Reference no: EM132913194

Task-Centered Design and Prototyping

This assignment is designed to develop your ability to perform comprehensive task-centered design and prototyping. You will begin your iterative design of a particular system of your choice using task- centered system design and low-fidelity prototyping methods. The goal is to give you experience at

• identifying and developing suitable task descriptions for a domain of interest.
• moving from the developed task descriptions towards the important system requirements.
• brainstorming and formulating the pros and cons of different design alternatives through the use of low-fidelity prototypes.
• evaluating the low-fidelity prototypes using task-centered walkthroughs.
Before starting, do the required readings to familiarize yourself with the tasks that you need to perform.

Section 1: Tasks and Requirements

Length: about 10 pages (~2500 words) in Times New Roman 12-point font

Weight: 50% of the assignment mark evenly distributed among the four parts of Section 1

1. Introduction. Include a full description of the items below:
• Background
• Expected types of users of the system
• Work contexts-a description the work setting
• What the system will be used for
• System constraints

2. Concrete task examples. You will list at least five to seven concrete task examples. The task descriptions should follow the structure of the example provided on page 9 of the first reference introduced above, Working through Task-Centered System Design (Greenberg, 2003).

3. Tentative list of requirements. From the task examples, extract the major system requirements and prioritize them by a) absolutely must include, b) should include, c) could include, and d) exclude. Each category should be accompanied by a discussion of why items were placed in that category.

4. A concluding recommendation. This will include your recommendation to the vice president on how to proceed with the development of the product and also your perception of the major barriers you anticipate in the development process.

Section 2: First Prototype and Walkthrough

Length: an annotated design + about 5 pages (~1250 words) in Times New Roman 12-point font
Weight: 50% of the assignment mark evenly distributed between the two parts of Section 2

1. Prototype (storyboard or sketch). Develop several low-fidelity prototypes of designs that you believe will satisfy the major requirements (at least one for each requirement).
2. Walkthrough. For each of these prototype designs, use the tasks from Section 1 to perform a task-centered walkthrough of your prototypes. Based on the walkthroughs, identify the problems and successes for each task in that prototype. In essay form, summarize the major design problems that must be corrected, as well as what seems to work well. This will need to be based on the structure of the example provided on page 10 of Working through Task- Centered System Design (Greenberg, 2003).

Method
Step 1. Generate a list of expected users and an initial list of tasks. In this step, you interview knowledgeable people about their real-world tasks and observe them doing those tasks. Your goal is to generate an initial list of concrete task descriptions. If you do not have access to the appropriate people to interview for the application that you have selected, you will need to hypothesize about the possible users of the system and their initial list of tasks.

Step 2. Validate the tasks. The next step is to get a reality check of your task list. Have end users and/or client representatives review your tasks. You want them to tell you if the set of people is representative of potential end users of your product, if the tasks capture the variations of those done by real people, and if the details are realistic. As for step 1, if you do not have access to real end users, you will need to share the list of tasks that you have developed with a friend or colleague along with the description of the system. That person will then provide you with feedback on what she thinks is missing or unaligned with her opinion. Revise your work until you reach a satisfactory task list.

Step 3. Decide upon key users and a tentative list of requirements. The task examples will provide clues to specific system requirements that you need to include in your system design as well as who your target users will be. Because it is unrealistic to meet all requirements and address all users, it is your job to prioritize them and justify your decision with a clear rationale of why some requirements have higher priority than others.

Step 4. Develop low-fidelity prototypes. From the task examples and requirements, sketch out several competing interfaces. Discuss and choose the most promising of these, and develop a horizontal low-fidelity prototype (using storyboards or sketch methodology). Detailed information on how to develop storyboards or sketch prototypes is provided in the second required reading, Storyboards and Sketch Prototypes for Rapid Interface Visualization (Curtis & Vertelney, 1990).

Step 5. Perform a task-centered walkthrough. Evaluate your prototype for usability bugs by performing a task-centered walkthrough.

Step 6. Summarize and develop the report. Summarize all of the experience that you have gained in developing the prototypes in a two-part report, one for each section as explained above under the Deliverables heading.

Attachment:- Design and Prototyping.rar