Reading Seminar 2
Prototyping, Design and Construction
Once a set of requirements are established the prototyping and design process can begin. This should include creating interactive versions of your prototype for the stakeholder/users where just pictures on paper are fine because all that is really required (in the early stages at least) is for the users to get an understanding of what you're trying to accomplish. The comments of the users is an of indicator of success.
Prototyping is not only important for the internal discussion amongst the developers but also when communicating your ideas to the stakeholders. Since users are not (usually) a part of the developers design process as far as discussing solutions internally and evaluating collected data. Thus showing off prototypes is an intuitive way to explain an demonstrate your ideas.
However there are factors that may skew the comments of the users. One primary factor is the fidelity of the protoype which in loose terms means the prototype's resemblance to the envisioned final product where a low-fidelity protoype may be drawings on paper and a high-fidelity prototype may be an iPad equipped with an early version of your software. If users are shown only high fidelity prototypes they may seem more accepting of your idea as the prototype appears to be final an their criticism might not change anything.
Evaluation Framework
The design process requires great measures of skill and creativity and thus it becomes easy to wander off the righteous path of meeting the users needs. This should be the prime focus of all stages of development since, in the end, you're designing whatever you're doing for the end users, the stakeholders and not (only) for yourselves. All ideas you have might not work for for a lot of people intended to use your product.
A good evaluation framework consists of the 4 main paradigms:
"Quick and dirty" evaluation As the name of the paradigm implies the quick and dirty evaluations focus on speed and not on quality. These are mainly used for developers to reassure them that they haven't deviated from the user's demands all that much. Examples of this could be asking simple questions about your design such as "Do you like this colour scheme".
Usability testing Testing the usability of a product means testing its effectiveness in the hands of the end user. Recording everything the test subject does/tries to do is vital as it will show what is difficult, counterituitive or simply an unecessary feature.
Field studies The difference between field studies and usability testing and field studies is that in field studies the test subject is stduied in its natural setting. This is comparable to obseriving and animal's behavior in the wild instead of in a zoo. Sure in a zoo you can monitor every move of an animal but it might do things differently when exploring things on its own. The zoo represents a controlled test enviroment and the animal represents the user.
Predictive Evaluation This is simply to predict the experience of users by searching for information on similar situations and products and consulting experts on the subject or maybe renowned designers