LESSON 2: THE PROCESS OF INTERACTION DESIGN

Interaction Design (IxD) Process that is what designer used to create solutions
centered on users’ needs, aims and behavior when interacting with products. So here in
our interaction design process it involves five stages where in discovering what users’
needs and wants, analyzing, designing a potential solution, prototyping and also it
includes here the implementation and deployment.

There many fields of design we have. For example, graphic design, architectural design,
industrial design, and software design.

WHAT IS INVOLVED IN OUR INTERACTION DESIGN?

 It is a process:
 Focused on discovering requirements, designing to fulfill requirements,
producing prototypes and evaluating them.
 So here we will have four basic activities of our interaction design. So, its
focused on the four basic activities like discovering requirements for our
interactive product, designing alternatives to meet those requirements and
also those prototyping the alternative design so that you can communicate
and assess what are those prototype that you will create. It also includes the
evaluation of our product and also the user’s experience throughout the
process.
 Focused on users and their goals.
 It focuses on our users and also their goals, that’s very important here in our
interaction design
 Involves trade-offs to balance conflicting requirements.
 Generating alternatives and choosing between them is key.
 Four approaches: user-centered design, activity-centered design, system design,
and genius design

User-Centered Design - Users knows best and is our guide to our designers so things
that the role of our designers here is to translate the user’s needs and goals into a
design solution.
Activity-Centered Design – the focus of this is the behavior about the surrounding in
our particular tasks like for example: our users have significant role here in different
activities you will do but, in their behavior, it focuses on their behavior rather than the
goals and needs.

System Design – once we say system design, so we all know about the system that is
in structured, rigorous, and holistic design approach where in it focuses in one context
and it is particularly appropriate for complex problems. In system design, we are talking
about system, for example: it’s focused on the people, computers, objects, devices and
so on and so forth. And that’s the center of this or the center of attention here is the
user’s role. The purpose of this is to set the goals of the system.

Genius Design – this is different from the other three approaches because it relies
large lay on the experience and creative flair of a designer. In this approach, the user’s
role is to validate ideas generated by the designers and users are not involve during the
design process itself.

DOUBLE DIAMOND DESIGN

The life cycle model of the interaction design that captures list activities and also the
relationship among them.

DISCOVERY - it’s all about the insight to our problem but the focus here, the designers
will be the one to try to gather insights about that problem. What are those problems
that you will do as you make your own prototype?

DEFINE – what are those area to focus upon? Like the designers would be the one to
develop those clear brief that frames the design challenges. What are those challenges
the you will encounter? You have to define it clearly. What are the things to develop
there?

DEVELOP – wherein those are potential solutions. What are those solution and
concepts are created? Like for example, you have prototype then you have to test it and
also iterated it.
DELIVER – wherein solutions that work, it means that you have to know the result of
your project if that project is finalized, if that project is already produced or already
launched.

In interaction design, there some specific activities that focus on our discovery
requirements of our product, designing something wherein you have to fill those
requirements and also you have to produce those prototypes that are evaluated. In
addition, interaction design focuses attention on users and their goals.

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM SPACE

What are the things we need to remember here in our understanding the problem
space?

We have to decide what to design and we have to explore those problem space
in one way which is we have decided. For example, in our first pace in the double
diamond design, we have to check and look those new interaction design and we have
to discover it. So, in the process of creating that interactive product it can be tempting in
the beginning and also in the end but we have to work out those things that we need to
improve, how to design our prototype for our product and what are those physical
interface and what technologies in interaction styles to use. For example, there is multi
touch, so you have to use multi task, voice or graphical user interface or augmented
reality and another one is gesture base. There are lot of examples wherein you have to
understand the problem space there. We also need to consider the augmented reality.
What are those displace, navigation, system that are available nowadays.

It focuses on user experience, how can we improve the information, what

are the changes that we need to do and the team effort of everyone. For example, you
have your own capstone, output in your research so you can apply there what are those
things that we have here in interaction design process so that we can have an idea
about the understanding the problem space

Explore

 What is the current user experience?

  Why is a change needed?
 How will this change improve the situation?

