Interaction Design Studio (DECO1200)
July 2007

Lecturer

Dr Rob Saunders

Tutor

Justin Clayden

Demonstrator

Kaz Grace

Students

Throughout this unit of study everyone in the class has to produce a personal website and a blog. The following is a list of everybody's DECO1200 web page.

If anyone would like me to change how their name is spelled above (or if I've just made a mistake) please just e-mail me and let me know how you'd prefer to be known.

Want to know what everyone is blogging about?

If you want to read what everyone is posting to their blogs in one place. I've created a public Bloglines page for DECO1200 that aggregates together all of the RSS feeds from the individual blogs. (Click on the DECO1200 folder.)

Classes

Aim

The aim of this unit of study is to introduce students to the issues involved in the design of interactive systems. This unit of study will focus on best practice in interaction design including the use of conceptual modelling, prototype development and usability testing. In addition, students will learn practical skills in web design including how to use core technologies (e.g. HTML, CSS and JavaScript) and how to use common web development tools (e.g. Dreamweaver and Flash).

Learning Objectives

On completion of this unit of study, students should be able to:

  • assess the requirements of an interaction design problem.
  • assess the structural and navigational requirements of web sites.
  • prototype, develop and document designs that require interaction.
  • design and develop web sites using modern web design techniques.
  • evaluate the performance of a design against usability goals.

Overview

The unit of study runs for 13 weeks. Each student will spend three hours each week in lectures and six hours in studio/lab tutorials. In addition, students are expected to spend three hours each week in self-directed lab work. This is designed to be a practical unit of study and students will be expected to experiment in the labs with the techniques that are taught in the lectures and the tutorials.

Timetable of Lecture Topics

Week Date Thursday Friday
1 26 July – 27 July Introduction to Interaction Design Introduction to Studio Project
2 2 Aug – 3 Aug Conceptual Models Cognitive Models
3 9 Aug – 10 Aug Collaboration/Communication User Interfaces
4 16 Aug – 17 Aug The Process of Interaction Design Prototyping
5 23 Aug – 24 Aug User-Centred Interaction Design Evaluation
6 30 Aug – 31 Aug Evaluation Techniques Testing and Modelling Users
7 6 Sept – 7 Sept Project No Classes
8 13 Sept – 14 Sept Project Project
9 20 Sept – 21 Sept Project Project
Mid-semester Break
10 3 Oct – 5 Oct Project Project
11 11 Oct – 12 Oct Student Presentations
  • Adam Arbib
  • Georgina Pope
  • Andrew Kurniawan
  • Patrick Wang
  • Jeerish Naidoo
  • Bethany Green
 Student Presentations
  • Drew Cosgrove
  • Russell Lee
  • Nathan Scully
  • Chloe Yeung
  • Kristina Mah
  • Christine Lam
  • George Stavropoulos
12 18 Oct – 19 Oct Student Presentations
  • Alexander Francis
  • Eileen Cheng
  • Will Kitching
  • Vanesa Molitorova
  • Trent Robinson
  • Andrew Trinh
  • Florence Sze-To
 Student Presentations
  • Brian Purcell
  • Uel Tien Ern Lim
  • Harrison Ginis
  • Michael Du
  • Kevin Chen
  • Eric Neo
  • Chloe Yeung
13 25 Oct – 26 Oct Student Presentations
  • Kristian Tasevski
  • Jean Viengkhou
  • Ali Malla
  • Martha Gouniai
  • Sarah Anne Colborne
  • Mandy Leung
 Student Presentations
  • Lucy Ro
  • Julia Tang
  • David Langham
  • Nathaniel Fay
  • Emma Chee
  • Suna Rizalar
  • Christine Lam

Student Presentations

Student presentations should be kept to a maximum of 5 minutes in length. The use of slides is recommended but not essential. Although the presentations are assessed, the intention is not for people to spend a great deal of time preparing slides, but to practice your presentation skills with the material you have and to practice asking and answering questions and generally thinking about design projects.

The aim of the presentation is to give everyone a chance to show the other members of the class what they have been up to, and to give everyone a chance to ask questions. You might think of this as an opportunity to ask your classmates whether they have an opinion about some tricky issue that you're grappling with that you haven't already discussed with others sufficiently on your blog.

Project

The studio is based around a single project, the design of a Web 2.0 application for the Apple iPhone. The aim of the studio project is to provide a framework for thinking about the design of interactive applications. Students will be expected to follow an iterative interaction design process involving the development of multiple prototypes and the evaluation of those prototypes with potential users.

Project Brief: Slides

What is the iPhone?

The iPhone represents the latest breed of multifunction communication devices, combining voice calls, e-mail, Internet browsing and entertainment. The iPhone includes an innovative multi-touch display screen that allows users to interact with applications using their fingers rather than a keyboard or stylus.

The integration of high-quality multimedia with its novel interaction technology makes the iPhone an interesting platform for the development of new kinds of mobile applications. The goal of this studio is to try to imagine some of these possible applications and to design how they might work.

The technical specifications for the iPhone can be found at Apple's website. The iPhone includes a 2.0 megapixel camera, 4GB or 8GB storage, as well as GSM/EDGE/WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity. The iPhone is only currently available in the US and does not yet support 3G networks.

The iPhone includes software for connecting directly to Google Maps and YouTube. The current software development model for iPhone applications is to develop Web 2.0 applications that the iPhone can connect to. This means that it will be possible for developers to produce new applications for the iPhone using standard web technologies.

Possible Applications

The iPhone is so new that there are many possibilities for thinking up completely new applications for it. Here are some questions that might start you thinking about the types of applications you might want to develop:

Social Networking
How could a new application for the iPhone support friends/family/colleagues stay in touch better?
Entertainment
What sorts of entertainment could the iPhone support beyond simply playing music/movies/games?
Location Sensitive
What if the iPhone could determine it’s location? How might this be combined with Google Maps?

Milestones and Deliverables

The following is a list of milestones and deliverables that will be due during the semester as you work on your project.

Milestone Deliverable Description

Friday, 24 August

Presentation 1

Presentation of initial idea for iPhone application.

Friday, 14 September

Minisite 1

Website documenting initial design idea, prototype and feedback from users.

Friday, 5 October

Minisite 2

Website documenting revised design and results from prototyping it with potential users.

Friday, 19 October

Presentation 3

Presentation of final design idea.

Friday, 2 November

Minisite 3

Website presenting final design idea as a completed product.

iPhone Resources

Technical Specifications
http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html
Web Development for iPhone
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/
iPhoney: A free iPhone web simulator for designers
http://www.marketcircle.com/iphoney/

Interaction Design References

Interaction Design: Beyond Human Computer Interaction
Preece et al.
Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/