First consider what you have achieved to date.
So at this stage you have gathered enough information to understand what your exhibit will do and who the audience will be, what their present understanding might be, what their goals might be and how they view museums. At no point have we really started to discuss the visual aspects of the interactive. The discussion has been confined to the information to be presented and sorts of interactions the user will have (eg. see a movie, play a game, etc.)
Each member of the group should have a shared vision of what the interactive aims to achieve. Now it is time for each of you to consider the visual apsects of the design.
To start, as a group, create a succinct description of what your interactive will do. Reflect on what you have done in the previous steps and take any advice given to you by the tutor. You all should agree that this will be the starting point for each individual design. You may use other techniques (flow diagrams, scenarios, etc) to help clarify the group's share vision.
Don't be absolutely restrictive here by defining absolutely every minute detail (eg. don't say that we will have four red buttons on the front screen, rather say the categories that we will include weather, water, heat and wind). You don't want to stifle each individual's creative input. One person may use button like widgets but another might use graphical images.Agree on the broad categories of the interactive since we want each of you to have the opportunity to design the whole interactive - what we don't want you to do is sub divide the different areas of the project to each member. If you do sub divide you will not get the value of the exercise since you won't have "common ground" on which to combine your designs later.
Decide how many "screens" approximately this will mean. This will also provide a "reality check" for your design. If your design is too complex you will have lots of screens. You many have to focus on an aspect of your design in order to produce a reasonable sized assignment submission.We are not looking for volume.
Each person will take the description and independently come up with their own visual design and interpretation of the group's specification.
Be creative, draw, sketch, think through a couple of different options. During this process you may come up with some really unique ways of doing things. Some times this might come to you on the train trip home so be prepared to do some sketching in your design diary. Keep within your groups specification but don't ignore a great idea since it might just fall outside of the specification. Write the idea in your design diary - you never know when it will provide further inspiration.
Use all the techniques we have taught you to date. Think about memory load and cognitive issues. Write notes justifying your rationale for designing things in the way that you have seen fit. You will need this information when you meet as a group.
Once everybody has completed their own designs on paper you should meet as a group to compare and contrast. There should be differences between each individual design. Reflect on the outcomes of the brainstorming lectures - we had lots of different ideas (which were words), the same applies to designs. Each person should have taken a slightly different approach. (This is why you don't want to define everything to the minute detail).
The aim now is to critique each design and identify the advantages and disadvantages of each.You can start with heuristic evaluation on each to assess each against the criteria. You may also compare each design on how well it implements the requirement. You should definitely review Chapter 1 of Interaction Design to see how each design implements the user experience goals.
Keep in mind that 3.1 involves coming up with the combined design that amalgamates the best of each individual design. So documenting this information now will save you time later.
For 2.3 you should supply:
A succinct summary of the requirements of your interactive that take into consideration your 2.1 and 2.2 assignment submissions. You should make sure you describe some of the user experience goals and anything else recommended by the tutor or that you have found through the interview process. This should be possible in one page.
Each person should submit their design sketches (or photocopies of the relevant design diary pages). The sketches should either be annotated on the sketch or have accompanying text documentation that describes the rationale behind the design. eg. I chose a pop up menu here because... Please make it clear whose sketches are whose. Put your name on each sketch page and each sketch page should be dated - dates are already a design diary requirement. We are estimating no more than 5-6 pages of sketching and 1.5 pages of rationale per person.
If it feels like you each have 20 pages of sketches then it might make sense to reduce the focus of your design to one major aspect of your design.
The critique summarises the major aspects of the designs indicating the advantages and disadvantages that the group has identified. Your design diaries should have an exhaustive description of each. Your submission should only summarise the major findings that are significant to the on-going development of the design. This should be completed in under 2 pages.
This is a paper based submission. There is only one submission per group.
The requirements is carried out as a group so together you will submit the requirements refinement.
Each set of individual sketches and the accompanying rationale description is to be completed by each member of the group.
The critique summary is also a group exercise.
So we expect that for a 3 person group the total reading/text to be no more than 7 pages. Total sketches around 15 pages.
Annotation of the sketches is the preferred method since it will reduce the split attention effect when reading.
Yes. The assignment should contain sketches and text. The text component should be no more than 7 pages for a three person group. 5.5 pages for a two person group.
Sketches are estimated to be 5-6 pages at most per person.
Don't feel compelled to pad out to the maximum page sizes, if you feel that you have adequately made your point. We are not looking for quantity but quality of reporting.