Reading Seminar 2 - Ellinor Jutterström

Chapter 6 

I never really thought that much about brainstorming before I began my studies at KTH, but it really is a useful method. The process of just emptying your brain of all ideas you can think of, no matter the quality, is quite liberating. I like the idea of putting all your brainstorm material up on the wall, to bad we can’t really do that now (perhaps digitally though, but it’s not the same).

They list many cool brainstorming techniques, the poetry one sounds both funny and strange (to reduce the problem down to a Haiku or short poem). It seems a bit excessive though, but still want to try it sometimes.

The TiVo mantras are awesome! I can totally see where they come from though, the team had quite some challenges to overcome. Maybe it’s easier today, since we are more open for new things and technology, and used to working with it?

We should have read this chapter several weeks ago, I’d say :/

Chapter 7 

“The best designers are those who can juggle the most constraints”. Ooh, I like that! Very true, some of the best inventions and designs comes from nothing, really.

Haven’t thought about it that much before, but instant feedback really is important, better remember that! It reminds me of people on the subway; when the train has stopped and the doors don’t open immediately, people get a little antsy and start pressing buttons. I think people get used to delays though. For example, my computer is running a little slower than it should normally do (it’s getting old), and I’m ok with it since I’ve used it for a while. However, when someone else is using my computer, they go nuts. When we use an application for the first time, we expect it to have no delays and get annoyed if it does.

There clearly is a lot to think about when designing an application, such as the users cognitive ability, not to have too many options, placement (Hicks Law), no errors (the errors popping up should explain why there is an error, else the program should manage them itself), Poka-Yoke (avoiding errors) etc. A think-aloud user test seems more and more useful in order to avoid possible traps!

Chapter 8 

In the beginning of this chapter they mention the same thing as the speaker at the last lecture: the placement of graphic content is important, e.g. we tend to believe that information on the top of the page is more important. We need to create a flow in our app, the users eyes should not have to jump all over the screen! 

They don’t seem to mention that one major benefit of prototyping is that it greatly reduces the costs (and time!) of a product. I have worked at an engineering company, who was developing products worth hundreds of thousands SEK. Since they bought a 3D-printer, which prints all their prototypes really cheap, they have saved quite a lot of money.