Individual notes, seminar 2

We are about to start our first iterative cycle of design-evaluate redesign, at least I assume it will be the first of several. It is important to evaluate so we can be sure that our software is usable and is what users want, and it has shown to be less expensive to continuously evaluate the design than to fix problems that are discovered after the system has been launched (of course, expenses will not be a problem in our case). In the book, they mention how software and web designers are prone to assume everyone else can use their product just because they can. I believe this could be especially true for our group since we all can identify with our relatively broad target group and therefor on some level designs a product for ourselves.This can be prevented by methods such as user evaluation and think-alouds. Studies have shown that people nowadays expect more from a product than just for it to meet the exact needs of the customer, for instance simplicity and elegance that makes products a joy to own and to use. The latter is especially hard without user involvement in the design process and evaluation. Usability testing involves measuring the performance of typical users on typical tasks. Satisfaction can be evaluated by continuing with the interviews and questionnaires. There has been an increasing trend towards observing users while they interact with the product in the intended settings, which could vary a lot from if they were observed in a laboratory. These kinds of tests could be hard for us to perform depending of which design we choose and what kind of prototype we can make (we can’t for instance make a prototype of a glass wall between the platform and tracks that people can interact with during their usual commute). In our case it might be easier to use heuristic evaluation which aren’t dependent on the users’ involvement to the same extent.

Is there a way to test our 3rd design on the users?