1,575 research outputs found

    Mixed-fidelity prototyping of user interfaces

    Get PDF
    This research presents a new technique for user interface prototyping, called mixed-fidelity prototyping. Mixed-fidelity prototyping combines low-, medium-, and high-fidelity interface elements within a single prototype in a lightweight manner, supporting independent refinement of individual elements. The approach allows designers to investigate alternate designs, including more innovative designs, and elicit feedback from stakeholders without having to commit too early in the process. As well, the approach encourages collaboration among a diverse group of stakeholders throughout the design process. For example, individuals who specialize in specific fidelities, such as high-fidelity components, are able to become involved earlier on in the process. We developed a conceptual model called the Region Model and implemented a proof-of-concept system called ProtoMixer. We demonstrated the mixed-fidelity approach by using ProtoMixer to design an example application. ProtoMixer has several benefits over other existing prototyping tools. With ProtoMixer, prototypes can be composed of multiple fidelities, and elements are easily refined and transitioned between different fidelities. Individual elements can be tied into data and functionality, and can be executed inside prototypes. As well, traditional informal practices such as sketching and storyboarding are supported. Furthermore, ProtoMixer is designed for collaborative use on a high-resolution, large display workspace

    A CMMI-compliant requirements management and development process

    Get PDF
    Requirements Engineering has been acknowledged an essential discipline for Software Quality. Poorly-defined processes for eliciting, analyzing, specifying and validating requirements can lead to unclear issues or misunderstandings on business needs and project’s scope. These typically result in customers’ non-satisfaction with either the products’ quality or the increase of the project’s budget and duration. Maturity models allow an organization to measure the quality of its processes and improve them according to an evolutionary path based on levels. The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) addresses the aforementioned Requirements Engineering issues. CMMI defines a set of best practices for process improvement that are divided into several process areas. Requirements Management and Requirements Development are the process areas concerned with Requirements Engineering maturity. Altran Portugal is a consulting company concerned with the quality of its software. In 2012, the Solution Center department has developed and applied successfully a set of processes aligned with CMMI-DEV v1.3, what granted them a Level 2 maturity certification. For 2015, they defined an organizational goal of addressing CMMI-DEV maturity level 3. This MSc dissertation is part of this organization effort. In particular, it is concerned with the required process areas that address the activities of Requirements Engineering. Our main goal is to contribute for the development of Altran’s internal engineering processes to conform to the guidelines of the Requirements Development process area. Throughout this dissertation, we started with an evaluation method based on CMMI and conducted a compliance assessment of Altran’s current processes. This allowed demonstrating their alignment with the CMMI Requirements Management process area and to highlight the improvements needed to conform to the Requirements Development process area. Based on the study of alternative solutions for the gaps found, we proposed a new Requirements Management and Development process that was later validated using three different approaches. The main contribution of this dissertation is the new process developed for Altran Portugal. However, given that studies on these topics are not abundant in the literature, we also expect to contribute with useful evidences to the existing body of knowledge with a survey on CMMI and requirements engineering trends. Most importantly, we hope that the implementation of the proposed processes’ improvements will minimize the risks of mishandled requirements, increasing Altran’s performance and taking them one step further to the desired maturity level

    When Prototyping Meets Storytelling. Practices and Malpractices in Innovating Software Firms

    Get PDF
    Storytelling is an important but often underestimated practice in software engineering. Whereas existing research widely regards storytelling as creating a common understanding between developers and users, we argue that storytelling and prototyping are intertwined practices for innovators to persuade decision makers. Based on a two-year qualitative case study in two innovating software firms, we identify and dialectically examine practices of storytelling and prototyping. Our study implies that storytelling and prototyping should be integrated together into software engineering methods

    Recording and Tracking Design Decisions in Interactive System Development

    Get PDF
    Experience economy is prompting the innovation of traditional product design. The design concept - "user-centered design" has received wide recognition. In the face of many professional or non-professional users, the priority of interaction design is to ensure the usability of the interactive product, and then a good user experience of the product. The user interface is an intermediary between human and computer. Users exchange information with the computer via the user interface. The user interface is an important part of a computer system. It is a big part of the software development. The quality of the user interface directly affects the performance of the software. For most users, the user interface is all they know from a product. So for these users, a program with a good interior design but a bad user interface design is a bad program. In this project we investigate different ways of recording design decisions in interactive system development which may allow us to think of the different variants and alternatives that are possible (within a design space) in some formal notation, which then allows us to either reason about their suitability or record the decisions made to understand the impact of decisions and how well they support the given criteria. The goal of this project will involve finding out what the influences are which help drive the design process; considering the effects of individual vs. team design; deciding how and when decisions occur; thinking about useful ways to record decisions and their influences; and investigating the usefulness of the approach through the working examples identified as case studie

