Due date TBD
Overview
Conduct a user study over your initial prototype. This study will focus on qualitative data with an emphasis on user experience.
Purpose
The first user study will help your team to refine user interactions and experiences. Participant feedback will be used to further your iterative design process. Participants will use your initial prototype to simulate the actual final use of your system. This allows you to catch issues early on and to pinpoint features or ideas that your users connect with.
Format
Your team will design one or more scenarios relevant to the use of your system. You are encouraged to present these scenarios to your mentors prior to conducting your user study in order to get extra feedback. Before you conduct your study, you must write up an Application for the Use of Human Subjects in Research form. In addition, you will need to create a relevant consent form for this project. Decide which data collection techniques you will employ (surveys, interviews, etc.) for this user study. Inform participants of these data collection techniques via your consent form.
Next, your team will conduct the actual user study based on the developed scenarios. You must have at least 5 participants for this user study. Students on other teams are viable study participants, so consider helping each other out as needed.
Each team will turn in a 2-4 page writeup over this user study. The writeup should include the following main sections. Be sure to touch on each of the listed questions.
Introduction:
- What is the current state of your design (what works/doesn’t work, what does it current do)?
- What were your goals for this study?
- What tasks did you have users conduct or simulate?
- Who were your participants (number of, gender, major, level of expertise with area of focus, etc.)? Include those facets of information that are most relevant.
- What data did you collect? How did you collect this data? For example, you may have employed the use of surveys, interviews, or focus groups. Make sure that your consent form reflects the data collection methods used!
- What were the biggest problems that your team or participants identified?
- What features or ideas worked the best?
- What did you learn from this user study? Include at least 3 main points of discussion.
- How will what you learned impact your design? This is an application of your knowledge.
Grading Rubric
You will be graded on the quality of your results and on how well you followed the outline provided. An emphasis will be placed on how well you articulate your findings and tie them into the design of your upcoming functional prototypes.