Reading Seminar 2 - Adam Nyberg

This week’s reading had a lot to do with how to take your design from a concept to prototype with much focus on fine tuning during the process. Much of what is discussed in the chapters is something our group has worked on, or at least touched, but there is also a wide variety of techniques I feel we should use as we continue our work. When working on ideation, or how to concepts are to be executed, we should definitely look into affordances, how intuitive the design feels before using it, and what feedback should be given and when.

There are some things I wish we would have done better before we created a final design but I hope at least that we might be able to still make use of them. One of these is the use of metaphors which I feel could really give our design a unique touch. Another technique I would like to get started on is a moodboard. By using a moodboard we can collectively define how we want our design to “feel”, another aspect that can set it aside from other groups’ designs.

In the near future I feel we should start applying techniques from the chapter on prototyping. We have started on a prototype already, but we have just been creating it “on the fly” and using our own experiences. At our last presentation we presented a sort of low-fidelity prototype so I don’t think a high-fidelity prototype is far off.

Question for the seminar: Is Hick’s law something we should take into account for our design?

Reading Seminar 2 - Marcus Frisell

The chapters we read this week was mostly about concepts and how to create them. We have already gone through multiple iterations of design concepts but maybe not reached all the way. There are several different methods we could try to refine and better our ideas and concepts and to do so we can’t skip steps on the way. We have to go through the whole process. From strategy to research to observation, analysis and so forth.

A way of creating concepts that I think most people, if not everyone already have tried is brainstorming. When you brainstorm you come up with multiple ideas, most of them are not very thought out but that’s not the point here. The purpose of the brainstorm is to generate as many ideas as possible as fast as you can. More ideas gives you a broader view and feature-set of the concept.

When we went through this face we didn’t really know about all the different approaches and ways to improve our concept and therefore we missed some, possibly, critical information and ways to analyse our ideas that we probably should take into consideration. We went from brainstorming to refining to prototyping. We should probably do, as Niklas said, take a step back and take a closer look at what we have accomplished to see if we can improve our concept some more.

Some things we should have in mind when we prototype in a detailed manner is both Fitts’s- and Hick’s law.

Fitt’s law determines how fast the user can accomplish tasks when moving from a start location to a target location. This law is determined by two things, distance between the points and the size of the target. A bigger target is easier to hit and therefore makes it easier for the user to navigate around.

Hick’s law explains the time correlation between decisions and number of choices they have. Interestingly users makes decisions faster in bigger menus than multiple smaller ones.

These are things we didn’t consider before that we probably should implement into our concept.

An interesting question i think is: In which ways can we simplify design to please users?

Reading seminar 2 - Linn Lahtinen

The content of this week's literature was mostly information about different methods and approaches you can use during a design process, covering almost everything from ideation to prototype and development. There was many new concepts and terms I have never heard about before and reading about it all made me realize that there are a lot more things to think about when you go through a design process than I could have imagined.

The first chapter covers brainstorming, how to do it and how to keep it organized. It tells us to be open-minded, not to think rationally because every idea counts in this stage, and that you should document and save all ideas. I think the most important point, though, is that it’s hard to come up with ideas when you’re forced to, and therefore ideas often come when you’re doing something else. Because of this it is good to always carry something you can write down your idea on with you when you’re in a brainstorming process of a project.

The second chapter, which is about refinement, contains a lot of the new terms I mentioned earlier. I can’t help to feel that the meaning of many of these terms are really simple and obvious, it’s just the fact that you haven’t had a word for it before. There is of course also concepts I’ve never thought about before and I can barely even understand now. But overall, I think all of it is very helpful and educational, and that it makes the design process easier and more palpable.

The last chapter of this week's literature is about interface design and prototyping. As mentioned in the chapter, there is a lot to think about when making a prototype. For example, there is several different types of prototypes, such as low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes. It’s not only important to choose what kind of prototype you want to make, but also to make the testers understand so that they can focus on the right things. At the end of the chapter something called agile methodology is brought up, which means that you take a big task and break it into smaller pieces. I think this is a great way of working and that it can not only be essential for our project, but also for tasks in everyday life.

My question is: Which non-traditional inputs could we include in our design?

Reading seminar 2 - Niklas Gustavsson

Reading seminar 2 - Niklas Gustavsson

This weeks reading seminar was about creating concepts (through brainstorming for example), refining your concepts using different “laws”, documentation  and a plethora of other ways of doing this, and then lastly about prototyping.

