Important!
This year we would like you to submit a contribution statement along with each group submission (for all assignments, not just for Assignment 1!). Include this contribution statement at the top of your submission, along with the names of your group members. Please note that we will not grade submissions where this statement is missing.
An example contribution statement for Assignment 1b is:
Please know that we do not expect everyone to contribute equally to each assignment, but you should try to work as a team and support each other. You should also discuss and agree among each other what each of you contributed and how much this contributed to the overall assignments. We know these percentages are subjective and messy, so don’t overthink them (we wont either).
You are to propose a problem and an approach that could form the basis of a project for this course. Successful projects will observe the need for good human-centered design in an interactive computing system, analyze the needs and opportunities in the problem, explore potential designs, and propose a compelling solution.
This assignment is worth 5 out of 100 points of your overall course grade:
This assignment consists of three milestones.
Assignment 1a: Project Brainstorm
Due: Uploaded Monday (due night before class), January 8, 2018
Assignment 1b: Project Proposal
Due: Uploaded Friday, January 12, 2018
Assignment 1c: Revised Project Proposal
Due: Uploaded Wednesday (due night before class), January 17, 2018
This offering’s project theme will be “Designing for diversity”! You will be encouraged to design for groups of people who are different from yourself and/or to design for inclusiveness, connecting people from different backgrounds.
Computers and the Internet have changed many people’s lives. However, many applications that we use in our daily lives are developed by Westerners and embed the developers’ beliefs in what is useful and usable. For example, Facebook is extremely popular in many Western countries, but has failed to attract a large user base in Russia. Facebook is also not as popular with elderly and teens as it is with people between 25 and 45 of age. Similarly, Uber and Lyft have gained much attraction with economically prosperous young professionals, but are often seen with suspicion in economically strained parts of the US. Most of these problems in designing adequate technology and gaining market share arise because designers and developers can be insufficiently aware of the beliefs, preferences, needs, and prior experiences of people who are different from themselves.
Over the course of the quarter, you will work as a group on designing a system to an activity or relationship within the particular context of a group of people that is not particularly well supported by current tools. Example groups that you could design for are:
As part of your project, you will need to define what a specific group’s needs are that your project tries to support and what activity you would like to design that might help address this need. Think about how that activity is currently supported via technology, what doesn’t work about current ways of supporting it, and how your solution will do this better. The specificity of addressing a particular group of people allows you to deeply think about what makes the group unique and how you would best want to support them. So, dive in and see what you can come up with!
Your proposal must go beyond a technology-centric proposal of a webpage, phone application, or interaction. Instead think about the problems that people face in their lives, how we can approach those problems, and the role for interactive computing. This first assignment is your opportunity to think broadly about identifying a problem. Subsequent assignments will provide opportunities to focus on designing a specific technological solution to a specific set of tasks.
You should identify and consider goals and activities that are important to people.
Do not start with a focus on concrete one-time tasks (e.g., logging into your bank account). Instead identify problems in long-lived activities that span many different social or technological contexts. If you want to help people manage their money, do not immediately propose a website that addresses one specific task. Instead consider the range of other opportunities (e.g., personal mobile devices, shared family computers, point of sale systems).
Focus on creating or improving a specific application or service that addresses the issues of specific people. You must be able to create and evaluate a design within the timeframe of this course, so consider whether you can reasonably gain access to the necessary people.
We encourage you to think big, expanding your thinking to include new ideas for interaction techniques or technology platforms. Do not feel constrained by current devices, but instead aim to explore an exciting design that could potentially motivate the development of new enabling technology. For example, see how Artefact presents the Dialog concept. This concept has not been implemented, and might not even be immediately possible. But it has been developed in substantial detail, understanding implications for design and implementation:
Finally, the project theme requires that your proposal present some opportunity for designing for diversity. But you will ultimately follow your design process where it leads you, which may or may not emphasize tracking. Focusing on problems and opportunities, rather than specific design features will leave room for your design to emerge and be refined in the course of this project.
Due: Uploaded Monday (due night before class), January 8, 2018
Friday’s section will focus on brainstorming potential project directions. You will get started on thinking, and help seed this brainstorming project, with some individual ideas.
You should upload the assignment individually, building on the ideas that your group had during the brainstorm in section. (It is okay to upload the same ideas as others in your group.)
Propose three starting points for brainstorming domains, problems, and goals that fall within the realm of designing for diversity.
By domain, we mean an aspect of a community. Domains include:
Be sure to focus on problems and goals, not potential design solutions. One way to help yourself identify a hierarchy of problems and goals is to ask “why?”. For example:
Each idea should be a single sentence, identifying the domain and the problem or goal. At most one of your ideas may come from any of the domains above. Your other two ideas should be from domains not in this list, in order to broaden the brainstorm. Ensure the ideas are significantly different, not small variations on the same idea.
Ensure your name and section are at the top of your submission.
No more than one page of text in PDF format. Submit via Canvas here:
https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1124153/assignments/3986557
If you are still attempting to add, or otherwise unable to access the submission system, submit via the instructor email address.
In section, be prepared to contribute your initial ideas as part of a larger brainstorm.
This milestone will be graded on a scale of 1 point:
Due: Uploaded Friday, January 12, 2018
Propose and analyze a problem that could form the basis of a design project for this class.
In one paragraph, describe the design problem and motivation. This description should convince the reader that this is a difficult and interesting problem, worth spending a quarter considering. State what the problem is and why it is a problem, or describe a new idea and why it will enhance an existing application or practice.
In another paragraph, analyze the problem or idea to give more background and context. Do not just focus on the negative aspects of the current situation, but also identify some positive aspects that may be beneficial to retain. A few salient examples from existing systems or practices could be used to support those claims. If appropriate, you may conduct this analysis by describing a scenario that illustrates how someone might encounter and resolve the problem.
Ensure your report is appropriately clear and easy to read. This includes:
Be sure your presentation looks good:
Samples from prior offerings include:
Note that details of assignments may have changed since prior offerings, so their reports may not map to the current project. Also note these samples are intended to illustrate a variety of approaches, none of which is intended to be ideal or exemplary. Be sure to understand and carefully consider project requirements and feedback from the course staff in the context of your own work.
Ensure your name and section are at the top of your submission.
No more than one page of text in PDF format.
Images do not count against your page limit, and are therefore effectively free. You should embed images throughout your PDF, keeping them near the text that references them. The limit applies to the approximate amount of text you would have if all images were removed.
Submit via Canvas here:
https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1124153/assignments/3986558
This proposal will be graded on a scale of 3 points:
Due: Uploaded Wednesday (due night before class), January 17, 2018
Update the project proposal based on the feedback you received from the staff. Describe the changes that you made from the previous version in one to two paragraphs.
The submission should describe the changes made from the previous verion on the first page, followed by the updated proposal.
https://canvas.uw.edu/courses/1124153/assignments/3986559
The revised proposal will be graded on a scale of 1 point: