Reading Seminar 2 - Emil Westin

For this seminar we were supposed to read chapters 6, 7 and 8 in the course literature. These chapters explain and process the basic tools and methods for HCI design, both for different brainstorming methods, refinement and prototypes and product developing. Throughout the entire HCI industry most of the designers agree that the design process often starts when the designer starts to design a prototype. It's at that step that the product is concretized and become reality; it's the step from thought and sketches to physical form.
  When you have a prototype, you'll have a bigger chance of detecting problems that you might not have thought about before, problems that can not be seen until you actually try to use the product. It could be functionality problems but also things like sizes of buttons, colours and choose of fonts; you can more easily see what works in reality and what doesn't. There are different kinds of prototypes. A designer could choose to create a more lifelike, high-fidelity, prototype, i.e. programming an app in code, or do a more primitive, low-fidelity, prototype, i.e. draw on paper/the computer and then simulate a user session by showing different slides depending on "where the user clicked" on the paper slide.
  I think that our project could really benefit from a prototype, as it is a way to see our work in real time, though I think that a real programmed prototype would mean lots of work and time spent. A conclusion I draw from this is that we should do a more primitive, but still lifelike, prototype, i.e. digital pictures that we use in a simulation.
  Saffer also writes about some guidelines that a designer should think about, when creating adaptive products. These guidelines bring up the importance of how a design should be designed in such a way so the product feels personalized for the user. The designer should help the user to learn by combining doing with understanding, but try to not steer the user in the right way. Rather, the designer should set up a path in such a way so the user can choose to follow by choice. It's a fine line to not steer the user and at the same time "push" them in the right direction so that they can learn the product easily. Another guideline of importance tells about sensitivity and responsiveness. The designer should try to focus on making the application personalized for each user, and that each user should feel as if the artefact is alive and responsive. This, I think, is of great importance in a modern design. As the technology is sprinting ahead and we, the users of todays applications, are used to products that respond for every click we make, it should be one of the main focuses of designing a product. Personalization and responsiveness are two key terms that I think my group should keep in mind when we design our product, which as of today, looks like it's going to be an application for a mobile phone.

/Emil