Articulating the problem space

 Team effort
 Explore different perspectives
 Avoid incorrect assumptions and unsupported claims

IMPORTANCE OF INVOLVING USERS

Involving users here is very important especially in the development of your

product or prototype because this is the best way to ensure that the end of product is
useable and that is indeed will be use. We can also involve here the designing of
product and you can also provide those useful information, those realistic expectation
and also the ownership and the stakeholders. Involving also users throughout the
development helps with expectations, management because they can see the product’s
capability from an early stage. Not only the designers but also the users will help you to
develop, improve, enhance your expectation and your product capability in an early
stage.

Expectation management

 Realistic expectations
 No surprises, no disappointments
 Timely training
 Communication, but no hype

Ownership

 Make the users active stakeholders

 More likely to forgive or accept problems
 Can make a big difference in acceptance and success of product

DEGREES OF USER INVOLVEMENT

 There are different degrees of user involvement are possible. We can range here
from fully engaged throughout all iteration of our development process to targeted
participation, specific activities and from small groups of individual users in face-to-face,
context to hundreds to thousands of potential users and also stakeholders online.

User involvement is to form a small groups or individuals taking part of this face-
to-face information, gathering design or evaluation session but increasing online
connectivity has led to situation in which many thousands of potential users can
contribute to product development.

Member of the design team

 Full time: constant input, but lose touch with users

 Part time: patchy input, and very stressful
 Short term: inconsistent across project life
 Long term: consistent, but lose touch with users

Face-to-face group or individual activities

Online contributions from thousands of users

 Online Feedback Exchange (OFE) systems

 Crowdsourcing design ideas
 Citizen science

User involvement after product release

WHAT IS A USER-CENTERED APPROACH?

User-centered approach is based on:

 Early focus on users and tasks: directly studying cognitive, behavioral,

anthropomorphic, and attitudinal characteristics.
This is the first understanding who the user will be by directly studying
their cognitive, behavioral, anthropomorphic and attitudinal characteristics. Tis
requires observations, you have to observe users doing their normal tasks like
 studying and also those nature of tasks and then involving users in the design
process.
 Empirical measurement: users’ reactions and performance to scenarios,
manuals, simulations, and prototypes are observed, recorded and analyzed.
This is an early development. So, the reaction and performance of
intended users to printed scenarios, manuals, simulations and etc. are observed
in measure. So, users interact with simulations and prototypes and their
performance and reactions or observed recorded analyze in empirical
measurement.
 Iterative design: when problems are found in user testing, fix them and carry out
more tests.

When problems are found in user’s testing they are fixed and more test
and observations are carried out to see the effect of the fixes. This means that
the design development is iterative with cycles of designs, test measure re-
design, being repeated often as necessary.

 The designer’s role is to translate the user’s needs and goals into a design

solution.

 There are field in HCI was being establish here by John and Clayton last 1985.

So, there are three principles that we have in user centered approach. Those are

useful and easy to use computer.

FOUR BASIC ACTIVITIES OF INTERACTION DESIGN

1. Discovering requirements for iterative products

- Covers the left side of our double diamond design and it focused on

discovering something new about the work and defining what will be

develop. So, in this case of interaction design, it includes understanding

 the target users and the support of interactive product would be usefully

provided so that how we can gather data and analyze in this activity.

- We have to find out those basis of product requirements and we have to

understand those designs and development during discovering

requirements.

2. Designing alternatives that meets those requirements

- This is part of the development phase in the double diamond design. You

have to propose those ideas and how you can meet those requirements.

For the interaction design, you have to understand the concept of design

and also concrete design. For example, in conceptual design it involves

producing the conceptual model of your product.

- You have to describe those abstractions and outlining what people can do

with our product and what are concepts that are needed to understand

how to interact with it.

- In concrete design, you have to consider the details of your product

including the colors, sound and images (menu designs or icon designs).

- The alternatives are considered at every point.

3. Prototyping alternative designs so that they can be communicated and

assessed

- It is part of development phase of double diamond design or interaction

design. It involves our designing, the behavior of your interactive product

as well as the look and also feel, that’s the most effective way for users to
 evaluate such design. It needs to be interactive and that can be achieve

through your prototyping.

4. Evaluating product and its user experience throughout the process

- This is also part of development phase of double diamond design. This is

the process of determining the usability and acceptability of your product

or design measured in terms of a variety of usability and user experience

criteria.

- Evaluation is very important in final product because it can give you a lot

of assurance and also you can test your final product and you should

know those purpose and also what are the things that you need to

enhance or evaluate during the phase.

