HCI 440

Fall 2022

Craig Miller

Weekly Notes

Assignments

Individual Assignment
Project Proposal and Initial Discovery Research
Due Sunday September 25 before 11:30pm
Project overview should be posted online by Tuesday September 20

Overview

For this project, you will propose a project that may be used for the rest of the quarter. You will also conduct some preliminary user research for the project.

Domain of Inquiry Requirements

A domain of inquiry is the general area of activity that your project proposal should address. It provides some scope to your discovery research.

Hartson and Pyla refer to the root concept as the System Concept Statement. In section 3.2 (5.6 in 2nd edition), they explain its properties and provide an example. Their example provides more direction for the solution than what you should provide for this initial project. For this project, it is enough to provide a context of use (perhaps a task) and some potential difficulties that a solution (i.e. interactive artifact or redesign) should ultimately address.

Here on some considerations when deciding on your domain of inquiry:

  • Domain: are the details of the domain generally accessible to members of the class? A good example: organizing a schedule of university courses. A bad example: rerouting airplanes for air traffic control.
  • Accessible users: Will potential users be generally accessible for interview and observations? Good example: undergraduate students at DePaul. Bad example: airpline pilots.
  • Does the user population include individuals substantively different from yourself? If you see yourself as the primary user, this project is not for you! (you won't learn much by doing the project)
  • Project uniqueness: is the project sufficiently focused, perhaps with a distinct audience in mind (think of populations of 100s or 1000s of users, not millions), that any research and solution will be somewhat unique? Good example: an online submission and review app for DePaul research protocols involving human participants. Bad example: a new, improved texting interface.
  • Scope of interaction: this consideration is difficult because it requires thinking of possible solutions (something I don't want to encourage yet). Having said that, it is helpful to think of a problem whose technical solution involves just a few screenfuls of interaction. The point of this consideration is to keep the project doable over the course of just one academic quarter. The scope of interaction may involve revising (or customizing) the design of a current system.

Preliminary User Research

Interview and/or observe two people who work in your domain of inquiry. Your process should include the following:

  • How you recruited participants
  • Informed consent
  • Key questions (follow up questions are ok too)

Findings should include relevant (but not identifying) characteristics of your participants. A bulleted list of major insights should also be included in the findings. Detailed answers and observations can be noted and used to support insights.

Deliverables

Create a report with the following sections:

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Description of Domain of Inquiry
  3. Reflection of how the domain of inquiry fits the criteria
  4. Brief overview of research method
  5. Findings from research
  6. Appendix including details of selection criteria, method and results

If not already in the report, your appendix should evaluate the domain of inquiry in terms of the considerations listed above.

The executive summary is a one paragraph (maybe two) overview of your whole report. It should include at least one important finding.

Submission

The submitted document should use a common presentation format, ideally PDF. Submit the document through D2L. A rubric for grading the assignment is present with the dropbox submission folder.

By TuesdaySeptember 20, post an overview of your domain of inquiry (possibly with a finding) to the designated D2L discussion board. The overview may include a potential design opportunity that was elicited from your interviews. Posting a summary is a requirement of the assignment.

Grading

This project is worth 10% of the course grade and will be reviewed using the following criteria:

  • Completeness. All requirements are addressed.
  • Usefulness. The report emphasizes findings most relevant to defining the problem and developing a design. However, the findings should also allow for diverse approaches.
  • Support of findings. Findings are clearly based on results from the inquiry.
  • Domain of inquiry evaluation. The report provides a critical review of the domain using the listed considerations. Note that a good, critical review does not need to produce a highly rated evaluation of the domain of inquiry.
  • Ease of review. The document is organized and content presented to faciliate review of the above criteria.