Term Project

Com 597: Term Project Paper

Summary Journal

The last assignment of this class is to summarize what I have learned through this course from the readings, the class assignments, and the class observations. Through the well-organized course schedule, I have learned how to develop the interactive design as a process, which has 3 steps including knowing the background, understanding the process, and practice. As a non-experience interactive design person at the beginning of the quarter, I could say that I gained sufficiency knowledge of basically interactive design to start work on it. The 3 steps learning process is detailed below.

Step 1: Knowing the background

The early few classes, plus the readings provided the general basic background of the interactive design. Bill Moggride’s book “Designing Interactions” is the good source for the people who are new for this interactive design realm to study the evolution of the interactive design. Learning from the past helped me to understand the present and predict the future of the interactive design. Moreover, the first class assignment, picked up sample of good and bad design to discuss in the class, let the students sharing their perspectives of design and prepared students for the next classes. The few following classes provided the basic knowledge of the interactive design including design elements (typography, color, hierarchy, composition), design process (site map, wireframe, use case, and task-flow diagram), and usability test.

Step 2: Understanding the process

The class assignments such as create the wireframe, re-design the classroom, and bad usability sample along with in class activities (design workshop and game experience) generated better understanding of the reading through real practices. Moreover, the video of IDEO designing team showed how the interactive design process runs in the real world. Beside, the guess speaker from Xbox well explained more about the user interface beyond the reading from “Measuring The User Experience” book by Tom Tullis and Bill Albert. Also, having Riverbed representative talked about design and branding in class was very exciting and interesting topic. The guess speaker explained about how the well design could support the successfulness of the brand. Interactive design is not limited only on the screen but also include the user feeling. Therefore, creating the service envy, engaging the users with the service until they feel appreciate enough to share/express their passion about it to the others, was included into course study.

Step 3: Practice

A term project is the great exercise for taking what I have read from the books and studied from the class into the tangible project. The suggestions from all classmates and instructors are not only help me correct my understanding, but also bring a lot of creativities into the project at the end.

In conclusion, this class provided the sufficient basic background of interactive design from the readings, instructors teaching, and guess speakers sharing. Beside, it is also provided the appropriate hand-on exercise from both take-home assignments and in-class activities.

Service Envy

Service envy means the way that people feel engage with the service and feel appreciate when using it enough to share/express their passion about it to the others. Since the service is intangible thing, alike some other products that the user can be satisfied with the ownership, the service should have some kind of value that make the users feel proud of using the service. The users believe that using the service identify something.

For creating the service envy for AT&T website, developer.att.com (DevCentral), we should investigate information in three aspects. First, how to add value into the website. Second, What are the target audiences, the mobile application developers, want. And, third, what should be use to create the service envy.

First, according to the article “10 Ways To Add Value To Your Service And Build Customer Loyalty”(2009), the author lists 10 ways for creating the service value, which will contribute the service envy. The lists are addressed below

• Be Unique
• Offer free trials plus long guarantees
• Bundle in services that relate to the service
• Offer free outstanding support
• Evaluations, Feedback and Testimonials
• Add video
• Tutorials case studies
• Loyalty bonuses
• Build partnerships with big clients
• Categorize the market

Second, the presentation showed that developers are facing the challenges follow below.

· Fragmentation

· Merchandizing

· Differentiation

· Bureaucracy

Third, the presentation also showed the company’s point in some attributes (outreach, portal, tools, support, on-boarding, storefront, and feedback). Verizon ranges at the top with the total score 19, while AT&T is at the forth with score 11. However, AT&T still has chance to reserve the top area in some attributes such as portal, support, storefront, and feedback, if consider at each attribute. Therefore, in order to re-design the AT&T website, we should consider these attributes in priorities.

Therefore, considers from three aspects; value adding, user wanted, and website challenge, AT&T should re-design the developer.att.com (DevCentral) as the following.

1. Group the data

AT&T website has many vital data for the developer, however it seem overwhelming for the developer to find the right information. Thus, the designer should organize the information in to group of three, according to production process, pre-production, production, and post-production. The developer will feel easy to use the website and spend less time to find some information on the site.

2. Add Value : AT&T website should add Feedback section into the website. As the survey, the developer values the feedback section.

_{“I want to receive feedback on my application from AT&T customers"}

Moreover, since the developer also needs some advice from the expert.

"_{I want company experts to add to forum conversations and blog posts”}

Thus, the feedback section should include the feedback from both expert and customer (test group) perspective.

3. Special Attribute : Since, the technology has changed rapidly as well as the market, providing the personal supporter for each potential developer would help the developer implements the application quickly and properly. The developer who has started implement and get good feedback from both customer (test group) and expert can require the personal supporter to help in all process. The developer could reach the supporter in many way, website, e-mail, call, or even meet in person.

All above all, if the AT&T website could implement these two attributes; feedback section and personal supporter, and reach the developer satisfaction till address 3 point in these attributes, the AT&T website will be the leader in these two attributes. Also, AT&T website will be ranged in the second position (above Sprint and T-Mobile) with total score 13. In term of service envy, the developer will receive the sense of important partner from personal supporter section because the developer will work closely with AT&T team rather than work alone.

