Week 10: Physical Design

Design is a process about making choices and decisions.
physical design is a step in the standard design cycle which follows after the circuit design. At this step, circuit representations of the components (devices and interconnects) of the design are converted into geometric representations of shapes which, when manufactured in the corresponding layers of materials, will ensure the required functioning of the components. This geometric representation is called integrated circuit layout. This step is usually split into several sub-steps, which include both design and verification and validation of the layout.

Using Scenarios in Design
4 roles for scenarios:
A basis for overall design.
For technical implementation.
As a means of cooperation within design teams.
As a means of cooperation across professional boundaries

Week 10: Physical Design

Design is a process about making choices and decisions.

Designing for different culture using prototype in Design.

Generating Storyboards from Scenarios

Generating card-based prototype from use cases

-use case for the visa requirement

-paper prototype study

-animatic

-Denim visual language

-Denim software

-Rapid prototype SketchFlow (microsoft)

Week 10: Physical Design

Hi, this week we learned about physical design, getting concrete.

Design, is about making choices and decision. To balance it, we need :

Environmental, user, data, usability requirement 
and
Functional requirement. 

- Physical interface of interactive product should not conflict with the user's cognitive processes involved in achieving the task.

Guidelines to help with international design : 
- Be careful about using images that depict hand gestures of people.
- Use generic icon ( common icon )
- Choose colour that are not associated with national flags or political movements
- make sure the product supports different calenders, date formats and time formats
- Make sure the product support different number formats, currencies, weights and measurement systems.
- The product supports international paper size, envelope size and address format
- Not to integrating text in graphics as they cannot be translated easily
- Allow for text expansion when translated from English

Using scenarios in design 
- scenarios can be sued to explicate existing work situation but use more for expressing proposed or imagines situations to help in conceptual design


- 4 roles for scenarios :
> basis for the overall design
> technical implementation
> means of cooperation within design teams
> means of cooperation across professional boundaries eg. in a multidisciplinary team

- Used for the notion of plus and minus scenarios
> capture the most positive and the most negative consequences of a particular proposed design solution
> helping designers to gain a more comprehensive view of the proposal

Generating storyboards from scenarios
- storyboard > a sequence of actions/ events that the user and system go through to achieve a task
- scenario > one story about how the product may be used to achieve a task

Thank you.

Week 10: Physical Design

Design is a process about making choices and decisions. We need to made decision in using suitable design element and apply design principal that we know in the design. Design is about balance. In visual, it about the balance of the element of design. In the term of interactive, it about the balance between Environmental, User, Data, Usability requirement and Functional requirement.

There are some guidelines that we need to pay attention when designing for a different culture. There are:

-Be careful when using images that represented by people or hand gesture.

-Use general or common icon

- use color that are not related to any political movements or national flag color.

-make sure the product supports different date and time format, calendar, currency, and other measurement system.

-Do not used integrating text image since they cannot be translated easily.

-Allow the expansion and contraction when translate from /to English.

Scenarios also used in Design to make it more functional. Scenarios act as a basic for overall design. It is used for technical implementation. It also plays an important role in cooperation within design teams and cooperation that cross professional boundaries.

Scenarios can also be used as the basic to generating the prototype like storyboard. We can go through the organizer scenarios by focus solely on the screen or solely in the environment. Story board and other card based prototype like index card can be generated base on the use case .

Physical design can be prototyping with low fidelity prototype like paper or card base prototype. With the help of technology nowadays, there are software in the market with the tool support that help to prototype the physical design,

Example of Some Graphical User interface(GUi) prototyping tools are:
- Adobe FireWorks CS4

-Adobe Flash Catalyst (former Thermo)

- Antetype(work on Mac Os only)

- App Sketcher

- Axure

- Blueprint (work on ipad)

-ForeUI

Source of information:

thefreedictionary.com

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?GuiPrototypingTools

lecture note

Week 10 Physical Design: Getting Concrete

Design is about making choices and decisions.
It is where we balance out between Environmental, User, Data, Usability requirement and Functional requirement.

Guideline for us when designing for a different culture like for international design:

• Be careful about using images that depict hand gestures or people.
• Use generic icon.
• Choose colour that are not associated with national flags or political movements.
• Ensure that the product supports different calenders, date formats and time formats.
• Ensure that the product supports different formats, currencies, weights and measurement system.
• Ensure that the product supports international paper sizes, envelope sizes and address format.
• Avoid integrating text in graphics as they cannot be translated easily.
• Allow for text expansion when translated from English.

Using Scenarios in Design
4 roles for scenarios:

1. A basis for overall design.
2. For technical implementation.
3. As a means of cooperation within design teams.
4. As a means of cooperation across professional boundaries.

