Milestone 3 Report

This assignment is a component of Milestone 3. Be sure you have reviewed that larger context for this assignment.

The goal of this report is to communicate and reflect on development and refinement of your tasks and designs, culminating in your final design proposal and its two focus tasks.

You are free to directly reuse content produced for earlier assignments in this milestone. However, you should revise content as needed to ensure your milestone report reflects your current work. Similarly, we expect that feedback received throughout this milestone will have been addressed or implemented in this report.

Milestone 3 has focused on the development of tasks and potential designs, with you proposing and exploring a range of design directions and then choosing a design direction with two focus tasks. In this milestone report, aim to communicate this progression through considering and selecting tasks and designs, providing rationale for the choices you made in this design process.

This report should have three sections:

1. Design Problem and Tasks

   State the design problem you explored throughout this milestone. You may start with text from an earlier assignment, but you should revise to account for feedback and for clarity you have gained in your design exploration. Ensure that your description of the design problem:

   • Clearly describes a problem that people experience, highlighting relevant aspects of the problem that informed your design exploration.
   • Conveys aspects of the problem, rather than conveying aspects of a specific design solution.
   • Remains sufficiently general to describe your exploration of multiple design alternatives.

   Present 6 tasks that characterize the design space you explored throughout this milestone. These might be tasks you submitted in earlier assignments, might be tasks you have revised to better describe an earlier task, or might be new or re-formulated tasks that you feel influenced your design exploration. Ensure that each task:

   • Consists of a clear action that a person takes and which leads to an accomplishment (e.g., lists of design capabilities are not tasks, things that simply happen to people are not tasks).
   • Could potentially be supported by different designs (e.g., is not overly tied to a specific design).
   • Could potentially be pursued across different contexts and details (e.g., is not overly tied to a contexts or details of a specific story).

   Reflect on these tasks and share insights you developed through your design exploration. Insights might be about the tasks themselves or about how those tasks shaped design exploration. For example:

   • Did certain tasks help suggest design ideas?
   • Were certain tasks more difficult to incorporate into design ideas?
   • Did different categories of tasks emerge (e.g., short-term versus long-term tasks, tasks focused on an individual versus tasks among a group of people)?
   • Are there interesting relationships between tasks (e.g., in time, in data, via dependencies)?
   • Were there tasks that worked well together or poorly together (e.g., a combination suggested interesting design directions, a combination was difficult to define in the same design)?
   • Did design explorations suggest consideration of other tasks (e.g., lead you to explore tasks at different levels of a task hierarchy, suggest other tasks you might have explored with more time)?

   Share at least 3 meaningful insights about your tasks.

2. Proposed Designs

   Present and review the 3 potential design directions you explored in Assignment 3.2 and this milestone.

   For each design, include:

   A descriptive title and brief description of the key idea or approach of the design.

   Key sketches that communicate the most important aspects of the design. This should be 2 or 3 sketches, which could include earlier overview sketches, earlier task sketches, or new sketches that better communicate the core idea or approach of the design.

   Reflection on the design. Informed by any critique you received and by your own reflection on the design, summarize what was more or less compelling or effective in the design. For example:

   • Are there elements of this design you think could or should be further explored?
   • Are there elements of this design that you intentionally chose to not further explore?
   • What informed such decisions?
   • What did you ultimately learn from this design?

   Note this section needs to clearly present and reflect on each design from Assignment 3.2, regardless of whether you chose to further pursue that design in the rest of this milestone. If your earlier sketches were unclear or did not effectively communicate your design, we strongly encourage you to create updated sketches that better capture the design idea or approach.

3. Selected Design

   Present your selected design direction in the context of your two selected focus tasks.

   Introducing your design with a compelling name that you can use for this project. This should be more than just a descriptor you may have used to distinguish designs in Assignment 3.2. Choose a short, creative, and marketable name that captures the key idea or approach in your design.

   Provide a two paragraph description of your design: (1) the problem your design aims to address, and (2) the key approach your design takes to addressing this problem. Because you are now introducing your selected design direction, your description of the problem may be more focused or nuanced (e.g., your problem description no longer needs to be as broad as your entire design exploration). Ensure this description of your design direction is concise while providing sufficient detail to a person who does not already know about your project.

   Present each focus task and an associated storyboard. These may be from Assignment 3.4, or they may be revised for clarity and conciseness. Ensure the focus task is clearly stated. Ensure the storyboard presents a compelling narrative including a problem, at least one character, a clear interaction between a character and your design, and an accomplishment that provides satisfaction through conveying how the problem was addressed. Be particularly mindful of how you balance clarity and conciseness in each storyboard.

