Everday Things Sketchbook

Purchase a small (no larger than 5"x7") sketchbook or notebook. (I'm a big fan of Moleskine notebooks for my own use, but you can use anything you'd like).

Each week, you need to identify -three- two "everyday things" similar to those described by Norman in the first two chapters of his book. Make a small sketch of it in your notebook, and note what the particularly good or bad aspects of its design are (taking into account the "Normanisms" discussed in class).

I will collect and grade these notebooks before the break, and then again on the last day of class (at which point you should have 20 items documented in your sketchbook).

Everyday Thing Assignment

By now you have begun to delve into Donald Norman's book, "The Design of Everyday Things" and should be beginning to develop a critical eye when interacting with the many "Everyday Things" that you encounter. This exercise will give you a chance to walk in Norman's shoes and practice looking at the world from his perspective.

Find an "Everyday Thing" (an object or class of objects, devices, tools, or whatever you want to call them) that you think has some design flaws according to the criteria set out by Norman. For this assignment there is a requirement that the "Everyday Thing" is located somewhere here on campus and that it is not computer hardware or software.

You will need to turn in a one-page description of your "Everyday Thing". Describe what it is, where it is found, and provide a brief explanation of why it was chosen (consider criteria - "Normanisms" - such as affordances, constraints, mappings, feedback, visibility, conceptual model). Include a photograph or sketch of the item.

In class, you will give a short (3-5 minutes) presentation of your "Everyday Thing" to the class. Obviously you will not be required to bring it in (might be impossible!) but please consider carefully how to convey the salient information to the class. I will be listening/looking for depth of insight, application of "Normanisms" (I will be checking them off), and the persuasiveness and professionalism of your presentation.

Family Tree Project

Information design applying the concepts of visual perception covered in lecture and the readings.

Your team will develop a visual scheme to represent 3 generations of a family that represents as many variables and relationships coherently as possible (minimum 5). The only text should be names. The legend for this scheme should be presented on a single page.

Every team member will individually apply the same visual scheme and format to a different family (it doesn't need to be your own family). Those individual family trees should then be combined to create a single document, with one tree per page.

(If your group would like to choose a subject for visualization other than a family tree, I'm open to that. Consult with me before choosing something, though.)

Write up your team's visualization approach in a detailed one-page summary to preface the document: describe all the specific principles applied, and how well they correspond to representing the intended information (selectivity? length? etc.).

We will discuss and critique the designs in class, so be prepared to introduce and present your work coherently and concisely. Each group will be graded as a whole with all group members receiving the same base score out of 70 points. Your individual implementation of the scheme will constitute the remaining 30 points.

All documents (the group key/description and the individual implementations) should be submitted to the dropbox by a single group representative, no later than midnight on Monday, January 22nd.

Task Analysis Assignment

Perform a task analysis of the process of locating and printing out a specific article from an electronic database, using the Wallace Library catalog.

Use this paper as the example: Task analysis and diagrams for task models: TaskArchitect: taking the work out of task analysis, by Jon Stuart and Richard Penn. ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 86 archive (The "ACM" part should help you decide which of the library's electronic databases to search.)

Your task analysis should have two components: a task decomposition, and a hierarchical task analysis. The HTA should have both a written narrative as well as a formal diagram (hint: both Word and Powerpoint have organizational chart tools that will work well for HTA diagrams).

Your writeup should also include a description of how you gathered your information. Ideally, your work will be illustrated with screen shots of the interface where appropriate.

This assignment is worth 15% of your grade, and should be submitted to the dropbox in MyCourses no later than noon on Sunday, February 11th. Please also bring a hard copy of the document to class on Monday the 12th.

"Design It"

An in-class graded assignment. All will be revealed when you arrive.

Persona Assignment

I have divided the class up into groups of five (and one group of six). Your job, as a group, is to develop personas to be used in developing a new IT department website.

Using the guidelines in Kuniavsky's book (chapter 7, User Profiles), or the Evolt tutorial on persona creation, your group should research at least three different possible user types (IT student, non-IT or potential student, and IT faculty). You can do this by having each group member individually interview potential users, or by doing this as a group. (If your group has more than six members, you can add "IT Graduate Student" as a final type. Consider interviewing the graduate assistants for data, since they're relatively easy to to find.)

You are welcome to do cross-group research, as well. To facilitate this, I will try to have at least two other IT faculty members come to the class on Wednesday so that you can ask them questions. I assume that you have easier access than I do to other students!

Based on the information you gather, your group should develop persona profiles for each type of site user, and present those as part of a coherent and consistent single document (one example of this would be the persona section of the BBC Glass Wall document).

The group as a whole should make the decision about the persona characteristics, but each person should be individually responsible for a portion of the document. How you divide things up is up to you, but one approach might be:

• Overall project manager (responsible for formatting, quality control, etc)
• One person each for the IT student, non-IT student, and IT faculty personas
• One person to write up a description of the development process you used. How many people did you talk to? How did your group decide on key aspects of the personas?

A "credits" section at the end of the document should identify which team member was primarily responsible for each section or task.

The finished document should be submitted by midday on Sunday, February 25th. Only your project manager should upload the final document to the dropbox.

In addition to the document, each group member should submit a completed peer evaluation form, which will factor significantly in your final grade. The form can be submitted to me in paper form or electronically, no later than midnight on Monday, February 26th.