We have already gone through the brainstorming part, where we as a team sat together and went through a whole lot of brainstorming. We were all familiar with this concept seeing we have read a course very similar to this one, so we all got it done - and got a whole lot of concepts out. The thing we did differently was that we subconsciously did the second part, the refining - without knowing about all these laws and storyboards and such, and we went straight to the prototyping part. Now that we have more information about (researched) facts about user design, we might have to take one step back and go through all the laws as a group, and refine our concept a little bit more.

One law that stuck out to me was Hick’s law, about how many options a user processes, this one is essential for us seeing we are designing an application with several options. We might have to reconsider where we want to put the options in order to not confuse the user, or give the user to much information at once. The magic number seven is something we could use. In this process we should also use a wireframe, which I felt was essential in a software type product.

And after we have gone through all of these steps, we need to go back to the prototyping (which we already started on) in order to optimize and let people test our product. User tests are really important, as it shows our product in use - and a user will be able to tell us what works, and what can be tweaked upon. And once we have that information, we could do several steps over again, to eventually do another user test - to optimize our product. Something like this:

When we did the prototyping last time, we went straight for the high-fidelity prototype, and I feel that this one is the one that suits us the most - it does not take a whole lot of time, and it represents our software better than a paper version or a physical version. And once we have done more prototypes and user tests, we might move on to an even higher-fidelity prototype with an actual web-based application.

Question for the seminar: How do you know which one of the concepts you get from brainstorming to pursue?

Reflection for seminar 2 - Erik Forsberg

Going through the chapters, there are a bunch of different techniques that we are using in our process, but also a lot that we should look into even more. The Method Design that is mentioned in chapter six seems like the logical choice when starting out and it is also what we have been doing, as we're trying to put ourselves in the shoes of the user, but to do this, we have to have a good understanding about the user (your persona). This is also why we do research and interviews, and then try to use them as a base for our design choices. Something that I believe can take our design work and prototyping to the next level is the use of our pain points. We need to know what to focus on when brainstorming for new design elements and ideas. I believe that there is a myriad of opportunities to be explored and to express our creativity and innovation when it comes to our pain points.

Another thing that I believe our group could benefit from, is to adapt to a more Agile methodology meaning that we should break down our tasks into smaller pieces of work so that we could distribute them among the group members and really focus our energy in a good way. Sometimes having two or more people focusing on the exact same problem can be too much as the ideas could clash and stop the workflow. Discussing process moments within the group and then distributing the work is what I believe is the way we can really advance in this project.

One more thing that I thought was really interesting was Fitts's Law, stating that the time is takes for a user to reach an element is determined by the distance to the element and the size of the element. This is something that I believe we can use in our design, as a simple and intuitive UI is a very strong component in an application.

The question I'd like to discuss during the seminar is: How can we use ambient audio cues to enhance our application?

We are getting closer to a final design

Design process, week 1

Where are we right now?

This week we have focused on getting closer to more refined final design, we have iterated through several designs (4!), and we feel that the fourth is one that we can stand by. We are very much aware that we will have to change our design in the upcoming weeks, but as of now this design feels very good. We landed on this design because it is something that our group has knowledge in, and that we strongly believe in. 

Design one

Our first design was the down to earth, doable design. The conventional design.

Here are some pictures of the design process:

Start page you chose language, then information about everything

Map of the museum, interactive

The first design was an application with information about the museum, the exhibitions, exhibits, and such. 

What we later took from this design is that we want to do an application with several of these functions, but the later designs also had things we took from them! 

Design two

Our second design, we went crazy. This design was intended to get us to think outside of the box, and try to see how far we could expand our product. So we decided to do a futuristic device that you borrowed at the museum. The design was a device which looked a lot like the Nintendo 3ds which projects a hologram. The hologram was intended to be interactive where you could see the exhibits in extra context. This product was intended so that tourists do not have to wait for a tour guide in order to learn more about the exhibits, but instead the device was multi language compatible, so tourists could learn what they wanted about the exhibits they found extra interesting. The device also showed the way around the museum, with hologram arrows pointing the way to different exhibits.

