Tuesday, 25 December 2012

High-fidelity prototypes

High-fidelity prototypes

  • Content has a more accurate look and feel to the final product
  • Like an artist or designer's composition: rich in detail with all its attributes
  • High-fidelity intended to create an try out the contents of a user interface, e.g. information design, visual design, interaction design
  • To test the content with end users; get direct feedback, etc.
  • High-cost, so used to refine the product rather than big changes
  • Like an artist or designer's composition: rich in detail with all its attributes
  • High-fidelity intended to create an try out the contents of a user interface, e.g. information design, visual design, interaction design
  • To test the content with end users; get direct feedback, etc.
  • High-cost, so used to refine the product rather than big changes
 
Monday clinic application prototype demonstration


example final prototype we use for Monday clinic application


Monday, 24 December 2012

Medium-Fidelity

Medium-Fidelity

Computer-based simulation
Medium-fidelity prototypes simulate or animate some but not all features of the intended system. There are three approaches to limit prototype functionality
example Wire-frames and Annotated story boards we use for Monday clinic application



Saturday, 22 December 2012

Prototype Fidelity


Prototype Fidelity

Fidelity is the level of detail that content is rendered in the model
  • Low-fidelity prototypes
  • Midium-fidelity prototypes
  • High-fidelity prototypes
Low-fidelity prototypes


does not look very much like the final product

    Create early representations of its content

     Akin to sketches that artist and designers create in early stages: vague and minimally           formed

     Early conceptualisations of page layouts, e.g. rough position of menu areas, banners, toolbars, and content areas

    Simple, cheap, quick to produce
    Some methods:

  • Storyboarding
  • Sketching
  • Index cards
  • Wizard of Oz
example sketches we use for Monday clinic application


Friday, 21 December 2012

Prototyping

Prototyping

The original purpose of a prototype is to allow users of the software to evaluate developers' proposals for the design of the eventual product by actually trying them out, rather than having to interpret and evaluate the design based on descriptions.

Broadly, two types of design:

  • Conceptual - a concept trying to capture what the product will do and how it will behave
  • Physical - concerned with the details of the design; e.g. information, screen and menu structures; icons, graphics, etc

Outline of the prototyping process

The process of prototyping involves the following steps
  • Identify basic requirements
         Determine basic requirements including the input and output information desired. Details, such as security, can typically be ignored.

  • Develop Initial Prototype

    The initial prototype is developed that includes only user interfaces. (See Horizontal Prototype, below)

  • Review
    The customers, including end-users, examine the prototype and provide feedback on additions or changes.

  • Revise and Enhance the Prototype
       Using the feedback both the specifications and the prototype can be improved. Negotiation about what is within the scope of the contract/product may be necessary.

Conceptual design


  • Transform user requirements/needs into a conceptual model
  • “a description of the proposed system in terms of a set of integrated ideas and concepts about what it should do, behave and look like, that will be understandable by the users in the manner intended”
  • Don’t move to a solution too quickly. Iterate, iterate, iterate,
  • Consider alternatives: prototyping helps

Saturday, 15 December 2012

UI Patterns

The user interface, or UI, of a device is the look and feel of the on-screen menu system. How it works, its color scheme, how it responds to button presses, all of these things are part of the user interface.


Why mobile UI design is Important?

Mobile user interface (UI) technology is in the midst of its evolutionary phase. Phones and tablets that use Apple's iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad), Google's Android archictecture, Blackberry's operating system, HP's webOS, and Windows® Phone 7 mobile operating system all offer diverse UI design approaches. 

Each Mobile vendor has their own interface UI design according to branding, Target users and budget purposes. Therefore Mobile UI patterns can be applied in different UI designs according to user requirements and vendor standards. Yet Mobile UI focus on giving a user friendly experience to the user and to enhance the navigation, accessibility and rich content in a limited space which is a challenge compared to designing UI in Software Engineering.

Mobile UI is important because it must enable users to access the same content in a smaller window with the same user satisfaction where the user must get the same look and feel as they are using a bigger screen.So Mobile UI is important and concerned with a range of features that vary from position of a single button to tapping on the screen.

Mobile UI design best practices:A pattern must be a best practice, and common enough to be recognized or encountered!

Thursday, 6 December 2012

Personas


    Personas

      Like most design elements, personas can be developed iteratively. And like most design elements, there are benefits to creating the personas collaboratively. Involving the stakeholders and other team members increases the accuracy of the persona and creates a level of awareness about the users that helps the team align around them. As people become familiar with the personas, they start talking about them as if they were actual people. When that happens, you have achieved a valuable focus.


    How Many Personas?
      Most interactive products have multiple audience segments. This suggests that you should construct multiple personas. However, with too many personas, the process can get out of hand. As a rule of thumb, three or four personas are enough for most projects. If you find that you are creating more than five or six, stop and reconsider.


Tuesday, 4 December 2012

Establishing Requirments



Four basic activities in Interaction Design:

1. Identifying users, their needs and requirements
2. Developing alternative designs
3. Building versions of the designs
4. Evaluating designs



What is Requirements Analysis?

Requirements analysis is the process of determining user expectations for a new or modified product. These features, called requirements, must be quantifiable, relevant and detailed.

Requirements analysis is taken at the early stage of development life cycle in traditional methodologies where it will take place in iterative cycles. Requirements analysis is initially taken place after feasibility study and requirements gathering to  identify and distinguish essential user requirements in order to build the development path. once the requirements are gathered , they will be analysed and organised according to following categories;



Functional
  • What the system should do
  • Historically the main focus of requirements activities

Non-functional
  • memory size
  • response time

Data
  • What kinds of data need to be stored?
  • How will they be stored   
Why establish requirements for a mobile app?

Establishing requirements for mobile applications is important because it helps to understand and justify user needs and also it can be related to data.