Generating prototypes in design

Generating storyboards from scenarios:

• Steps in the travel organizer scenario
  
  • Focus solely on the screen
  • Focus solely in the environment
• Generating storyboards from use cases
• Generating card-based prototype from use cases

Using prototypes in design

Prototyping physical design:

• Expand the cards to generate a more detailed software or paper-based pro type.
• Tool support:To support sketching tools, environments to support icon and menu design

Generate Card-based Prototype from Use Cases

• Paper prototype is a fast and easy way to change and re-design your interface.
• Four important people are involved in Paper Prototyping which are:
  
  1. user
  2. person who acts as a computer
  3. someone who becomes the facilitator
  4. observer

Other ways of prototyping: animatics and rapid sketch prototyping which uses a program to make it interactive.

Week 9-Design and Prototyping

Design and Prototyping

Prototype, this word I always hear from some sci-fi manga or movie. In that time, prototype in my view is a testing product to finalize and improve the end product. For example, in the comic or movie, before the factory come out the end product of their jet fighter or robot, there always use a test machine call prototype machine to obtain all information there need to improve the final machine.

After the class about prototyping this week, I realize there are more about prototype. According to Wikipedia.org, A prototype is an early model or sample that creates to test the concept or the process to create the final product. Prototype is created to allow the stakeholder to interact with the envision product, gain experience under the realistic setting and exploded imagined uses. In another word, Prototype is a limited representation of design that allow user to interact and experience it usability.

Prototyping is very useful in the process of design. It is an aid when discussing ideas with the stakeholders. Beside than that, it also smoothen the communication between the team members and make the test idea/concept effective.

Prototyping can be divided to 2 categories which are low fidelity prototyping and high fidelity prototyping.

Low fidelity prototyping is a way of prototyping that tend to be simple, cheap and quick to produce. It is simple and can be corrected easily so it very useful in the discussion or communication with the stakeholder and users. It supports the exploration of alternative designs and ideas. Since it is mostly used for communication and testing, it not intended to be kept and integrated to the final product. Low fidelity prototype mostly used for explode purpose. Low fidelity prototype do not look alike to the final product. This kind of prototype can be made by paper, cardboard rather than electronic product. Examples of low fidelity prototyping are: story board, sketches, index card and wizard of Oz (user sits in front of the computer and interacts with the computer software as through interacting the final product. The computer is connected to another machine that controlled by the operator that stimulated user‘s response.)

High fidelity prototyping

High fidelity is the opposite of the low fidelity prototyping. It use material that will used in final product and produce a test product that look alike to the final product. This kind of prototype not suitable for the purpose of explode and experience since it take a long time to build. Beside than that, the designer are reluctant to change the prototype since they put a lot of afford on it and the prototype can be spoiled by some unsolved bug or error. Even though there are some issues and disadvantages, it is useful to selling the ideas and testing of technical issues.

Prototyping involved of compromising. 2 common compromising methods in prototyping are horizontal and vertical prototyping. Prototype product need to transform to a conceptual product where people can easily know how to do with the product and understand how to interact with it. Key guiding principles of conceptual design are be open minded but not forget the users and the concept, always communicate with the stakeholder, used low fidelity prototype to gain the rapid feedback and iterate in any situation.

Source of information:

www.wikipedia.org

lecture note

Week 9-Design and Prototyping by Eyok

High Fidelity & Low Fidelity Prototyping Tools

Prototype:
an early sample or model for a product before it is finalise and mass produce.It is also use for testing by replicate a lot or learned from errors when testing.


what can considered a prototype:-
- paper based outline of a screen/sets of screen.
- Electronic 'picture'
- 3 dimensional paper/cardboard mockup
- stack of hyperlinked screen shots


Benefits of having prototype models :
- hand on testing in realistic setting as many as possible as long as prototype models are a lot.
- explore imagine uses *some of the setting sometimes is impossible to create.*
- interact with envisioned product


Low Fidelity Prototyping Tools :
- different design then the final product.
- it is simple,cheap and quick to produce
- using material like paper and cardboard rather than create in computer software and show to screen
- important during conceptual design are never intended to kept and integrated into final product.They are for exploration
only.

High Fidelity Prototyping Tools :

- using good material that would expected like final product including appearance and also material.
- prototype tools -Flash ,Visual Basic, smalltalk
- issue for creating high fidelity prototyping =

1) take a lot of time to built
2)reviewers and tester tend to comment on superficial aspects rather than
content
3)developer reluctant to change something that they crafted so long
4)a software prototype can set expectation high.
5) 1 error can destroy the whole model.