    From collection to reflection : on designing Freed, a tool for free and flexible organization of designers' digital work

    Get PDF
    Designers collect a lot of information during the design process, such as background research, ideas, notes, sketches, photos, videos and feedback from various stakeholders. A large part of this information gets lost in folders on individual computers, inside documents and presentations, or on pages in designers' notebooks. This is wasteful, because this information can be used for reflection. Reflection enables designers to give meaning to their experience and to develop. When reflecting designers think about what, how and why they design, or more specifically: It allows them to gain overview of, gain insight in and give direction to their design process, ideas, designs, skills, knowledge, interests, ambitions, identity and community. Reflection concerns integration, i.e., to explore relations, and diversity, i.e., to explore new perspectives. Reflection has a dual nature. On the one hand, it is an explicit action that requires designers to step out of the flow of designing. On the other hand, it is an implicit process that happens automatically while designing. This dual nature also holds true for how reflection can be supported. On the one hand, one can specifically dedicate time for reflection. On the other hand, reflection can be captured Âżin the action', during or right after other activities that are part of the design process. This project adopts a Research-through-Design approach: By designing and evaluating a software application called Freed, insight is gained in how designers' reflection can be supported by means of their digital collections. Freed is discussed and evaluated with design students and designer-researchers at the department of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology. This context, which has strongly inspired and influenced this work, is introduced in the first chapter. In the second chapter, the foundations, goals and approach of this research are outlined. Based on the goal of supporting both integration and diversity, the case is made for free and flexible organization. Freedom is defined as the possibility to let structure and meaning emerge during interaction, instead of being imposed by the structure of the application. It can also be referred to as the openness of the application, or its ability to be appropriated and used in diverse situations. Flexibility is defined as the possibility to easily reorganize and reuse design work and to switch between perspectives on this work. Related work concerning reflection, design and collection, is discussed in the third chapter. This chapter ends with the conclusion that design is about action and exploration, and that reflection cannot be seen independent from action. Opportunities for reflection can be provided by a flexible person- and context- dependent design process that allows for many switches between activities, and regular reframing of the design situation. A system for supporting reflection should fit this flexible nature, and give designers the freedom to use the system for their own purposes. This desired combination of freedom and flexibility is not found in existing tools and systems. For example, existing tools and systems include elements that may inhibit free and flexible organization of the collection, such as similarity criteria, IBIS notations, and hierarchical relations. The main process of design and evaluation is discussed chronologically in chapters four to seven. The fourth chapter introduces initial design concepts, and argues for a focus on software. A first software prototype called ÂżThe Magnetic Collage Software' is discussed, along with a personal reflection on the use of it. From this reflection is concluded that the initial prototype works well for gaining overview quickly, but that it needed to be improved in order to support more active exploration of relations and perspectives. In chapter five the initial version of Freed is discussed. The main elements of Freed are a zoomable unconstrained canvas, a forcebased layout, and the possibility to create multiple organizations of the same content. The purpose of the force-based layout, in which related content attracts each other and non-related content repulses each other, is to encourage the exploration of relations and different spatial organizations. These organizations, or Âżviews', can for example be used for a specific design activity or project phase (e.g. presenting, mapping related work), for creating an overview of the entire design process, for a portfolio of multiple projects, or for explaining the perspective of a given designer or stakeholder. The chapter concludes with a discussion of first feedback from design students and a case study in which the software was used for building a presentation and collection of the research group in which this research is carried out. The case study showed how the activities of building a presentation and collection can support each other and how this active, integrated use can lead to reflection. Chapter six focuses on the use of Freed during the design process. It discusses a design iteration, an introductory workshop and questionnaire, and a semester-long evaluation during student design projects. This evaluation showed that Freed was valued as a tool for gaining overview of and revisiting design work and process. Additionally, it showed that in order to support more exploration and reflection during and after the design process, the threshold for documentation and communication needed to be lowered, a better balance between organization and visualization needed to be obtained, and the integration and overview of views needed to be improved. Chapter seven focuses on using Freed as a tool for exploring relations and perspectives. It discusses a final design iteration, an evaluation during which students used Freed to explore their personal views on design theory, a case study of designerresearchers using the software for organizing student projects, and a reflection on personal use of Freed. These cases showed how Freed provides the freedom to be used differently by various design students and how multiple views can help to integrate work and to explore relations and perspectives. They also showed that both freedom and structure are needed for reflection, and how Freed can be used complementary to other activities such as physical diagramming or clustering. For example, physical clustering (e.g. of Post-it notes or printed images) helps to quickly gain consensus among a group and to make decisions, while Freed provides input for more dynamic discussions, allows for personal exploration (i.e. to temporarily loose the group consensus), and allows for insight to develop gradually. Chapter 8 concerns a reflection on this research as a whole, and discusses Âżconditions for collection and reflection', future work, and Research-through-Design. The main conclusions are that reflection builds on active use of a digital collection, that active use benefits from having a rich, visual, integrated collection, that reflection requires both freedom and structure, that structure emerges from direct, expressive local interaction, and that using a digital collection for reflection requires time and skill. In future work, there's a need to move beyond the confinements of a single software application, and to explore how to design for systems that integrate diverse products and applications. Additionally, there's a need to explore the integration of collection and reflection in a collaborative setting (and) in design practice

