State-of-the-art analysis summary

Our state-of-the-art analysis can be divided into two different groups. One with applications that you use before your visit and one with interactive technology during your visit. Our target group (people who usually do not visit a museum) must recieve information before the visit to attract them and we also conclude that it might benefit if there were some kind of fun, interactive way to experience the exhibits.

We looked at Tekniska Museets website, Rabble and Event planners to get an insight how one might attract our target group to visit. From our analyses we draw the conclusion there might be a need for an information platform that does not send the user to other webpages that may or may not be easy to use, but instead displays relevant information in a visually appealing fashion.

Rabble uses special offers to attract people to different restaurants, stores and experiences, such as massages. We think that this could work to attract people to museums but not with the discount offers, but rather through relevant information.

There are a lot of different event planner websites, some working better than others. One that stood out was visitstockholm.se which had a clean and easy way to find information about specific events. We think that this type of design could be implemented more in future web pages since it gives a very good first impression to the user.

Another perspective of attracting people to museums is the actual interactive technology at the museums. We analyzed an audio guide and an interactive smell game to get a better insight interactive technology.

The visitors at the museum are usually not aware of the existence of the audio guides or the games that exists. They are introduced to the concepts when they arrive. We think that it might be a good idea to highlight these technologies at a web page or an app to attract more visitors.

Our project is starting to head more towards some kind of technology that is combining solutions to attract people to the museums with interactive solutions at the museums. We have begun brainstorming about combining existing “games” at the museums with an easy to use mobile application that also contains relevant information about the museums.

Summary of interviews

We went to Tekniska Museet to make our interviews. The first conclusion that we could draw was that people generally haven’t really reflected on their museum habits. It felt like many of the answers to our questions were about things that people have not thought about very much. E.g. when we asked the question “What would make you go to museums more often?” Many of the answers felt as if the person didn’t really know what would make him or her go to museums. The typical answer to this question was something like “More exhibitions I guess”. This tells us that people don’t reflect a lot about specific reasons to visit a museum.

Another question that we asked was if people were willing to use their smartphones more interactively at the museum. The answer to this question varied a lot between people of different ages. Older people thought that using the smartphone at the museum would be a distraction for them and that it would take away their attention from the exhibition. Younger people were more willing to use their smartphones if it served a fruitful purpose for the visit. “QR-codes are lame” was one of the answers to this question but the same person also admitted that it could be interesting if it served an extraordinary purpose.

We interviewed some people who were in Stockholm on vacation and was visiting the museum. We got the feeling that it is easier to go to museums if you are on vacation. It is a way to experience the culture in the city you are in and you can learn a lot about the place you are visiting. You are also more likely to go to a museum while travelling since you already have mindset to go out and do things and to see and experience a lot of culture that is different from your own.
We also learnt that people usually visit a museum together with one or two friends rather than go alone. Most of the people we interviewed were at the museum together with friends. Not many visitors were there alone or in a larger group.

In final conclusion we think that we have learnt a lot from our visit to the museum not only from the interviews but also from our own experiences of the exhibitions. Since we ourselves are all in our specified target group we believe that we can use both the interviews and a lot of our own impressions when coming up with a concept that will make people go to museums more often.

Interview Björn Lundkvist

Interview 22/9 at tekniska museet.

Interviewee: 25 year old male german tourist

How often do you go to museums?

• I don´t go very often, maybe only once or twice a year.

Why do you go to museums?

• Usually I want to learn something of some special subject like a period of art or historic events.

What would make you go to museums more often?

• Hard question.. Interactivity is one thing but I guess more museums with different topics would interest me.

Would you be interested to use your smartphone interactively at the museum if it was possible?

• Yes if I had a smartphone

Do you usually go to museums alone or in a group?

• Usually with a friend. Never in a group.

Do you have any special memories of a museum visit that you liked?

• No I don´t think I have.