Task-Flow Diagrams and Use Case

Task-Flow Diagrams

The diagram below shows how to write the blogs on the Media Space website.

To complete the tasks, the user needs to go to the blogs page, write a first blog, click publish, then the user can start writing new blog.

The diagram below is the improve version. To compete the tasks, the user start writing the first blog, click publish and start writing the second blog, or click save draft and start writing the second blog before publish the first blog.

Use Case

Write the blogs

Step 1: User clicks write a blog text link, and the writing page is appeared.

Step 2: User writes the blog.

Step 3: User clicks save the blog as a draft, the new page appear showing the list of the blogs, which are saved as drafts.

Step 4: User clicks publish the blog.

Exception

Step 3a: User decides to keep the blog as the draft and start writing one more blog. User clicks save the blog as a draft. Then, user simply click write a blog button in order to start writing new blog. The system will keep the first blog as a draft, which allow user to come back to edit/publish it later.

Term Project Proposal

Term Project - Proposal

The Idea

Create an online resource for providing some necessary information and contribute an online community for Thai people who are coming or planning to come to Seattle in order to help them settle down smoothly and enjoy living here.

The Reason

Seattle is one of the top cities that the Thai people choose to come in several purposes such as studying, working, visiting or even living. And, when the people are going to settle down in the new city, they may have a lot of questions in their mind. Although they could find the answers by searching the Internet, the information usually spared to many websites and provided in English. Therefore, it cost the Thai people a lot of time to figure out the exact information that they need to know. Also, most of the websites are created for the American, who has different interesting from the Thai. Thus, the website will be created for the Thai people in particular in order to be the primary online resource for the Thai to search the necessary information.

The Target

The Thai people who are looking for some necessary information about Seattle in order to help them settle down. They may look for some basic information such as the transportation, accommodation, and travel information. They may or may not be expert in using the Internet. Therefore, the website will be created as simple as possible in order to allow the user to simply using the website.

The Process

Do the research to find out what the target group are looking for from the website

Do the secondary research with the success website and failure website

Create the wireframe

Test with the target group to improve the website

Implement the real website

Test with the target group to measure the website

The Website Element

Blog: Providing the necessary information in order to use as the online resource.

Web board: Use as the discussion place for the user to share/exchange some fact of the information. Also, being the place to asking some particular question.

Other features (personal blog, Live chat): allow the user to fully participate with the website.

Classroom

- The seats are in semi-circle position, allow the students to participate with the others easily.

- Row B is in higher level than row A, let the students sitting that row see the screen and the instructor clearly.

- Each seat has own build-in screen.

- The camera recorder in the front of the room, recording the class lecture and the room environment.

Assignment for week 4

Bad Usability

It is rarely to find a bad design product in the market nowadays because most of the companies are being concerned about the design more than before. However, after considering my wine and bottle opener according to a concept of the book “measuring the user experience” by Tom Tullis and Bill Albert, I could say that my wine and bottle opener is one example of the bad design product.

The bad or good design thing can be determined by the user experience metric called a usability metric. The usability metric reveals the interaction between the product and the user in three aspects, including efficiency, satisfaction, and effectiveness.

Considering my wine and bottle opener in terms of the efficiency, the amount of effort that the user spends for completing the task, I can assume that this product is the bad design one. The screw is too short to pull out the wine cock in one time, I need to screw and pull about two or three times more to get the wine cock off. Sometime, it broke the wine cock into small pieces and I need to find another tool to grip them out. So, this product has bad design because it requires much user effort to complete the task.

This product is also the bad design thing when considering in terms of effectiveness, which refer to the user ability to complete the task because it could not help the users complete the task completely. For example, once I used it to open the wine bottle, it broke the wine cock into two half parts. I tried to use that screw to get the rest of the cock off, but it put the cock down to the bottle instead, which cause the wine taste become strange. Also, a prong for open the bottle is not come in good scale. I needed to hold the bottle tighter than usual to open it, otherwise the opener would slip up and the bottle still un-open.

Considering with the last aspect, satisfaction, the usability can be determined from the degree of user happiness when he or she experiences while performing the task. If the user had a bad experience while using the product, such as spending a lot of time and effort to achieve the task, the user would feel unhappy with the product. Then, the product can be indicated as the bad design thing. In my case, I got the difficult times to open the wine bottle and the bottle, spending much time and effort. Therefore, in my opinion, this wine and bottle opener is the bad design thing.

In summary, after considering my wine and bottle opener with the concept of usability, considering in three aspects of efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction, I could say that this product has the bad design because it cannot help the user to achieve the task completely, the user has to put much effort to complete the task, and the user would be unhappy with the difficult time doing the task.

wireframe

http://ดูทีวีย้อนหลัง.net/

before

After

Good and Bad Design

Good Design

This is a good design work because all elements come along together in the same tone; fronts, color and picture are demonstrate the old fashioned appeals, which lead to a unity of the work. The message was placed in the right position, direct to the eyesight line, proper size for reading even just when you look pass.

Bad Design

This is a bad design because it has too much graphic which cause it is difficult to distinguish the distinctive point. The letter was placed in a very bottom of the page with the difficult-reading front. This work also doesn't have a unity because all elements; product picture, letters, and backgrounds are separate from each other. Moreover, the colors that are used are not a good match.