    Creating traces, sharing insight : explorations in embodied cognition design

    Get PDF
    This investigation explores relations between 1) a theory of human cognition, called Embodied Cognition, 2) the design of interactive systems and 3) the practice of ‘creative group meetings’ (of which the so-called ‘brainstorm’ is perhaps the best-known example). The investigation is one of Research-through-Design (Overbeeke et al., 2006). This means that, together with students and external stakeholders, I designed two interactive prototypes. Both systems contain a ‘mix’ of both physical and digital forms. Both are designed to be tools in creative meeting sessions, or brainstorms. The tools are meant to form a natural, element in the physical meeting space. The function of these devices is to support the formation of shared insight: that is, the tools should support the process by which participants together, during the activity, get a better grip on the design challenge that they are faced with. Over a series of iterations I reflected on the design process and outcome, and investigated how users interacted with the prototypes

    Boundary negotiating mock-ups

    Get PDF
    Designing usable smart products is a multidisciplinary effort that requires people with very diverse knowledge to collaborate. Collaboration is challenging because knowledge from various design stakeholders with different needs and constraints has to be integrated in a design. Design mock-ups are used by designers to facilitate the collaboration. Design mock-ups help integrate different perspectives because they evoke different things to different stakeholders and help them negotiate the limits within which they can agree on a design. Literature suggests the analytical boundary object concept as a theory to explain how mock-ups support the integration of knowledge in design collaboration. I review the literature on the boundary object concept and iterate it with the data collected from a one year ethnographic study of a multidisciplinary product development project to design a smart usable device.I discuss that the boundary object concept fails to conceptualize how mock-ups support negotiation and suggest the concept of dynamic boundary objects as a more appropriate concept for the role of mockups in design collaboration. Design mock-ups iteratively support the boundary negotiation activities of self-explanation, inclusion, compilation and structuring. They act as a scaffold for the creation of a shared understanding

    Understanding Alignment Between Design Approaches and Student Priorities for Online Learning Platforms

    Get PDF
    With the increasing number of public institutions turning to online learning, there is a need to understand the process of online learning development and how it aligns with student priorities for online learning platforms. This is exacerbated by the onset of COVID-19, with many institutions hastening to move their courses online during the global lockdowns, making it even more a priority to understand online learning practice. Various studies have reported on best online learning practices but deviations from student priorities still exist in reality. In practice, courses are predominantly designed from the lecturer’s perspective, and student perspectives are only incorporated through feedback from course evaluations. Students are rarely given a role in the design process and are therefore unable to sculpt out their design needs for online courses. One design approach which gives a design role to students is co-design. Co-design takes into account the perspectives of all stakeholders by allowing each stakeholder to equally participate in the design process. The participation of students in design and the degree of participation they take has rarely been articulated. How does the design approach from the lecturer’s perspective, where students take no part in the design process, compare to the co-design approach, where maximum participation can be achieved? How do these design approaches contribute to the deviations from student priorities? The aim of this study was to understand the alignment between design approaches and student priorities for online learning platforms and how deviations transpire. This research posited that a co-design approach, including the students as designers, might assist in alleviating these deviations. In the first part of the study, the researcher interviewed current students in an online course to understand their priorities for design. Results from the interviews were analysed and shared with students and lecturers, who were invited to prototype designs for a lesson module based on this feedback, first individually, then as a group. Another set of students were then invited to compare and evaluate the implemented prototypes in the final part of the study. The results demonstrated that a) expressed student learning priorities generally aligned with current knowledge of online learning design, b) a gap between design and reality exists for actual online course practices, c) design deviations from student priorities emerged at the beginning stages of the design process, where individual interpretation of design needs differed, d) design discussions and idea sharing during co-design alleviated these deviations, and e) co-design activities stunted the creativity of the team. Although co-design managed to bridge part of the gap between online learning platform design and student priorities, there are many factors that limit effective multi-stakeholder co-design. Depending on characteristics of individuals, team dynamics and design environment and conditions, the full benefits of co-design may not always be realized. Future works should explore ways of gaining mainstream adoption of design approaches such as co-design, to bridge the gap between design and reality in the online learning space
    • 

    corecore