State of the art analysis - Björn Lundkvist

I have chosen to analyse the different eventplanners for Stockholm. By eventplanners I mean websites and apps where you can find out what is going on in Stockholm. At first I thought “This will be great, event planners must be one of the most interactive kind of sites you can come around”. It took me about 5 minutes of searching on google and google play to realize that the state of the art eventplanner sites are not very good when it comes to interaction. Firstly most of the websites are ugly. The first feeling that I got from many of these sites was a feeling of being overwhelmed with text and information. It made me want to close down the sites immediately. The sites tried to force information on me that I wasn´t at all interested in. It was like being washed over by a great wave. My goal was to find information about what different kinds of things were going on at museums in Stockholm. I wasn´t at all interested in the latest talk shows or which bar is hip at the moment. Here are some example of websites with too much information that you don´t want: http://www.alltomstockholm.se/, http://www.yelp.se/events

Once you manage to get past the first shock of letting your brain process the sea of information that is thrown at you, you finally get a chance to look up the menus. Most of these sites have pretty good and simple menus and you can easily find where to look for events at museums. But I think the first impression is very important and most of these websites are lacking in that area.

The most interactive and also the most appealing from a design perspective was this website: http://www.visitstockholm.com/

I think it is good because the first thing you see is warm and very inviting picture of Stockholm by the water. You then see the menu. It is a simple menu where you can choose what information you are looking for. After making your choice on the menu you get sent to a submenu where you can narrow your search down to find more specifically what you are looking for. I chose culture and history for example. You the get to see images of what is going on around stockholm in your search category. You can click on these images to find out more about that particular event and watch videos asociated with the event. i think this is a good and inviting way to find out what you can do around stockholm. It is user friendly and simple unlike most the other sites that just try to throw tons of information in your face.

Something I would like to see more of on these websites is videos. I think many of the museums would benefit from having an introductory video on their page showing the current exhibitions so the visitor can get a glimpse of what you can experience at the museum. For example when I visited tekniska museet along with my fellow groupmates we saw the exhibition Game on. It was a very interesting exhibition where you could play all sorts of different videogames. If I had seen a short video with a presentation of that exhibition I am sure I would have gone there earlier. It was truly an incredibly fun exhibiton but I hadn´t heard of that exhibition at all beforehand. This makes me think that museums should work on advertising themselves more so that they can reach out to people. I think that one of the reasons for people not going to museums is that people simply are unsure of what to expect from the museum. People never have a clue about what is going on and therefore they never go.

Lastly I would like to point out that I couldn´t find any good apps whatsoever for finding events in Stockholm. This is something that confuses me since there are so many websites for events. Perhaps I am bad at finding apps or maybe there simply aren´t any good apps out there. I believe that there must be apps out there though but since I could not find these apps it makes me think that the apps should be easier to find and access.    

Rabble – State-of-the-art analysis

Rabble is a smartphone app designed to notify its user of discounts or sales and deals nearby. It uses GPS to see how close they are and display relevant information about the sales such as what it applies to and for how long. Rabble has been used as well by companies to make their locales more visible to the target group (smartphone users).

I'm thinking that a similar solution could be applied to our target group, people who don't go to museums often. I Rabble helps people find new places to do consuming, then you proboably could make an app to help people find museums and information about them.

The idea would be something along the lines of an app which either notifies the user of discounts on certain museums and exhibits, or instead act as an easy way to get an overview of the museums nearby and what they offer.

Problems for Rabble’s users might be that they often get what they need, but few times get exactly what they’re looking for. I might, for example, be interested in a certain kind of headset for my phone, and find that Rabble has a discount on a similar, but decidedly different headset. I will get something similar, but not exactly what I wanted in the first place. For consumers this might not always be a problem, but if we would apply it to an app for museums, it might work differently!

Museums, as opposed to consumer electronics, are vastly differenty. No two museums are the same! You can’t expect to reach out to people who might be interested in a certain exhibit at a certain museum by ordering them after which have a discount or which are near you. You would rather have to order the museums after preference or similar attributes at first.

Interview by Anton 22/9 at Tekniska Museet

Interview by Anton 22/9 - 14 at Tekniska Muséet

Subject: Man from Austria, 20-25 years old. Was recorded.

How often do you visit a museum?

- Not very often, one time in five years

Why do you visit a museum? What is it that appeals you to visit?

- Now the trigger is that i’m on vacation, and normally I go to technical installations because I find it interesting, but I don’t like art. And the trigger… I don’t really know the trigger. With friends or family and on holiday/vacation.

