1. Welcome TC518: User-centered Design Section A (Day): Tues/Thurs, 1:30-3:20 Instructor: Dr. Jennifer Turns, Assistant Professor Phone: 206-221-3650 Email: jturns@engr.washington.edu Office hours: By appointment Teaching Assistant: Matt Queen Email: mqn@u.washington.edu Office hours: TBD Section B (Evening): Thurs, 6:15-10:00 Instructor: Ken Becker, Usability Engineer Phone: 206-919-9119 Email: ken.s.becker@boeing.com Office hours: By appointment Teaching Assistant: Elisabeth Cuddihy Email: ecuddihy@u.washington.edu Office hours: TBD

2. Mapping out Week 1 Introductions –Tell me about yourself –Go over syllabus –Finding potential project teammates… Introduction to User-centered design and usability –Lecture –Two activities –Revisit syllabus – focus on readings Project –Overview of activities –Group formation and project selection

3. Tell me about yourself General Name (and preferred way to address you) Best way to contact you (e.g., email, phone, etc.) Place of employment Domains of interest (e.g., medicine, e- commerce, etc.) Going Deeper Self-characterization: Indicate your level of agreement with the following statements by recording low, medium, or high for each: –I consider myself a designer –I consider myself adept at incorporating user considerations into my work Evaluation criteria: What criteria you would use to evaluate a) a hair dryer, b) a website Design process: Write down the sequence of five or so major steps one should go through in developing and evaluating a new computer system for end users. Techniques: What techniques do you use (have you used) to focus on users in your work? Please record the following information on an index card:

4. Getting a sense of the class… High Medium Low MediumHigh Already are designers… Adept at prioritizing user issues…

5. Syllabus – Learning Objectives+ Following the course, students may need to –Do user-centered design activities –“Sell” user-centered design activities –Plan user-centered design activities (and make choices) –Continue to educate themselves By the end of the course, students will be able to: –Critically discuss the concept & complexities of UCD –Identify and explain a variety of factors motivating/enabling UCD –Plan and execute activities that collectively instantiate a UCD process –Identify areas of scholarship useful in design to address user needs Class elements –Project (70%) –Readings and discussion (10%) –Final exam (20%)

6. Syllabus – Detailed schedule

7. Syllabus - Class Structure Week 1Week 2Week 3 Discuss project exercise 1 (topic B) Discuss project exercise 2 (topic C) Discuss project exercise 3 (topic D) Share results from project exercise 1 (topic B) Share results from project exercise 2 (topic C) Discuss New Concepts via Readings (topic A/B) Discuss New Concepts via Readings (topic C) Discuss New Concepts via Readings (topic D) HW: Readings Online Discussion Project Work HW: Readings Online Discussion Project Work

8. Syllabus – Project (70%) Description: –Follow a user-centered design process to explore the redesign of a product/process of your choosing. Examples: Students may redesign –Blood pressure cuff in local drugstore –Informational website for engineering educators –Check-out process for Internet retailer –Instructions/documentation for photo processing software –Educational toy designed for 5 year old Student Responsibilities –Project exercises (7, weekly homework, collectively 20% of grade) –Project deliverables (2, significant milestones, each 25 % of grade) –Review/advisory board participation

9. Syllabus - Readings & discussion (10%) ResponsibilityTiming READ: Read each of the required readings, and one or more supplemental reading Weekly DISCUSS, ONLINE: Make contributions to the online discussion Weekly due by Monday at 8:00 am DISCUSS, CLASS: Participate in class discussions and activities Weekly LEAD: Stimulate class discussion using topics extracted from online discussion Once during term

10. Syllabus – Weekly schedule

11. Syllabus – Course Design Principles Assumptions Learning involves construction of knowledge Students are diverse, and have knowledge to offer Principles Provide varied ways for students to learn & demonstrate knowledge Ensure students have opportunity to learn from each other Manage participant burden Elements Practice user-centered design activities Reflect on user-centered design activities through discussions Learn from perspectives of others Various interactions w/ readings (summarize, discuss, synthesize) …

12. Activity 1: Let’s move around… Your task: –Identify one or more domains that interest you –Find/meet other students who share domain interests –Talk about Your motivations for taking this class and Nature of your interest in the specific domain. Motivation for this activity: –Projects involve teams –Teams organized around domains –Project easier if teams have prior domain knowledge –Team formation (project selection) by end of Thurs

13. Activity 2a – Difficult Products Individually: Think about some product/ process that you have found to be difficult: –What was the nature of the difficulty and the consequences? –What do you think contributes to (causes) the difficulty? Group: Share your experiences.

14. User-centered design is what you do to achieve usable systems Usability is the typical way a user- centered design product is evaluated We will talk about usability then about user-centered design

15. Defining Usability “The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals in a specified context of use with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction” (ISO 9241-11) “The measure of the quality of the user experience when interacting with something – whether a web site, a traditional software application, or any other device the user can operate in some way or another” (Nielsen) “Usability means that the people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their own tasks” (Dumas and Redish)

16. Defining Usability (Barnum, p. 6) DimensionDescription LearnabilitySystem should be easy to learn, low start up overhead EfficiencyPossible to achieve high productivity Memorabilityeasy to remember, particularly for casual user Errorslow error rate, but also easy to recover from errors Satisfactionpleasant to use, so users are subjectively satisfied

17. Benefits of a usable system BenefitExamples… Increased productivityCost of being lost in information space Reduced errorsAviation, Medicine Reduced training and support E-commerce, Large corporations Improved acceptanceEducational tools that are idle Enhanced reputation, financial gain IBM case study (Maquire, p. 589)

18. Usability and User Experience Usability stems from entire user experience: –Device Interface – Visual, tactile, input devices… –Support manuals –Packaging –Computer system –Workspace Each of these aspects of a product/process can be redesigned to enhance usability…

19. Activity 2b: Difficult Products (cont.) Building on your discussion of a difficulty and contributing factors, discuss the following in your group: Is the difficulty a usability issue? If so, what aspects of usability are relevant? If not, are there other difficulties that are usability related in nature? What might be included as part of a “user’s experience” with the product? How does the answer to this question affect your diagnosis of contributing factors? What might be the benefits of a more usable version of this product? Also (time permitting)… What did the designers fail to take into account, such that the original design was difficult? Why might the considerations not have been taken into account?