Week 9 Design and Prototyping

Prototype is :
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.


1. Paper- based outline of a screen / sets of screens
2. Electronic 'picture'
3. 3 dimensional paper / cardboard mockup
4. Stack of hyperlinked screen shots

Type of prototype:

Low-fidelity
High-fidelity

Basic prototype categoriesThere is no general agreement on what constitutes a "prototype" and the word is often used interchangeably with the word "model" which can cause confusion. In general, "prototypes" fall into five basic categories:

Proof-of-Principle Prototype (Model) (in electronics sometimes built on a breadboard). A Proof of concept prototype is used to test some aspect of the intended design without attempting to exactly simulate the visual appearance, choice of materials or intended manufacturing process. Such prototypes can be used to "prove" out a potential design approach such as range of motion, mechanics, sensors, architecture, etc. These types of models are often used to identify which design options will not work, or where further development and testing is necessary.

Form Study Prototype (Model). This type of prototype will allow designers to explore the basic size, look and feel of a product without simulating the actual function or exact visual appearance of the product. They can help assess ergonomic factors and provide insight into visual aspects of the product's final form. Form Study Prototypes are often hand-carved or machined models from easily sculpted, inexpensive materials (e.g., urethane foam), without representing the intended color, finish, or texture. Due to the materials used, these models are intended for internal decision making and are generally not durable enough or suitable for use by representative users or consumers.

User Experience Prototype (Model). A User Experience Model invites active human interaction and is primarily used to support user focused research. While intentionally not addressing possible aesthetic treatments, this type of model does more accurately represent the overall size, proportions, interfaces, and articulation of a promising concept. This type of model allows early assessment of how a potential user interacts with various elements, motions, and actions of a concept which define the initial use scenario and overall user experience. As these models are fully intended to be used and handled, more robust construction is key. Materials typically include plywood, REN shape, RP processes and CNC machined components. Construction of user experience models is typically driven by preliminary CAID/CAD which may be contructed from scratch or with methods such as industrial CT scanning.

Visual Prototype (Model) will capture the intended design aesthetic and simulate the appearance, color and surface textures of the intended product but will not actually embody the function(s) of the final product. These models will be suitable for use in market research, executive reviews and approval, packaging mock-ups, and photo shoots for sales literature.

Functional Prototype (Model) (also called a working prototype) will, to the greatest extent practical, attempt to simulate the final design, aesthetics, materials and functionality of the intended design. The functional prototype may be reduced in size (scaled down) in order to reduce costs. The construction of a fully working full-scale prototype and the ultimate test of concept, is the engineers' final check for design flaws and allows last-minute improvements to be made before larger production runs are ordered.

[edit] Differences between a prototype and a production designIn general, prototypes will differ from the final production variant in three fundamental ways:

Materials. Production materials may require manufacturing processes involving higher capital costs than what is practical for prototyping. Instead, engineers or prototyping specialists will attempt to substitute materials with properties that simulate the intended final material.

Processes. Often expensive and time consuming unique tooling is required to fabricate a custom design. Prototypes will often compromise by using more variable processes, repeatable or controlled methods; substandard, inefficient, or substandard technology sources; or insufficient testing for technology maturity.

Lower fidelity. Final production designs often require extensive effort to capture high volume manufacturing detail. Such detail is generally unwarranted for prototypes as some refinement to the design is to be expected. Often prototypes are built using very limited engineering detail as compared to final production intent, which often uses statistical process controls and rigorous testing.

[edit] Characteristics and limitations of prototypesEngineers and prototyping specialists seek to understand the limitations of prototypes to exactly simulate the characteristics of their intended design. A degree of skill and experience is necessary to effectively use prototyping as a design verification tool.

It is important to realize that by their very definition, prototypes will represent some compromise from the final production design. Due to differences in materials, processes and design fidelity, it is possible that a prototype may fail to perform acceptably whereas the production design may have been sound. A counter-intuitive idea is that prototypes may actually perform acceptably whereas the production design may be flawed since prototyping materials and processes may occasionally outperform their production counterparts.

In general, it can be expected that individual prototype costs will be substantially greater than the final production costs due to inefficiencies in materials and processes. Prototypes are also used to revise the design for the purposes of reducing costs through optimization and refinement.

It is possible to use prototype testing to reduce the risk that a design may not perform acceptably, however prototypes generally cannot eliminate all risk. There are pragmatic and practical limitations to the ability of a prototype to match the intended final performance of the product and some allowances and engineering judgement are often required before moving forward with a production design.

Building the full design is often expensive and can be time-consuming, especially when repeated several times—building the full design, figuring out what the problems are and how to solve them, then building another full design. As an alternative, "rapid-prototyping" or "rapid application development" techniques are used for the initial prototypes, which implement part, but not all, of the complete design. This allows designers and manufacturers to rapidly and inexpensively test the parts of the design that are most likely to have problems, solve those problems, and then build the full design.

This counter-intuitive idea —that the quickest way to build something is, first to build something else— is shared by scaffolding and the telescope rule.

Week 9 Design and Prototyping

Hi.  :)
This week lecture Ms. Mastura talked about Prototype. Prototype is :
1. Paper- based outline of a screen / sets of screens
2. Electronic 'picture'
3. 3 dimensional paper / cardboard mockup
4. Stack of hyperlinked screen shots

Or,
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from. (wikipedia)

- allow stakeholders to :
> interact with an envisioned product
> gain experience in realistic setting
> explore imagined uses

Stakeholder may refer to:

• Stakeholder (corporate), a person, group, organization, or system who affects or can be affected by an organization's actions
  • Consumer stakeholder, a person or group with an interest in a business or organization
  • Project stakeholder, a person, group or organization with an interest in a project
  • Stakeholder theory, a theory that identifies and models the groups which are stakeholders of a corporation or project
  • Stakeholder analysis, the process of identifying those affected by a project or event
• Stakeholder (law), a third party who temporarily holds money or property while its owner is still being determined    

( source from wikipedia)

The Prototype 
> aid when discussing ideas with stakeholders
> communication device among team members
> effective way to test out the idea

 There is 2 type of prototype. Low-fidelity prototype and High- fidelity prototype.

Low-fidelity prototype 
- doesnt look like final product
- materials uses is different from the final product eg. cardboard, paper etc
- more simple, cheaper and faster to be produced.
- use for exploration only

Consists of : 
a. Storyboard 
 - contains a series of sketches to show how the user might progress through a task using the product under development
- eg. screens of a GUI-based software, scene sketches showing how a user can perform a task using an interactive device

b. Sketching 
 - a series of drawing with
- relies on sketching but normally people find it difficult to engage in this activity

c. Prototyping with index cards 
 - use index cards (about 3 x 5 inches )
- each card represents one screen or one element of a task
- In user evaluation, the user can step through the cards, pretending to perform the task while interacting with the cards.

d. Wizard of Oz
- uses a software-based prototype - user sits at a computer screen and interacts with the software as though interacting the product
- in fact, the computer is connected to another machine where a human operator sits and stimulates the software's response to meet the user. 

High-Fiedelity Prototyping

- Uses materials that is expected to be in the final product and the prototype looks much more like the final thing.
- eg. prototype that developed using dreamweaver.
- cons- :
> need longer time to build
> reviewers and testers tend to comment on superficial aspects rather than content
> developers are reluctant to change something they have crafted for hours
> a software prototype can set expectations to high
> just one bug in a high-fidelity prototype can bring the testing to halt.

- useful for selling ideas and for testing out technical issues

Compromises in Prototyping 
- By their very nature, prototypes involve compromises: the intention is to produce something quickly to test an aspect of the product
- Thus, the prototype must be designed and built with the key issues in mind
- Two common compromises
> Horizontal prototyping
> Vertical prototyping

Conceptual design : moving from requirements to first design
- concern on transforming needs and requirements into conceptual model
- concept model ( an outline of what people can do with a product and what concepts are needed)
- key guiding principles :
> open mind but don forget the users and their context
> discuss ideas with other stakeholders
> use low-fidelity prototyping to get instant feedback
> iterate

Interface metaphors
- combine familiar knowledge with new knowledge in a way that will help the user understand the system
- choosing suitable metaphors and combining new and familiar concepts requires a careful balance between utility and fun

- 3 steps in choosing a good interface metaphors
> understand what the system will do
> understand which bits of the system are likely to cause users problems
> generate metaphors

Interaction types 
- 4 types :
instructing, conversing, manipulating, exploring

Interface types 
- WIMP/GUI interface
- sharable interface
-tangible interface
- advanced graphical interface


Thank you.

Week 9 Design and Prototyping

What is Prototype???
a mock up? experiment???full of bugs?
A prototype is a limited representation of a design that allows users to interact it.
It is paper-based outline of a screen/sets of screens, electronic "picture", 3 dimensional paper/cardboard mockup, stack of hyperlinked screen shots. It allows the stakeholders (clients and user) to do experiment, interact with an envisioned product, gain experience in realistic setting, explore imagines uses.
A prototype aid when discussing ideas with stakeholders, it act as a communication device among team members and it is a very effective ways to test the ideas. For examples, Clarify vague requirements,To do user testing and evaluation,Check a certain design.