Is it more appealing when it is interactive like here (GAME ON 2.0 at tekniska muséet)

- I don’t have an answer for that.

Can you think of something that would make you visit a museum more often

- Mm, that’s a tricky question.¨

Is it more appealing when it is interactive like here (GAME ON 2.0 at tekniska muséet)

- Maybe… I don’t have an answer for that.

Do you visit by yourself or in a group?

- In groups, always in groups.

Could you imagine using your phone in an interactive way when you’re at the museum?

- I don’t have a smartphone, but maybe. I think QR is a bit lame.

Would you if it was something more special than just at QR-code?

- Possibly

Do you have any special memory from a visit to a museum that’s more prominent than others? If you do, then why?

- Last memory was the Vasa museum because it was very big and memorable, but I think the Vienna technical museum was the best because there you saw the first computer and I’m a computer student so that was very interesting. The intrest makes it memorable.

Interview by Alexis 22/9 at Tekniska Museet

(P1 - Woman age 40-50)

(P2 - Woman age 25-30)

Approximately how often do you go to a museum?

P1 - "Max 2 times a year"

P2 - "Not even that, once a year."

Why is that?

P2 - "Because it takes time. Your mind should be set on going to a museum. You are stressed quite often and you do not have a open mind."

P1 - "I tend to go mostly with my job, otherwise private I'm usually not that interested."

What do you think would make you go more often to museums?

P2 - "If I had more private time."

P1 - "Or something you were interested in."

Do you go alone or in a group?

P1 & P2 - "in group"

Have you ever been alone in a museum?

P1 - "No"

P2 - "No but at exhibitions"

Would you consider integrating your smartphones in the visit, for example, get more information on it?

P2 - "No"

P1 - "Yes"

For example: some museums have apps you can download to get more information, is that something you would consider?

P1 - "Then I'd have to be very interested if I wanted more information"

P2 - "The young generation (aimed at P1) sees an opportunity. Older generations says what a pain”

Do you have any particular memory of a good museum experience? Something that stands out?

P2 - "The Photographic museum in Stockholm. The images were shocking, something you did not expect which sticks and it becomes an experience, even if it might not be something nice (**referring to the images). It touched and you will not forget it."

P1 - "I can not think of anything that was extra good."

State-Of-The-Art Analysis by Alexis

What is it?

Some museums (like ABBA The Museum in Stockholm) offer their visitors a so called “Audio Guide” as a complement for the exhibition. It is a device with a small speaker that plays a certain  recorded scripted message when it comes in contact with a special pad. These pads are located at certain points of the exhibition and give the owner of a Audioguide some extra information about the object near the pad. The voice on the Audioguide is usually someone famous. For instance, at ABBA The Musem it is the members of ABBA themselves who have recorded the material for the Audioguides. 

Target group?

The museum aim to target people who want to know more about the exhibition and are willing to pay a little extra for this privilege. So in the ABBA-case they aim to target the fans who might know alot about ABBA, but want the exclusive more personal information.

Good stuff

The Audioguide offers a personal guide of the museum and (in some cases) the privilege to listen to a famous person. It interacts with the users and serves as a complement to the objects in the museum. It gives the user an additional sense to experience the exhibition which improves the amount of information you obtain. It can create a natural path through the museum and therefore counter jams of visitors (provided enough people have Audioguides. 

Bad stuff

However, it can ruin a bit of the experience when going to a museum. People usually go to museums in groups so they can share the experience. But the Audioguide can interrupt the interaction within the group because of the attention it demands from its user. It also limits the users freedom at the exhibition since the placements of the pads create a route one might feel obligated to travel. Though it usually is quite small and light, it can be a drag to carry the device during the entire visit. It seems that most museums demands a additional fee for the Audioguide which makes it into a privilege that not everyone can afford.

State-Of-The-Art Analysis by Emil

Tekniska Museet - Usability on Webpage
I'm going to try to do a state-of-the-art analysis of the Tekniska Museum webpage. First, I'm briefly going to analyze who the target group is for the webpage, and who actually uses it. Second, I'm going to analyze what worked well, and what didn't work well based on my own experience and based on a test with assigned tasks I asked a testperson to do. Last, I will present the tasks and results that I assigned to the testperson together with screenshots of the website.

Who is the target group for the webpage?
From what I understand from using the webpage myself, it’s relatively easy to find basic information of the museum, such as opening hours, prices, exhibitions and so on. It’s harder to find what else this page contains, such as questions you can ask to the staff, and information about, for example, inventors.

  Therefore I believe that the target group the developers had in mind for this page probably is a medium technical skilled person, a person that is used to more interactive webpages and links. It’s probably persons between ages 15-50 that can find information from the website with ease the first time they visit them since I assume that these people use highly interactive technology daily.

Who is using the webpage?
Those who actually use the webpage are probably, for the most part, parents with small children and maybe teachers who's looking for information about visits from schools. I would imagine that the former has more experience in using these kind of website, and that the latter are having a harder time with the webpage. (Presumably because I think that they for the most part are older and non technical...). I also think that the people in the target group fits into the users of the webpage, though the youngsters might use the app instead or as a compliment.

What is working well on the site?
There is easy access to most of the site in just a few clicks! The top menu is the shortcut to almost everything that possibly would want to find. This was proved in the test I did with a test person.
  The front page is presenting all the relevant information that you need, though there is a lot of links and pictures which could drag attention and confuse the user from concentrating on his/hers assigned tasks.

What is working bad?
Things that is not working well on the page is the search function which isn’t presenting the results in a clear way. The user has to scroll down on the resulting page to find more results than the two that are shown directly after the search. This wasn’t obvious the first time I and my testperson used the search function.
  Another thing, which I discovered from the test tasks, is the questions that you can ask to a specific exhibition. The design here is clearly not thought through and it was hard to see where the questions were, and where the user could ask a question himself.
  The font and the titles on some pages made it hard to see what and when information was presented, as in the example with the exhibition questions.
  Also, as the test showed, the top menu wasn't designed for a small computer screen like mine. There was no indication that you could scroll down on the extended menu to get more accessible links. You can see picture examples of this in the task test below.

Tasks for the test person:
1. Find the opening hours.
This task was easy. The test person found the opening hours in just two clicks. There was a direct link from the top of the webpage, but hidden in the top menu. It can be accessed as shown in the picture. (The opening hours is displayed at the bottom of the page at all times, so you can always scroll down to find them.)




2. Find future exhibitions.
This task was also relatively easy for the test person to achieve. She found a link for this information from the same top menu as the opening hours could be accessed . See picture above (link is down to the left).

3. Find the GAME ON exhibition and write them a question.
As previously, the test person put the mouse over the “Besöka” button on the top menu to get the extended options for that choice. When you click on “Utställningar” you get to this view:



She then clicked on the GAME ON picture to get to the GAME ON exhibition, and the view changed to this:



After some trouble, she managed to find the questionnaire at the bottom of this page. But it was hard to see when the questions started and that the text you saw actually was user generated questions. In the picture below the user generated questions can be seen at the bottom.



It was a long scroll down until the questionnaire showed up, and this was hard to understand for user due to the design of this page.

4 Find information about swedish inventors.
This task showed to be the most difficult one. This was probably due to a design problem on the extended view from the top menu.
  This is how the menu looks like when you move the mouse over the “Veta mer” button at the top:



As you can see, the menu doesn’t show swedish inventors. But if you scroll down while keeping the mouse on the extended menu, you’ll notice that there are more clickable options on this menu. One of those is directing you to the swedish inventors page. It took some time until the test person found out that this was possible. Instead of scrolling down on this menu she tried to search for “svenska uppfinnare”. The search result presented the link “svenska uppfinnare” as the third result, which was not presented until you scrolled down on the webpage.



(this is the search result for “svenska uppfinnare”. The link to the page “svenska uppfinnare” is just below the second result visible on the screen. The test person did scroll down, but didn’t see the link. She continued to search for the inventor page using different links and methods for a while until she noticed that it was accessible in the “Veta mer” menu as described above.)

5. Can you buy food at the museum?
This task was also easy for the subject to find. It was accessible from the top menu and she arrived to the right page in just 2 clicks.

6. Can you buy SL-tickets at the museum?
The last and final task went smoothly aswell. She first went to the Ticket page, but here there was only information about the museum tickets. She then went to the “Hitta hit” page where there was information about the museum selling SL-tickets. This information is also presented in the “Butik” page but the user never thought of going there.

/ Emil

State-of-the-art Analysis

Do you have a nose for this?
At The Museum of Natural History they had an exhibition called Människan djuret(translation: Human animal) at this exhibition they had a section which was called, Do you have a nose for this?


This setup consisted of a on screen application and a tube which could produce different kind of smells based on your decision on their application. I suspect that the interface for this wasn't working as expected as you could see computer arrow and nothing changed even though you clicked on the screen, I did however understand how it should work and was quite fascinated of the idea.

The tube is supposed to produce a wide range of smells, from the smell of roses to the smell of feces. By smelling the air flowing out of the tube you were supposed to guess what it was. I'm unsure of the size needed to setup this due to the fact that it was mounted inside a table, but I do not imagine that it would require much space at all.

This isn't really in direct relation to our target group but as a part of a game or quiz I think that this would work quite well and since our target group is people that usually don't go to museums very often I do think that games and quizzes is one possible way to attract more visitors.

Apart from this they also had a lot of somewhat interactive games all over the museum!


//Mathias

  

Interview by Mathias 22/9 -14 at Tekniska Museet

Interviewee: Woman, 35-40, teacher from Stockholm

How often do you go to a museum?
- "Not so often, maybe once or twice a year at the most."

Why go to a museum?
-"Today I came because I have a visitor, he is from Australia, and then I'm a teacher
also so I check to see if it would be good for my students to visit."

What would cause you to go more often to the museum?
-"Exhibitions that interest me."

Would you be willing to use your phone or something similar for interaction at the museum?
-"Yes, absolutely! "

Do you go alone or in a group?
-"Both actually."

Do you have any special memory from a museum visit, why that?
-"Abba Museum actually, we were there with my students and they thought that it was great because it was so interactive and you could do so much stuff .. they liked it a lot and could have stayed longer!"

// Mathias

Interview by Emil 22/9 -14 at Tekniska Museet

Interviewee: Woman, 25-35 years, not from Stockholm. Didn’t want to be audio recorded.

How often do you visit a museum?
- ”Very rarely, once a year perhaps.”

Why do you visit a museum? What is it that appeals you to visit?
- ”Wow.. what a difficult question! I don’t really know..”

Is it more fun to visit a museum if there are more interactive things, like there are here at GAME ON?
- ”Yes, this exhibition (GAME ON) made me come here because there are a lot of games, and I guess that’s it’s more fun when the exhibition is as interactive as it is here. But it depends a lot on the exhibition.

Can you think of something that would make you visit a museum more often?- ”Ehh, that depends.. I don’t know.”

Do you visit by yourself or in a group?- ”It varies from time to time, but today I’m here alone.”

Could you imagine using your phone in an interactive way, when you’re at the museum?- ”Yes, probably, if it were something that really enhanced the experience; maybe to get more information or something like that. But otherwise I don’t think I would.”

Do you have any special memory from a visit to a museum that’s more prominent than others? If you do, then why?- ”Difficult question.. I visit museums so rarely so I don’t know. I’m happy with the GAME ON exhibition, this visit gets more fun when you are allowed to interact with things.”

/ Emil

Seminar 1 - 18/9 - Thoughts from the group discussion

Today was our first seminar with Vincent, our group supervisor, where we discussed chapters 2, 4 and 5 from the Designing for Interaction book.

We started talking about what we've been reading and something that caught all of our attention was the Genius Design approach that was mentioned in chapter 2 in the book. At first we discussed that it’s was probably a bad idea to use this approach in our group project but after some discussion with Vincie we decided that a combination of genius design, the UCD and ACD would suit our needs. He made us realize that we're also are a part of our target group and that we should think of our own needs and desires when designing. The target group that we've chosen to work with is people that don’t go to museums or who rarely visit them.

After that insight we started asking ourselves when we last visited a museum, why we went, what we thought before and after the visit and so on. This information will make our questions more relevant to our target group. Another interesting thing that came up during the discussion was that when we talked about our museum exhibition on monday, we concluded that we were really looking forward to it, even though none of us have been to a museum in a long time!