   Explain the rationale for your selected design and focus tasks. Be sure to describe why this design and these tasks are compelling. Your focus is on explaining why you are pursuing a specific design direction (i.e., not on explaining why you are not exploring other potential design directions). Discuss the relationship between your selected design and focus tasks. For example:

   • What synergy exists between your selected design and focus tasks?
   • How do you expect your focus tasks will support you in exploring meaningful elements of your selected design?
   • How do you expect your focus tasks will support you in telling a compelling story about your design?
   • Are there elements of your problem or your design that are important but not captured by your focus tasks? How could you convey those in future descriptions and testing of your design?

   Present specific details of how you intend to support your focus tasks in this design. For each focus task, share sketches or selected frames from your Assignment 3.4 task walkthroughs. Concisely convey your current concept of the interaction with your design in this task.

   Reflect on your design and what you currently know or do not know. For example:

   • What specific elements of the design became clear while developing your task walkthroughs?
   • What aspects of the design are still open or unclear?
   • On what elements of the design do you want to focus during upcoming usability testing and design refinement?

Submission

Due: Friday, November 8, 3:00pm

Within the Drive folder for course project files:

• Identify the Slides deck corresponding to this assignment for your group. The deck provides a template for this assignment. Edit the deck in-place, so that you can easily share it in critique.

• Prepare a Slides deck with the following structure:

  Design Problem & Tasks

  • 1 slide: Design problem.
  • 1 slide: 6 representative tasks.
  • 1 slide: 3 reflection insights about tasks.

  Proposed Designs For each of 3 designs proposed in Assignment 3.2:

  • 1 slide: Title and brief description of the key idea or approach.
  • 1 slide: Key sketches communicating the design.
  • 1 slide: Design reflection.

  Selected Design

  • 1 slide: Selected design title.
  • 1 slide: Description of design problem and approach.
  • 2 slides: 2 focus tasks and storyboards (i.e., 1 per slide).
  • 1 slide: Reflection on rationale for selected design and focus tasks.
  • 2 slides: 2 focus task design details (i.e., 1 per slide).
  • 1 slide: Design detail reflection and plan.

Reminders and requirements:

• Submission via Canvas is also required, in support of grading.

  • Remove instruction slides and template markings from your deck before submission.

  • Export a PDF of your deck, via the menu: File -> Download -> PDF Document (.pdf).

• This is a group submission. Ensure your section and names of all group participants are appropriately clear.

• All group members must submit an individual Contribution Statement for this Milestone.

The Drive folder for course project files is here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Sm12CpuMNsKBqk6E_Ri875hfFs0A-IRS?usp=drive_link

Submit via Canvas here:

Grading

This milestone report will be graded on a scale of 37 points:

1. Design Problem: (2 points)

   State the design problem you explored throughout this milestone. You may start with text from an earlier assignment, but you should revise to account for feedback and for clarity you have gained in your design exploration.

2. 6 Representative Tasks: (3 points)

   Present 6 tasks that characterize the design space you explored throughout this milestone.

3. Task Reflection: (3 points)

   Reflect on these tasks and share insights you developed through your design exploration. Insights might be about the tasks themselves or about how those tasks shaped design exploration.

   Share at least 3 meaningful insights about your tasks.

4. Proposed Designs: (3 x 3 points)

   For each design proposed in Assignment 3.2, include:

   • A descriptive title and brief description of the key idea or approach of the design.

   • Key sketches that communicate the most important aspects of the design.

   • Reflection on the design. Informed by any critique you received and by your own reflection on the design, summarize what was more or less compelling or effective in the design.

5. Selected Design Title and Description: (3 points)

   Introduce your design with a compelling name.

   Describe your design, detailing the problem your design addresses and the key approach your design takes to this problem.

6. Focus Tasks and Storyboards: (2 x 3 points)

   Present each focus task and an associated storyboard.

7. Design and Task Selection Rationale: (2 points)

   Explain the rationale for your selected design and focus tasks. Be sure to describe why this design and these tasks are compelling. Your focus is on explaining why you are pursuing a specific design direction. Do not simply explain why you are not exploring other potential design directions.

8. Focus Task Design Details: (2 x 3 points)

   Present specific details of how you intend to support your focus tasks in this design. For each focus task, share sketches or selected frames from your Assignment 3.4 task walkthroughs. Concisely convey your current concept of the interaction with your design in this task.

9. Design Detail Reflection and Plan: (2 points)

   Reflect on your design and what you currently know or do not know.

10. Clarity and Presentation: (2 points)