Here is an image of the design process:

Design three

After we had made these two designs, we did a third (and second to final) design. This design, we tried to stray away from hand held devices, and we decided to make displays around the museum. These displays had extra information about the exhibits in every language, and also works as a substitute for tour guides. In these displays there would also be information about the museum as a whole (such as a maps and current information). What this design did not have was a way to attract tourists, it only helps them once they get there - not getting them there!

Picture of the design process:

Fourth and final 

So, after we had these three designs, all with very valid ideas - which all would make the tourist experience a lot better - we tried to combine them, and take the best from each design to land on some final design. What we decide upon was a web based application with several functions that both benefit tourists, but also non-tourists. Our product is amazingly easy to expand upon, and hence it is not 100% directed at tourists, but, there are several functions in it which would make the tourist experience better. 

First, it is available in every language, which makes the application a lot easier to navigate with. Second, it has the function to check where you currently are, and send you updated information on how to get to the museum (it takes your location, and uses an application similar to "Res i stockholm", to show you exactly how to get to the museum). No longer will it be difficult to get to the museum! 

Third, once you are at the museum, it has information about every exhibit, in every language! So that if you feel that something is extra interesting, you can read up on it even more that ever before. This makes it so that people who are not interested in going on guided tours will not miss out on any information.

Fourth, there is an interactive map of the museum, so you can easily navigate around, without having to talk to some museum host every time. 

But these are not all the functions, there will be several others that will attract more people. For example, we have an idea of implementing some sort of gamification, because research shows that people will be more interested in attending museums. The first idea we had was that some exhibits had a quiz about them - this enables people to learn about the exhibits, so that you get all correct answers on the quizzes! 

Here is a picture of our first (final) design:

Target group

As we have previously mentioned, our main target group is tech savvy tourists. What we mean by tech savvy is that they are well enough updated with todays technology to own a smartphone and know how to use applications. 

So how does our product target these tech savvy tourists? Well, first of it is available in every language, so that no matter which languages you speak, you can get the same information as everybody else. Second, it gets tourists to the museum with the updated stream of information, you can easily get the application to check your current location using GPS, and it will show you exactly where to go to the closest communication, and where to go from there (for example, go 300m to the odenplan subway, take the subway to t-centralen, switch to the red line towards Mörby, get off at universitetet and walk this way (shows a map)). This will get even more tourists to the museum.

While interviewing tourists at the NRM, the subjects found that there was not enough information about the exhibits, and that they would want to know more. They also said that the exhibits were outdated and felt old - they would prefer some sort of a modern interaction.  This application enables both of those things - one function where you get extended information about the exhibits in your language, and secondly some sort of ramification that will get people to interact with the exhibits. 

As previously mentioned, an application like this can be extended upon as much as possible, and going deeper in the design process we will definitely figure out even more functions that would further benefit tourists, which will be added on as we get there.

Citronfest out! 

Pain Points

Issue/Opportunity	Secondary persona	Main persona
No easily accessed application specific for the museum	4	3
Too little detail in the information texts of the exhibits	4	3
Exhibit information not in their native language	3	2
Not enough interactivity at the museum	5	3
The design of the museum application is horrible and does not facilitate information searching	4	3
Information about the museum, i.e. opening hours and directions was unclear	3	4
Translated exhibit information was freely available using a mobile application	2	2

Main persona and scenarios

Name: Julia Benitez

Age: 27

Hometown: Barcelona, Spain

Background:

Grew up in the Barcelonian suburbs where she spent her days playing soccer with her friends. Early on, she grew an interest in nature, animals, but also historical events such as medieval times and wars. After acquiring a Bachelor’s degree in national history, and working a couple of years, she set out to travel the world and learn about different countries’ history from a native perspective. She travels with her girlfriend Carla whom she has been with for three years now. They try to visit museums in every city they go to. Back home in Barcelona, she teaches national history in high school.  Her girlfriend works at Zoo de Barcelona where she is a zookeeper.

Personality:

Julia loves to cook and learn new things. She keeps an open mind to most things and likes to go outside of her comfort zone. She is a technologically savvy person and keeps up with trends and news when it comes to technology. She usually looks up which museums she wants to visit and does a little research about them before travelling to a new city.

Today:

Julia and Carla decided to go to Stockholm to visit the Swedish Museum of National History to learn more about the climate and the animal life in Sweden. They’re currently staying at the Fridhemsplan Hotel & Hostel where Julia had a bad night’s sleep and isn’t really in the mood for complications during the day. She is easily agitated today and just wants everything to flow smoothly.