Reading Seminar 1 - Mathias Bylund

For seminar 1 we read chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 from the book designing for interaction. The chapters went through different approaches for preparation of a project. There were several topics that I had not heard about before I think many of them will come in handy when we are preparing for our own project.

Chapter 2 outlined four different design approaches. The first one was User-centered design which is an approach where you put the users in focus and the designers goal is to translate their needs into the project. Activity-centered design was another approach where you instead focused on activities and tried to find tools for the actions.

The most analytic approach hence the name System centered focused on components of the system to make a robust design taking into account all the objective needs of a functional system. Sometimes designer feel the need for full freedom and know or hope that they have the wisdom to design something solely on their experience. This last approach, called genius design in the book, is commonly used but should of course be used with care and by actual experienced designers. Although I think this approach would be handy in some cases I would argue that the other approaches are more reliable I suggest that we use a user-centered design for our project.

They talked about design strategies in chapter 3. A design strategy is way to decide the why, the how and the value of a product. There are many things to keep in mind when making a design strategy. Framing was mentioned in the book and the meaning of the concept is that you find out the core problem of a bigger one to make a more precise decision about what is needed. Other ways to make a strategy is making traditional research, interviews, getting to know the competitors, differentiators and ROI(Return On Investment). I think that it’s important to have knowledge about all the strategies to be able to make a mature decision about which are useful for a project.

Chapter 4 contained approaches of different ways to do design research. I would summarize the chapter as a lot of ways to do creative brainstorming. A lot of the concepts are probably very useful. I would love to apply collaging for our project because I think it’s a great way to create new ideas taking into account all the project members visions of how the vision the final result.

After the point where you have to be open minded and have the mindset no idea is a bad idea comes the time to get a structure and a more concrete idea of the project, this is covered in chapter 5. This is the time to kill your darlings, and kill them you shall…..!

Question for discussion: When is it better to use a Genius Design instead of the other approaches, even though you are experienced couldn’t you always gain new insights?

/Mathias

Reading seminar 1 - Björn Lundkvist

After reading about UCD I have come to realize that there are a lot of things about the design process that you can easily overlook when you think about design. The design process is built on the foundation of a lot of different perspectivs and ideas and I think that you oftenly take the design process for granted but it is actually a very complex and well thought process.

There are different ways of working with design. The book mentions four different appproaches on how to think when you create a design and all these different approaches have their own pros and cons. There are also different ways of researching what approach might be best to use for your own specific idea and cause. There are many ways to think when you are working with projects invovling interaction design. Therefore you must do research to be able to know and plan which way to proceed with your design ideas.

The way in which you analyze your research also plays an important part in deciding how to create your design.

I think that it is easy to go ahead of yourself when you have an idea and you use your own perspective, energy and imagination as fuel when you create your design. This way it can be problematic when your design is finished and you have only trusted your instincts. I think it is important that you do proper research that is relevant for your specific idea and that you analyze it carefully so that you know what road to take when you are working with interaction design.

Question for discussion: Say for example that your target group is the whole world. Since cultures and people are unique all over the world, how do you choose where and how to do your research? How do you make quick and cost effective research for a large target group?

Reading Seminar 1 - Alexis Tubulekas

In chapters 2, 4 and 5 in the book Designing for Interaction we study the following; the different approaches there are to do an interaction design, how to perform design research and last but not least, how to manage and structure data from a survey.

The different approaches focus on different things. For example, the User-Centered Design (UCD) has the user in mind and assumes that they know best. While Activity-Centered Design focuses on the behavior at different tasks. Which you choose depends entirely on the situation but the best thing is to move between these approaches. I think this choice is often made unconsciously. Since we in our group don’t know what our product will do, we cannot yet decide which approach we will apply.

When we’re doing design research, we leave our theories and thoughts to explore the real world. It's important to be accurate and effective since researching can prevent many future problems. Often designers work in a field where they lack expertise. Then it's even more important to do research to understand users' needs. Since our group is not accustomed museum visitors, we could for example talk to the staff at the museum to learn about visitors that visit their particular museum. Our investigation will largely be based on questioning of the visitors. Therefore it is important to prepare the questions before, to be as efficient as possible and then apply it to pre-formulate the right questions.

