Assignment 2: Tools for UCD


Team Assignment
This assignment is to be performed in a team of about 5 people, usually the same as your project team.
Goals and Objectives
The goal of this assignment is two-fold: On one hand, the developing team is expected to put together a brief, introductory tutorial for a software tool that appears suitable for user-centered design and development. On the other hand, the clients (users of the tutorial, i.e. the other students in the class) can find out about a tool they may be able to use for their work on the assignments and projects in this class.
Ideally, the tool you select should be one that supports or enhances the team project you're working on. It is a good way to find out if a particular tool is suitable for use in your project.
Description
Each team will prepare a brief tutorial presentation that serves as an introduction and overview of a tool suitable for user-centered design and development. The presentation will be followed by a short question/answer and feedback session. The presentations will be given during the lab periods of Week 3. Presentations are expected to be prepared and presented in a professional manner, and should include demonstrations of the tool itself. The presentation material should be designed in such a way that it can also be used as a tutorial for self-study. If you are using presentation software like PowerPoint, you can either add notes to the slides, or prepare a separate document. The target users for the presentation are people familiar with computers, but new to the specific tool. They may not have experience using similar tools, but a general background in programming, Web page design, and the use of word processing, spreadsheet or presentation tools can be assumed.
Instead of a traditional presentation, you can also develop the tutorial in some alternative format, e.g. as a short video, or a self-contained computer-based demo. If you're considering doing this, talk to me before you spend significant time on it.
Your presentation should address the following aspects (not necessarily in that order):
  • What is the tool, and why would one want to use it for UCD?
  • What are the main tasks that can be performed with it?
  • How does it work?
  • Does it guide or encourage users to consider user-centered aspects, or is it up to the user to do that?
  • Is it suitable for activities that do not rely on keyboard and mouse?
  • Does the tool make use of specific features of computing devices with alternative input capabilities (e.g. touch screen, pen input, handwriting recognition, speech recognition)? What platforms does it run on?
  • What are the limitations of the tool?
  • Is it available on campus? Can it be obtained easily?
  • What additional material is available for interested users?
In addition to giving the presentation, all team members are expected to be capable of and available for providing assistance in case other students in the class decide to use that tool.
Please submit your tool selection via the Web form on UCD Tools; this will list it on the UCD Tools Overview, which also contains schedule information.
Examples of Tools
Specifically for this quarter, I am especially interested in the assessment of some tools for usability evaluations since we will need such tools for a usability lab. Here is a list of some that look promising:
  • Morae “Morae is the premier software for deeply understanding customer experiences … and sharing those insights clearly and powerfully.” We have a license for one copy of this tool. It is installed on computers in the HCI lab, 14-257. There is also 484-Team 7 working on this topic as their class project. If your team is interested in looking at Morae, please coordinate your activities with Team 7. Morae has multiple components and functions, and it should not be a problem to find interesting aspects for additional teams.
  • Usability Studio “Usability Studio - software that helps you run affordable usability tests. The software records user - his speech and actions that he does on the screen. Simply exported to a common format, the test results can be viewed on any computer.”
  • Silverback “Guerrilla usability testing software for designers and developers. Silverback makes it easy, quick and cheap for everyone to perform guerrilla usability tests with no setup and no expense, using hardware already in your Mac.”
  • Soasta CloudTest® Platform “Fast, Scalable and Affordable Functional and Performance Testing to Fit any Team;” of particular interest may be mobile app testing with TouchTest™
  • ClickHeat “ClickHeat is a visual heatmap of clicks on a HTML page, showing hot and cold click zones. ClickHeat is an OpenSource software, released under GPL licence, and free of charge.”
  • ChalkMark “Click testing for first impression analysis”
  • fivesecondtest, by Angry Monkeys “Landing page optimization for your mocks and wireframes. Fivesecondtest helps you fine tune your landing pages and calls to action by analyzing the most prominent elements of your design.”
  • Feng-GUI “Empower designers and creatives to effectively analyze attention and attraction in visuals.”
  • usabilla “Usabilla integrates usability tests in your daily work-flow and helps you continuously improve your web site's user-experience and conversions with high quality design feedback. ”
  • FeedbackArmy, by Dashnine Media “Simple, Cheap Usability Testing for Your Website.”
  • Balsamiq “Rapid Wireframing Tool”
  • Concept Feedback Get Expert Feedback - Detailed analysis from experienced design, usability, and strategy professionals”
  • Open Source eye tracking software. There are several projects available online that promise to perform eye tracking with simple Web cams:
    • openEyes provides hardware designs and software useful for the tracking of human eye movements
    • Opengazer: open-source gaze tracker for ordinary webcams
    • eyewriter open source eyetracking software for the Sony PS3 Eye camera
The following list contains tools that have been explored in previous classes. Most of them are relatively generic, and very few are explicitly intended for the development of systems that are not keyboard and mouse-centric. Some of the material developed in those classes is available through Blackboard (under the Discussion Board for this class).
  • Particle Platform - “an open and extensible cross-platform SDK that automates the porting process, enabling developers to create native applications on all smartphone platforms from a single, manageable code base.” (includes a UI library)
  • Adobe Flex
  • DENIM - A tool specifically intended for the design of user interfaces and user interaction
Submission and Deadline
Posting Your UCD/HCI Tool Material on the Repository
You can put your material on a repository of your choice (the team TRAC Wiki or Google Docs are good options), but please make it available via a link to your tool on the Semantic Media Wiki. To edit the page for your tool, click on it in the list of tools, end then press the “Edit” button. You can then add a link to the page. If you select the “Source” mode, you can also change previous form entries. However, please don’t change the underlying form template since other pages depend on it.
  • Describe the tool's main aspects and features that are relevant and/or helpful for User-Centered Design. Instead of copying descriptions from the Web verbatim, please use your own words to describe the tool.
  • Provide a link to the tool's homepage.
  • Outline what deliverables your team will be producing for this assignment (slides, tutorials, etc).
  • Provide a brief outline of your presentation.
  • List all team members
Presentations
We'll do the presentations during Week 4 and 5 primarily in the lab period. By default, we'll proceed in the order in which the teams are listed on the Project Teams page. The accompanying material for the presentation must be available on the respective repository at the time the presentation is given. The teams will have an opportunity to revise their presentation materials in response to feedback given by class mates and possibly the external customers.
Please use the Presentation Feedback form for feedback on the presentations.