Assignment #2: Lo-Fi Prototyping
Assigned: February 12th, 2008
Due: February 26th, 2008
Objective: In this assignment, you will be build upon your contextual inquiry to start visualizing solutions to the problems that you observed. You will begin by refining your personas. Using these personas as "actors", you will create three storyboards, each depicting a task that your system will support. Finally, you will build a paper prototype of the interactive artifact that you plan to develop.
What to Do:
1) Form a group of three people from the class to work with. Ideally, this would be the same as the last assignment, or it could be a new group. However, your project *must* build on someone's contextual inquiry results from the last assignment.
2) Schedule a group meeting. Most of the tasks described below should be completed during one or two collaborative brainstorming sessions including the entire design team.
3) Starting with the list you made for the last assignment, decide the user personas that you are aiming to satisfy. Define each of their primary goals in using your system. Further refine each persona, by providing additional details and/or pictures. By the end, they should be full-featured descriptions that can be used as a reference by the design team. Aim for providing additional detail about 3-5 personas, further identifying 1 (or 2) of them as the primary focus of your efforts.
4) Starting with this persona's goals, decide three key tasks that your system will support. Tasks are specific sets of actions that will allow users to achieve their goals. These tasks should address a broad set of important user priorities. Using your personas as actors, depict how your system would be used to achieve each of these tasks, preferably using a storyboard representation. (Creative use of graphics is encouraged, even if you can't draw or sketch!)
6) Using paper, index cards, post-its, cardboard, tape, glue and anything else you can imagine, build a paper prototype (or set of prototypes) that can be used to mock "perform" each of the tasks depicted above. Use the reading for motivation, and again, be creative!
7) Prepare a presentation to introduce your project to the rest of the class. Start with your personas, and any supporting observations from the contextual inquiry that motivate your problem. Then walk the audience through each of the tasks described in your storyboards. Finally, using your paper prototype as a prop, demonstrate how your interface will work to address the user's requirement. Aim for a 10-minute presentation (with an additional five minutes for questions), to be made in class on Tuesday, February 26th.
What To Turn In:
The preferred method of turn-in is to create a dedicated page for your group project on the course Wiki, including each of the following components:
1) Cover sheet including yourself and your partners' names, and your chosen focus. Note the time, duration and attendance of each brainstorming session. Include a paragraph about what each person contributed to the assignment [1 page].
2) A list of core user personas. Include pictures, demographic details, and any other details that you feel are necessary to make the persona come to life and serve as a useful resource for the design team. [2-3 pages].
3) At least three storyboards depicting the tasks that your proposed system will support. These can either be scanned in, or composed electronically [2-3 pages].
4) Pictures of your paper prototype(s). These pictures should include enough detail and supporting text so that we can understand how the eventual system is intended to work. During class, bring the physical paper prototype to show during your presentation [2-3 pages].
5) A copy of the presentation that you will make to the class. Come ready to present on February 26th.
6) Reflect on the experience of prototyping. What was easy? What was hard? Was it fun? [1/2 page]
The total length of your report should be less than 10 pages. Brevity, clarity and focus on the goals of the assignment will be rewarded. Illustrative graphics are welcome and encouraged!
E-mail a link to your group's project page to me (parikh@ischool) and Eun Kyoung (eunky@ischool) before midnight, Tuesday, February 26th.
Please contact the professor or the class TA using the course mailing list if you have any questions with this assignment.