Seminar 2: Chapters 13 and 15

Chapter 13 introduces the DECIDE framework, a concept made up of six steps to help you plan for an evaluation study. These steps include everything between determining your goals to presenting finalized data. 

Before conducting a study using the DECIDE model, there are plenty of issues you need to take into account: What are your goals? and How should you collect the data? are just two examples of questions you need to answer. Moreover, you should deal with its items iteratively, the reason being that any decision concerning one item of the framework could impact all of the other items as well.

I find this concept to be very intuitive. It’s a great method to use when designing an interactive prototype. Since the perspective of the user can get lost in the whirlpool of ideas, this framework keeps you at bay. The DECIDE method is definitely something to put to use further down the line.

Furthermore, we need to establish what it is we want to do. We aren't able to conduct lots of field studies (due to a very short time frame), neither will we be able to perform a lot of usability testing. We've got plenty of ideas but we need to narrow them down. What is possible? What isn't? The DECIDE method can most definitely be out guiding hand when making these decisions.

In chapter 15, heuristics and walkthroughs are introduced as two inspection evaluation methods offering the evaluator a structure to guide the evaluation process. Heuristics includes any approach to problem solving and learning that employs a practical method sufficient enough to fulfill the immediate goal. Walkthroughs are the alternative approach to heuristics, enabling you to predict users’ problems without doing user testing. Since users aren’t always easily accessible, specialists or experts are sometimes assigned the task to role-play user interaction with the design or prototype to be evaluated. This allows for efficiency whilst still being provided with feedback.

I think we could put both of these methods to use in our design process. Since we don’t have a lot of time performing tests on actual test subjects, constructing a walkthrough could provide us with the necessary data whilst still being time efficient. Combining these methods with practical testing would probably be best though, since testing and heuristic evaluation often reveal different usability problems. Experts are, well, experts, they know how a system should work, non-experts don’t.

Question: What makes an expert?