- As you go along with your prototyping, you will discover a lot of changes

like requirements, designs alternatives and once you build a prototype you

can evaluate them and improve or get those feedbacks or results into a lot

of details. You can also identify what are those alternative requirements

that you can do in the prototyping.

A SIMPLE INTERACTION DESIGN LIFECYCLE MODEL

Exemplifies a user-centered design approach

This is use to represent a model that captures a set activities and how they are related.

Existing models have varying levels of sophistication and complexity and they are often

not prescribtive.

ANOTHER LIFECYCLE MODEL: GOOGLE DESIGN SPRINTS (Knapp et al.,

2016)

Answering critical questions to design, prototyping and testing ideas with our customers

In five days, you can go to design challenge solution that has been tested on your

customer. If you finish with a complete detail and ready to ship your product, you will

have progress and should know the right decisions that you will make once created

your own prototype. Teams are encouraging to iterate on the last two phases and to

develop and re-test the prototype. Also, the team will have to identify in the day 1.
Day 1: You have to focus on making a map on challenges and you have to choose

those target that is also part of your challenge or what are those things you can achieve

in a week.

Day 2: It focuses on generating solution with an emphasis on sketching and individual

creativity rather than group brain storming.

Day 3: it focuses on criticizing solutions generated on day 1 that is unpack. You have to

choose the most likely to meet challenge and you have to produce story board which

are resolution are chosen so the decider needs to support the design.

Day 4: Turning the story board into realistic prototype, that is how to create a prototype

that is something on which your customer can provide you feedback.

Day 5: it focuses on getting feedback from your customers and learning their reaction

so you can enhance your prototype.

ANOTHER LIFECYCLE MODEL: RESEARCH IN THE WILD (Rogers and

Marshall, 2017)
Technology – the concern here is about the infrastructure or devices we have. For

example, internet of things, mobile apps. This is how technology being applied here and

also in our in situ or developing new ones for our given settings like those public display,

that is under technology.

Design – it covers the design space of an experience. For example, the iterative, you

have to create collaboration like travel planning tools and augmented reality game. If

you are playing augmented reality games outdoor, that’s one example of how you can

apply design.

In situ – it concerned with evaluation, what are those existing devices like tools,

services, those research base prototypes and various settings or what are those given

time or period of time that you use here in in situ study.

Theory – this is about the idea, concept or observation about the behavior or settings or

other phenomenon using that existing one or develop new ones or you can extend an

existing one

WHO ARE THE USERS/STAKEHOLDERS?

Individuals or groups that can influence or be influence by the success or failure of

your product. We have to identify those products that is intended in our populations,

what are those target product that are associate in our specific roles and also the

stakeholders that we have if that is the larger group of users or stakeholders that help
us to identify groups to include our interaction design activities. Those are people who

have stake in the development of our successful product and this people are called as

our stakeholders

There are group of stakeholders for our particular product.

 Suppliers

 Local shop owners

 Check out operators

 Managers and owners

 Customers

HOW TO GENERATE ALTERNATIVES

 Humans tend to stick with something that works

 Considering alternatives helps identify better designs

 Where do alternative designs come from?

 ‘Flair and creativity’: research and synthesis

 Cross-fertilization of ideas from different perspectives

 Users can generate different designs

 Product evolution based on changing use

 Seek inspiration similar products and domain, or different products and

domain

 Balancing constraints and trade-offs

HOW TO CHOOSE AMONG ALTERNATIVES

 Interaction design focuses on externally-visible and measurable behavior

  Technical feasibility

 Evaluation with users or peers

 Prototypes not static documentation because behavior is key

 Quality thresholds

 Different stakeholder groups have different quality thresholds

 Usability and user experience goals lead to relevant criteria

HOW TO INTEGRATE INTERACTION DESIGN ACTIVITIES WITHIN OTHER

MODELS

 Integrating interaction design activities in lifecycle models from other disciplines

requires careful planning

 Software development lifecycle models are prominent

 Integrating with agile software development is promising because:

 It incorporates tight iterations

 It champions early and regular feedback

 It handles emergent requirements

 It aims to strike a balance between flexibility and structure

SOME KEY POINTS

Four basic activities in interaction design process

 Discovering requirements

 Designing alternatives

 Prototyping

 Evaluating
User-centered design rests on three principles

 Early focus on users and tasks

 Empirical measurement using quantifiable and measurable usability criteria

 Iterative design