Scenario 1

After waking up at 8:00, Julia and Carla goes down to the hotel breakfast and try to find a mobile application for the museum, using the hotel’s WiFi. They’re trying to prepare as well as they can, since they don’t want to use the roaming mobile network while abroad. She doesn’t find a specific application for the Swedish Museum of Natural History, but she does find one that has a little information. Unfortunately, the application doesn’t really suit her needs and she as a tech savvy person dislikes the design as she feels that it is outdated. She wishes that there was a modern application specifically for the NRM with updated information about current exhibits, open hours and how to get there. The lack of a good application makes her annoyed, but Carla calms her down and they get going by looking up the address on Google Maps.

Before going to Stockholm, they had checked out the website of the museum and found that there was also an IMAX-theatre at the location. They thought it would be great to see a movie after the visit, so they bought combo-tickets for both the museum and for a movie at the theatre. Moving through the exhibitions of the museum, they noticed that there was only a Swedish and an English version of the information texts for the exhibits. This was unfortunate as Carla doesn’t read or speak English well so Julia had to translate every piece of information. They wished for some kind of easy way to directly translate the texts, but didn’t feel like asking for a guide so they went on throughout the museum by translating themselves. At the end of the visit, Julia also found that the information wasn’t detailed enough as she would have wanted to learn more about specific exhibits that interested her.

Scenario 2

After waking up and having breakfast, Julia and Carla decides to try find an application online, but realizes that the only one available is very sub-par. After finding sufficient information about the location, she has to find information on how to get there using another web page - she would much have preferred if they somehow were linked and she could find everything at the same place, maybe an app?

When arriving, 2 hours later, Carla and Julia starts touring the museum, but feels that there isn’t enough interactive exhibits. She likes it when she can take part somehow, maybe through some gamification or other interactive ways - she thinks to herself that she would have loved some way to play games about the exhibits, so she would have more fun touring the exhibits. She finds that what she thought was most enjoyable at the Swedish museum of national history was a game where you had to hit the light of whatever fruit was glowing (much like the carnival game whack-a-mole) - however, this had almost nothing to do with the exhibit, so she felt that it was very misplaced, and almost tragic that the thing that was most enjoyable wasn't even something about an exhibit. She thinks to herself, maybe there could be some kind of mobile game about some exhibits, which makes the visits a whole lot nicer?

Secondary persona and scenarios

Main persona

Name: Pekka Halonen

Age: 38

Hometown: Joensuu, Finland

Relationship status: Single

Background

Pekka studied Construction at high school but dropped out early to become a tile layer apprentice. After 20 years in the industry he wants to turn his life around and become a teacher. But before he starts his new path he wants to see the world. His goal is to make up for lost time and find the love of his life.

Personality

Pekka is a very humble man who cares a lot about his friends and family. Despite his mundane work he has always been passionate about history and culture.

His shy nature has prevented him from taking a lot of risks in his life but lately he has found courage to experience new things.

Today

Without a goal in his traveling Pekka took the first boat over to Sweden and before his flight to Zimbabwe leaves the next morning he wants to experience as much of Stockholm as he can in one day. At the terminal he found a few broschures for museums and tour guides but he would prefer to find everything using his smartphone.

Scenarios

Scenario 1

Pekka decides that he wants to visit one of the museums, the Maritime Museum, he found in the broschure and hops on a bus. While he’s on the bus Pekka realizes that the museum might not be open so he finds their website on his smartphone. To his surprise he manages to find information in Finnish and is content that he made the right choice in museum.

At the museum starts touring the museum on his own and, expecting to find information in Finnish at every exhibit, chooses not to join a guided tour. To his horror he realizes that only a few of the exhibits have information in Finnish, most are in Swedish and English. When he goes back to the reception where he gets confirmation that very little information is available for non-Swedish speakers. If only there was an app...

Scenario 2

Pekka has heard from a friend about the Museum of Spirits and when he sees an ad for it in the terminal he decides to search for some information about it. He pulls out his phone and quickly finds their website which tells him that although they don’t have guided tours in Finnish, they have an application with several different languages, one being Finnish. To find out more about the application he looks it up on Play Store. The sleek design and feel convinces him to give it a try.

When he is at the museum he uses the application vigorously and finds out much more about the exhibitions than he could have without it. He feels very pleased about his experience and wants to recommend it to all of his friends.