After the design research will have gathered a lot of data that might seem very unstructured and overwhelming. It is important to make this into structured data. The gathered information will be presented in different mediums. To analyze and evaluate we need to present everything physically and visually to easily grasp our research. One example in the book is to write everything on post-it notes, which sounds like a lot of fun. I hope we choose this method!

Persona is a conceptual model to easily spot trends in behavior, motivation and expectations in individuals. You create fictional characters that represents a portion of the target audience. I think personas is a good trick to really make sure to meet the needs of the users of the product. I hope and believe that we will use this method. As of now it seems that our target group will be ”people who never or very rarely visits a museum”.

//Alexis

Reading Seminar 1 - Emil Westin

In these chapters the author discuss and inform on how to prepare a design process in the best possible way.
In chapter 2 Saffer writes about how to approach interaction design. He speaks about what to think when you accept a design job and that there is four major roads to design by. The User Centered Design (UCD), the Activity Centered Design, the System Design and last but not least, the Genius Design. Genius Design is the most popular and used design method because it’s not necessary to do a lot of research when you work in this way, but Saffer points out that this method is best suited for those designers with a lot of experience. A new designer should work with UCD or the activity centered design methods because they let the designer to know their audience and to think of the design from a users point of view, and that is really important if you would want to make a product that is usable.

In chapters 4 and 5 Saffer talks about how to do an effective and qualitative research and how to best analyze your data so that you can work with it later on. It’s a good thing to look for patterns when interviewing subjects. If an answer is said once, it’s a phenomenon, if it’s said twice it’s a coincidence and if it’s said three times it should be looked on as a pattern. Patterns are easy to work with and reflects what subjects think about things and how they use certain products. Saffer also points out that when you ask questions you should really think about not to say them in a leading way, and that you should be as neutral as you can be in your interviews. And most important of all, write everything down for future analysis! 

After you have collected your data it’s time to evaluate it and to try and see what the problem really is and how to solve it with design! Saffer thinks that it’s a good way to materialize your data, to make it physical. It can be a challenge because you usually have all kinds of different places to store data in different formats. He brings up four different analyze methods that you can work with when you evaluate your data. All of them seems to be good and I think that it’s a matter of taste and maybe what your projects goal is. The most used method is probably the ordinary analyze method, but to know what method is most effective could be hard to know from beforehand.

In chapter 5, Saffer also talks about Personas and what an important role this design tool is. To make a virtual person that the designer can have in mind when designing a product for that target group. For small projects it’s best to keep the number of Personas on a low level.

/ Emil

Reading seminar 1 - Anton Sivertsson

The chapters in the book go through a lot of the steps you take before you start the real designing of a product, for example how to attack a design problem or how to do proper design research. One of the things I found very interesting was the different ways of attacking a design problem that was brought up: user-centered design, activity design and genius design, which were all very different in their approach and where to put the focus of usage in your product.

The later chapters we read were about how to make proper research and how to treat both researched subjects and interviewed people as well as what NOT to do. A lot of focus was put on the importance of this stage in the design process and how much could be accomplished if the research stage was treated correctly as well as how it could help in getting an overview of the problems that you will be faced with in later stages. Formulating a problem seemed to be one of the most important aspects of pre-design, however different kinds of design approaches treat design research differently. For example user-centered design relies heavily on it while genius design relies very thinly on it, if at all.

If I relate to our own project, I think we will have great use of proper design research both in the beginning and maybe even more when we start to reach a concrete concept. We proboably will have to include users in the design over and over if we are to acheive a user-friendly concept.

The other texts were two ISO-text, one about user-centered design in general and the importance of user-centered design and one about a specific example with ergonomic standards for working with a visual terminal. There was also a text about key principles of user-centered design which brought up several interesting things. One was that user-centered designing of products often was left to only one person in the design group instead of being considered by all throughout the design process. This is all the more interesting since in our project the whole group will work from an entirely user-centered design perspective.

My question is: is genius design the most effective doing design research or without?