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

Design process - "Museipoolen"

Final design!

Main idea: A museum pool for people to form groups with new people and visit the museum together.

Functions:
- Finding and creating new groups, both public and private which people can join.
- Each group has a group leader which manages who can join and the total number of people in the group.
- Each group is represented by a graphic bubble on the main page. If one presses a bubble it expands and covers the screen. In it, you will find all the information; group name, museum, time, address and so on. If you join the group, you can access the group chat. Pressing the icon of the museum will show information regarding this specific museum (people often feel like it is hard to find information about museums). 
- A friend or acquaintance system where you can friend people you had a good time with. It is very simple, and only offers you to invite them again if you create a group or decide to visit a museum.
- A system for showing information about museums in the area. They will pop up like a list of museum icons sorted after your preferences and which museums/exhibitions you've visited before.

Group meeting 6 october 2014

Today we prepared for exercise 5 and continued to brainstorm on our concept ideas while trying to come up with new ones. We made some progress by discussing and trying to visualize our different ideas. In our visualisation process we used photoshop to gain an idea of what our different design concepts would look like. The idea that is the most interesting idea for us at the moment is an idea that we call MuseumPool(BUBBLA!!...???!). The idea is that people that do not have anyone to go with can find people with similar interests and problem of finding somebody to go with. The service will provide an easy to use interface where you easily can find somebody to meet up with and share the experience with. Our current design is some kind of bubbly interface where each bubble represents a person and different colour schemes depending on availability. The bubbles size indicate match of interest, a big bubble means a good match.

Roy - Scenario 2

Roy has invited his best friends to his apartment in Södermalm on a Sunday for a casual hang out. They start by cooking a meal together and enjoying each other's company. They start to talk about video- and computer games, more specifically how great they are. One of Roys friends mentions that Tekniska Museet has as an exhibition called "GAME ON" that displays all kinds of games, old as new. There is an entrance fee but it's not that high. Everyone thinks it's a great idea and they immediately visit Tekniska Museets website to learn more about the GAME ON exhibition. The more they read, the more their excitement grows. They check the fastest way to Tekniska Museet and are just about to leave.

"But wait a minute, says Carl, one of Roys friends,

"It's Sunday today, which means that there will probably be a lot of kids there with their parents."

"Yes that is most likely true" replies Roy.

“This could mean that some of the games will be occupied and we’ll have to wait for our turn.” says Carl.

“You’re probably right, maybe it’s not such a smart idéa to go when we might have to wait in line to play the best games.”

Everyone in the group goes quiet.

"By the way, don't you have the new FIFA 15 on your Playstation 4?" says Carl.

"Yes I have! Why don't we have a tournament instead, it's free and there won't be any annoying kids?" says Roy.

Everyone agrees and instead of going to the museum they sit at home playing video games.

Main Persona

Name: Roy Gyllenstååhl
Age: 22
Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden

Background

Roy Gyllensthåål is from Stockholm, he is 22 years old and studies his third year at Stockholm University to become a lawyer. He lives with his girlfriend Emma and they have been together for around 2 years. When it comes to music he prefers to listen to american folk music, mainly because he likes the feels it gives him but also because it soothes his mind. When listening to music he likes to give his good old guitar a go and play along even though he isn’t that great.

Personality

Roy is a very ambitious guy who does everything to succeed with what he has sought out to do. Humble isn’t really his thing and he loves it when people recognises his daily performances. A cause for this can be that he is the youngest child in the family, a ‘mommys boy’ and that his two older sisters has spoiled him throughout his life. When he sees someone that does something better then him he can become quite jealous and therefore he always tries to improve. Even though he likes to look good in public he does not apply this to when he is at home where it can be quite messy sometimes. He can have quite a temper when things does not go as planned but he has a lot of ways to handle this.

Today

In his spare time he likes to do family research because it fascinates him to see where he comes from. He is also interested in environmental issues and tries to always stay updated with the latest discussions about this. Traveling and seeing new places is something he likes and would like to do more, he believes that you should try to get as much experience as possible while you are young. Cooking food is something he has started to fancy since he moved in with his girlfriend and the kitchen is a place where he has time to reflect upon his daily life. Roy is what you would call a social media junkie and he enjoys taking photos of his daily performances and uploading it to instagram for all his friends to see. He doesn’t really go to museums because he associates those places with his younger schooldays. At that time he was always forced to go and therefore he has a negative attitude towards it.

Pain points

Importance	Primary persona - Roy	Secondary persona - Lena
Finding the museum	5	2
Information about exhibitions	4	3
Interactivity with the exhibitions	3	2
Going to the museum with a friend or in a group	5	1
Clear opening hours	5	4
Using your smartphone interactively at the museum	4	2
Importance of low cost	5	2
How important is it to actually want to visit the museum?	5	3
The importance of being interested in subjects of the exhibitions	3	1
The amount of time it takes	4	2
How important it is to have fun in the exhibit	4	2
How important it is for it to be enlighting	2	5

1: Not very important----- 5: Very important

Secondary Persona - Lena Johansson

Secondary Persona

Name:            Lena Johansson 

Age:               34

Hometown:   Stockholm, Sweden

Background

Lena is born and raised in Stockholm. She works at Blackeberg Gymnasium as a curator; a job she really enjoys as she thinks that she can make the students lives better. Lena currently lives alone in a small apartment near Kristineberg but dreams about meeting the right man to have children and start a family with.

 Lena has a lot of female friends that she hangs out with. The highlight of the year is when Melodifestivalen starts and they all gather to watch and talk about it. They also travel together once a year with charter to spend time together.

Personality

Lena is a very social person, she loves to meet and get to know new people. She always has a smile on her lips and she finds it easy to laugh at almost everything. However, she has difficulties in finding a life partner. She has had some problems with relationships previously in her life and has a hard time to commit to someone.

 Sometimes her work can be stressful and overwhelming. When this happens Lena usually has a hard time handling those situations when they occur. To prevent this, Lena tries to be as structured as possible in her work, though she’s not the great planner she thinks she is.

Today

Every morning Lena reads the morning paper to keep up with the information flow in the society. She sees herself as fairly well informed about culture and the society and she thinks it’s important to have knowledge that is up-to-date. Lena is also a frequent user on facebook, though she doesn’t post so much. She mostly follows friends and looks up pages of things that she thinks is interesting. Her phone is her second source of finding information.

Since Lena has difficulties in finding a boyfriend, she is using some dating sites and applications to try to meet her life partner, but she thinks that it’s hard to find new places to go to; it gets monotonous to always go to a restaurant or a café. Lena wants to get a more active lifestyle as well as extend her common knowledge about everything she finds interesting. She wants to meet someone who she can share her thoughts with, as her friends doesn’t share her interest in more deeper discussions, rather than to talk about plain gossip.