week 1-2: about face

Chapter 1

In Chapter 1, the author introduces the concept of interaction design and expands on the definition of design as a whole. He emphasizes the need to keep the user in mind, and create a design that’s easy to use and understand. It’s stated that delighting and engaging the user is just as important as knowing their desires, motives, and needs. Lots of interactive design pushes the idea that users are just as literate in technology as the computer they’re using. This constantly leaves the user with more questions than answers and can make them feel dumb. The idea of a persona is then introduced as a key element to focus on avoiding this. A persona acts as an example of an ideal user and helps a design reflect the demographic using it. Goal-directed design is introduced as a structure for designing, laying out a formula to keep both the consumer and designer at the forefront when designing an interactive design with an adequate experience. The six steps are explained thoroughly at the end of this chapter.

Chapter 2

In chapter 2, the author then goes on to discuss the importance of design research. We are first introduced to quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative research answers the questions “how much” or “how many” while qualitative research tells of the what, how, and why behind real human situations, including complex situations in high detail. Goal-directed research is introduced next and is broken down into steps based around qualitative research. First is kickoff meeting, where the guidelines or parameters of a project are discussed with stakeholders to better understand the project. Next, is literature review, where the design team reviews documents related to the domain or product. This includes internal documents, industry reports, and web searches. In product/prototype and competitive audits, the design team looks at existing prototypes of the product as a way to fuel any questions for future interviews. This provides the team with an idea of the product's current potential. Next is stakeholder interviews. Stakeholders, anyone with authority over a project, provide the design team with information on a product’s opportunities and constraints before any user based research begins. Subject matter experts (SMEs) are also interviewed. They are officials hired by stakeholders who were once users of the product or its predecessor at some point. While providing in-depth knowledge of a product, their perspective can be skewed, hindering the innovation process. Customer interviews are also conducted. It’s important to note a customer and user can be very different at times, as it’s important to meet their needs as well as they can be vastly different from a user. Users are then interviewed and should be considered the main focus of a design effort. Users are also observed for their behaviors as a way for a design team to ask questions in real time.

Chapter 3

In chapter 3, a need for some kind of model is made necessary. In turn, the idea of a user persona is introduced. Personas are compositions or generalizations of the target user of a product or design. They are based around behavioral patterns discovered during the research phase. Personas help a design team visualize and understand a user's goals, intentions, reasoning, and purpose. This in turn helps create accurate, non stereotypical representations of a user base which avoids any unjust biases or hurtful assumptions about a target audience. Personas are powerful tools and help remind designers who they’re creating a product for. Multiple personas can be considered yet its best to keep one of them constantly in mind. This main persona can be one of the greatest tools a designer utilizes when designing for someone else.