Design Thinking Synthesize and combine new ideas to create the - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Design Thinking

Synthesize and combine new ideas to create the design

SWEN-444

Selected material from The UX Book, Hartson & Pyla

“HCI Design”

• Three design paradigms (patterns of thinking)
• Engineering – focus on design for HCI usability performance

achieved through evaluation and iteration

• Human Information Processing (HIP) – cognitive science based

design model of human mind as information processor

• Design-Thinking – consider emotional and phenomenological,

social and cultural aspects for the UX

Example – Car Design

• Engineering view – features (cruise control),

performance (fuel economy), human factors (airbags)

• HIP view – optimal use of human senses (position of

instruments, use of no look tactile cues)

• Design thinking view – cool factor, joy of driving, life style

considerations, pride of ownership

Phenomenology

• Philosophical study of experience and consciousness

about things that happen and can be observed (phenomenon)

• Not logical deduction or reflection …
• rather individual intuitive understanding
• For HCI – the emotional impact of an interactive

relationship with a product as part of our lives

• Technology ubiquity shifts the UX emphasis from

efficiency to presence

• Meaning in life

iPhone Android

Design Thinking

• Creative and innovative UX design concept first
• Combination of art, craft, science, invention
• Followed by functional and interactive design
• Long term emotional impact
• Aesthetics
• Social and value oriented interaction
• About situated interaction – the importance of place
• How technology takes on “presence” in user’s life
• May be market driven (think Apple)

Design Perspectives

• Filters to guide design thinking
• Ecological perspective
• How the system interacts with its external environment
• How work gets done in context of system infrastructure
• Interaction perspective
• How users operate the system – task orientation
• Emotional perspective
• Emotional impact
• Social, cultural implications
• Aesthetics and joy of use

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

Basic Emotions

Personas - a Pretend User

• A specific (but imaginary) person in a specific work role;

a personification

• Make design thinking more concrete
• User roles are too broad – can’t satisfy everyone
• Focus and satisfy one “person”
• Minimize designer bias to design for their own needs;

engage designer empathy

Personas – a Pretend User

• Represent a class of users
• Composite user archetypes based on behavioral data gathered

from many actual users

• Aggregate patterns of behavior
• Specific work or lifestyle related roles
• Using personas in design …
• Select a small number of personas from the user class
• Pick one as primary and design for that one
• Adjust as necessary to accommodate the others

Persona Characteristics

• Domain and system specific – not reusable
• Characterize ranges of behavior, not averages
• A cast of personas representing different clusters of behaviors
• Personas have goals
• They engage the empathy of stakeholders and designers toward the

target user

• Make decisions based on the cognitive and emotional dimensions of the

persona

• Note the power of fictional characters in television programs, movies,

and novels

Personas are Based on Research

• Personas are typically based on synthesizing the

qualitative results of ethnographic interviews and

• bservations
• Market segmentation models and research data

(personas are a common marketing research tool)

• Plus other sources of elicited information – interviews,

surveys, literature research

• Requires both detailed analysis and creative synthesis

Constructing Personas

• Establish a persona hypothesis
• Segment use across a set of observed behavioral variables (also

called axes or ranges)

• E.g., computer literacy, annual income
• Identify significant behavior patterns
• Clusters of users with shared behavior across multiple behavioral variables (6-8)
• Valid patterns demonstrate logical or causative relationships between clustered

behaviors

• Combine one of more patterns into a persona role
• Synthesize persona characteristics and relevant goals
• Review for completeness and distinctiveness

Map Interview Subjects to Behavioral Variables

• Map users against each variable range that

applies

• Relative placement is more important than precision
• Looking for clustering of multiple subjects on each variable axis

[Cooper and Reimann]

15-30 Variables per role is typical Service-oriented Price-oriented

User 3 User 2 User 1,4,5

Necessity Only Entertainment

User 1,4 User 5 User 3 User 2

Patterns:

• User 1 & 4
• User 3

Let’s Go Shopping! Behavioral variable

Synthesize Characteristics

• Give each major pattern a brief description, such as "the bargain-

hunter" or "the impulse-buyer"

• Synthesize details from the data
• Describe use environment, typical workday (or other relevant time period), current

solutions and frustrations, relevant relationships, etc.

• Stick to observed behaviors
• Avoid too much fictional, idiosyncratic biography
• A persona is a design tool, not a character sketch for a novel
• Carefully select a first [and last] name for the persona
• Evocative of the type of person the persona is
• Add some demographic information: age, geographic location,

relative income (if appropriate), job title

Example Persona

• Digital Camera users:
• Alice “Conservative Sharer”
• Female, married, children, ages 25-54
• Takes 250-500 snapshot photos a year
• Image quality is not a high motivator
• Subjects include family, schools events, and vacations
• Computer literate
• Occasional user of social networking sites for photo sharing
• Prints 10% of all photos

Ideation

• Collaborative group process for forming conceptual

design ideas; i.e., “applied design thinking”

• Idea creation
• Idea critiquing – review and judgment
• Brainstorming
• Team activity
• Stream-of-consciousness
• Generate as many ideas as possible
• Don’t be critical of or constrain creativity
• Brainstorming sessions generate a lot of material that

must be filtered and organized

• Categorize, sort, vote

Dissent

• An alternative to brainstorming
• Participants encouraged to criticize ideas
• Criticism surfaces problems that forces new thinking to

respond

• Produces more productive and innovative ideas

BLACK BOX THINKING: Why Most People Never Learn From Their Mistakes—But Some Do by Matthew Syed

Semantic Networks

• Represent information the way your brain stores it:
• Concepts
• Associations
• Visually organize your thoughts through a combination
• f drawing and text
• Sketch diagrams to replace words and trigger easier

memory recall

• Useful for grouping related items, building menu structures
• Use for note taking, planning, summarizing, exploring

ideas

Examples of Semantic Networks

• Mind maps
• Words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a

central key word or idea

• Used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas
• See http://www.mindjet.com
• Fishbone diagrams
• Cause and effect diagrams
• Categorize causes contributing to an effect or problem
• Primary and secondary causes

Mind Map Example

Fishbone Diagram

Categories

Sketching

• Rapid creation of freehand drawings
• Expressing preliminary design ideas
• Focusing on concepts rather than details
• Reinforces design thinking, augments communication
• Explore and expand design ideas
• Sketches are not prototypes
• They are abstract, incomplete, not artistic, disposable,

fast, annotated

“Overfitting”

• In computer science, pursuing complex models not

supported by detailed data

• By analogy, in UX design, to start keep it simple, avoid

complexity

• Don’t over design in the beginning, iterate