Exam questions (tasks 19-23)

NOTE: The answers are not based on any reliable source (just my head:p), so if someone is using this blog for studying, don't rely on them too much ;) and feel free to correct them of course.

1. What is participatory design? What methods does it use? Give an example of a real situation in application development when you would use these methods and another situation when PD approach would not be adquate. In both cases explain why.
   
   Participatory design is an approach to design, where the end users are involved actively in this process. This involvement is being achieved by bringing them to the designer's workplace and make them committed into the design process. The main reason of such approach is the aim to make the product suitable for these users, to make sure it will meet their needs and be usable for them. This is can shorten the time needed for production process, as less changes will have to be made to the product in the future (as long as the product is changeable, but in case of software engineering, it usually is). Another advantage is that the users will have the feeling that the product is partially their effort, and they are more likely to accept it and like it.
   
   Participatory design uses several methods for revealing the user needs and designing. The main method is participatory workshop. During a workshop the users communicate and commit to shared goals, strategies and outcomes. This should be held in a neutral place. Brainstorming can help in generating new ideas during such session. A technique used during such session might be scenarios, that are descriptions about system's functions. The user can read them and refine if needed. This can be a trigger for conversation. Also interesting thing is games based on the scenarios, which play the same function of engaging the participants into conversation and exchanging ideas.
   
   I think participatory design can be used in many applications, but as long as the end users are available and willing to participate in the design. Developing web social networks may be a good example where the participatory design can be effective method; however everywhere where we cannot reach the real end-users this method may turn out to be completely useless.
   
   
   
2. a) Describe what is interaction design and how it is related to used-centered design.
   b) What is the difference between participatory design and contextual design approaches?
   
   a) Interaction design is a wide term standing for the process of designing products that interact with the user; it focuses on how the interaction should look like to be the most effective. It tries to answer the question of how to design a product that is usable for the users.
   User-centered design is one of ways of designing interactive products. It puts the user into the center of development process and rely on his opinion and knowledge about how the system should be like.
   
   b) Both participatory design and contextual design are methods of user-centered design. But the difference between in the way of user's engagement into the process. In participatory design the users come to the designer's workplace and work with them. In contextual design the user is still important, but it is rather the designer coming to the user's workplace and just observing his work, discussing the things that are unclear to him.
   
   
3. What is contextual inquiry? Describe your own experiences you had while conducting the contextual interview. Did you notice something important? What have you learned during the interview about the design process?
   
   Contextual design is a method of user-centered design for designing user interfaces. It includes observing and analyzing the user's work at his workplace. The process of observation and currently ongoing analysis is called contextual inquiry. It includes conventional interview with the user, observation phase during which we ask the user to do their job as usual, and wrap up which is to sum up the information the designer received and make sure he understood things properly. The recommended way of conducting the inquiry is staying in partnership relation with the client during the observation, keeping in mind to treat the user more like master who is teaching us his job than the one who we are teaching. The designer is allowed to interrupt (he should have informed the client about it in advance) and ask questions.
   My experience with contextual inquiry was nothing special, as everything went well. I think it is good way of understanding the user's work, because then we can see it exactly being done.
   
   
4. What ways of evaluation of a prototype connected to user centered design do you know? Describe them, give examples.
   
   During the course we have been talking about two ways of prototype evaluation: these were pluralistic walkthroughs and heuristic evaluation. The first method requires the users, and the second is done just among the designers' team.
   In the pluralistic walkthrough we create scenarios beforehand, that describe basic functionalities of the system. After this we meet with the users, show them our prototype and ask them to go through the actions mentioned in the scenarios explaining what they are doing. This helps to check whether the user interface is well designed, if the users know what to do at a time, and so on.
   The second method is more informal. First it requires defining tasks - basic system functionalities. After this each developer judges each funcion according to some criteria; there are 10 criterias given by Nielsen, e.g. visibility of system status, consistency and standards, error prevention, etc. Each team member writes down the errors they have found in each function and category. Then all the results are merged and the outcome encloses all the possible faults of the prototype.