Harvard University Design Human Computer Interaction Discussion

The purpose of these assignments is to gain some practice with identifying, diagnosing, and describing HCI features of the designed world around us. The assignment is simple — present a brief HCI-focused analysis of a design, interface, or system (computerized or not) that you found. This could be a particularly good design, or it could be so bad it makes you wish you were living in the stone age. Your analysis should be between 350-450 words. We encourage you to include images or sketches, but they aren’t absolutely necessary, and image descriptions do not count toward the length.

In order to complete this assignment, we encourage you to keep a notebook where you record bad and good usability experiences whenever you encounter them. Often, these instances are fleeting and subtle; you may think you’ll remember and write it down later, but chances are you won’t. Maybe you’ll write in a notebook, but also remember that almost all of you carry a wonderful recording device with you at (nearly) all times: your phone. Take some pictures or screen shots, and type out or audio-record a few notes. Make sure you record enough information that you can find the example later if necessary (e.g., the URL of a web page, or the location you saw the device, etc.).

Then, take your notes and images and write up a brief essay about the problem. The format is mostly up to you, although we will be looking for the quality of your description of the item and its strengths or weaknesses. Give us enough detail that we understand why you chose it, and how it relates to class. Excellent submissions will make a clear link to the materials we have been discussing in class.

Focus of this design notebook: Inclusivity, Accessibility or Values.

For this Design Notebook you should have a section in your assignment that focuses on Inclusivity, Accessibility or Values in technology, by discussing:

• Accessibility or Inclusivity issues with the HCI system you are discussing (e.g. who is the system designed for, and who is it not designed for, what affordances might not be accessible to everyone, in what situations people might or might not be able to use the system)
• A discussion of the values represented in the system, who they are values for, and who they might not be values for (use the list presented in the lecture slid as a starting point). It can be helpful to discuss different stakeholders (or direct and indirect stakeholders) and the different values that they might have in using the system.

You can discuss how Accessibility, Inclusivity or certain Values are or are not represented in the HCI system you are describing. So your example can be of good design or of bad design.

Make sure that you clearly describe what about the interface/interaction makes the issues of accessibility, inclusivity, or values applicable. Submissions should be in PDF.

If you are getting stuck about how to write up your example, consider these questions:

• Is this an example of good or bad HCI? Why?
• Who is this system designed for? How does the design address (or not) their goals, capabilities, or preferences?
• Are there permanent, temporary or situational impairments that might prevent people from using the system? what are they?
• What values are represented in the system? what values are not represented in the system?
• What is the context of use of this design? How does that affect its success?
• What constraints, challenges, or opportunities do you think the designer was facing? Is there a reason the design is the way it is?
• What would you do to make the design better?

We created a AssignmentSampleSubmission.pdf to see a positive example of this work.

Criteria:

Identify an example of good/bad design relevant to the topic of the design notebook

Explain what the system does, the interface/interaction, what are the elements of good/bad design related to the topic of this design notebook

Relate the discussion to the topic of the design notebook accurately

The design notebook accurately discusses or applies concepts (from readings, recordings or other course materials)

350-450 words