Type of prototype:

• Low-fidelity
• High-fidelity

Low-fidelity

• does not look like final product
• tend to be simple, cheap and quick to produce for support the exploration of alternative designs and ideas.
• important during conceptual design and are never intended to be kept and intergrated into the final product. (for exploring only)

Type of low-fidelity :

• Storyboard: consist of a series of sketches showing how a user might progress through a task using the product under development.
• Sketching: relies on sketching but often people find it difficult to engage in this activity.
• Prototyping with index cards: use index cards (small pieces of the cardboard about 3x5 inches), each card represents 1 screen or one element of a task, in user evaluation, the user can step through the card.
• Wizard of oz

High-fidelity

• looks like final product
• common tools-0 flash, visual basic.....
• issues: Take too long to build, Reviewers and testers tend to comment on superficial aspects rather than content,Developers are reluctant to change something they have crafted for hours,A software prototype can set expectations to high, Just one bug in a high-fidelity prototype can bring the testing to halt.
• useful for selling ideas and for testing out technical issues.

Compromises in Prototyping

• by their very nature, prototypes involve compromises: the intention is to produce something quickly to test an aspect of the product.
• thus the prototype must be designed and built with the key issues in mind.
• there are 2 common compromises:
  
  • horizontal prototyping
  • vertical prototyping

Conceptual Design

• it concerned with transforming needs and requirements into a conceptual model( an outline of what people can do with a product and what concepts are needed to understand how to interact it)
• key guiding principles :
  
  • keep an open mind but never forget the users and their content
  • discuss idea with stakeholders
  • use low-fidelity prototyping to get rapid feedback

Developing an initial conceptual model

• some elements is a conceptual model with derived from the requirements for the product.
• some consideration to create initial conceptual model:
  
  • which interface metaphor would be suitable..?
• interface metaphors
  
  • combine familiar knowledge with new knowledge in a way that will help the user to understand the system.
• evaluating metaphor
  
  • how much structure does the metaphor provide?
  • how much metaphor is relevant to the problem?
  • is the interface metaphor easy to represent?
  • will you audience understand??

Interaction Type

• instructing
• conversing
• manipulating
• exploring
  

Week 8: Requirement for interactive design

Hi,
Last week lecture our lecturer talked about requirement and I know that most of us knows it but what's actually the requirement?
Requirement is a statement about an intended product that specifies what should it do and how it should perform and it must be very clear and understandable.And we must know how to tell when they have been fullfilled.

Requirements in different field :

In Software engineering, there are functional and non-functional requirements.

Functional requirements : what the system should do (eg. formating, changing font styles etc )
Non-functional requirements : what are the contraints there are on the system and its development ( eg. must be able to run on different platform )

There are a few types of requirement : 
Interaction design
> functional requirements (how the things function)
> data requirements (how the data to be)
> environmental requirements
> user characteristics ( based on user needs)
> usability goals and user experience goals
- capture the key attributes of the intended user group
  - user's abilites and sklls, nationality, educational background, preferences, personal circumstances,      physical or mental disabilities
- The collection of attributes for a 'typical' user is called a user profile
- To bring user profile to life, they are turned into a number of Personas ( rich descriptions of typical users of the product)

Usability goals > effectiveness, efficiency, safe, utility, learnability and tracking > user's performance

User experience goals > fun, enjoyable, pleasurable, aesthetically pleasing and motivating, the product is interesting or not > User's perception

Data gathering for requirements :
- collect sufficient, appropriate data so that stable requirements can be produced
- need to be expanded, clarified and confirmed intial requirements
- types : 
interviews, (get people to explore issus, semi structured/ unstructured interviews often used to elicit scenarios. Important to meet stakeholders )
focus groups, ( gaining consensus view and highlighting areas of conflict and disagreement during the requirements activity, help stakeholders to meet designers and both express their views in public )
questionnaires, (used for getting initial responses that can be analyzed )
direct observation, ( to understand the nature of the tasks and context in how they are performed)
indirect observation, ( used less often)
studying documentation, ( good for understanding legislation and getting some background information )
researching similiar products ( gain understanding of the kind of features and interaction that other package has to offer )

Contextual inquiry 
> context
> partnership
> Interpretation
> Focus


Data analysis, interpretatiom and presentation
- iterated a number of times before a set of stable requirements evolves - descriptions will expand and clarify
- 4 techniques :
> scenarios
> use cases
> essential use cases
> task analysis



Thank you.