imagine that for a short interview a recording isn’t useful) It’s actually helpful to get some things to avoid.

Chapter 5

Difficulties for us include the lack of a set space in which to work, since that makes physical data harder to manage. I’d love to make a gigantic poster covered in post-its, but you can’t carry that around between classes, and storing at someones home seems very impractical. Are there online options?

Task analysis: Easy for computer interfaces and the like, more difficult for more abstract of physical objects.

Circular flow: Possibly more useful early in the design process? Less so when you have to find the singular issue that’s bottle-necking your progress.

Personas seem to require a lot of people to be based on. It might be tempting to just extrapolate and guess what they should contain, but that also sounds rather risky to do, since we’re far from perfectly informed about the user base.

Question

How do you  get in contact with users for interviewing? We can’t offer them money, and don’t have the time to spend ages on site, hoping that the right kind of person we’re looking for stumbles by.