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→Iterative Design Process
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#'''Testing:''' After you designed you need to test if your ideas work as you expected. This is can be a hard thing to do because some things that seem to be great turn out to be unsuitable for your users. Otherwise you will get all sorts of interesting insights that will help you in improving your ideas. | #'''Testing:''' After you designed you need to test if your ideas work as you expected. This is can be a hard thing to do because some things that seem to be great turn out to be unsuitable for your users. Otherwise you will get all sorts of interesting insights that will help you in improving your ideas. | ||
The model is called iterative because you will go through the all steps several time. Doing all steps one after the other one time is known as an "iteration". Each time you do so, you improve your product and former abstract things will become more concrete. | The model is called iterative because you will go through the all or a part of the steps several time. Doing all steps one after the other one time is known as an "iteration". Each time you do so, you improve your product and former abstract things will become more concrete. | ||
The model can be applied for designing the general product as well as for designing a small feature. You don't need to do all steps each time you try to solve a problem. It is very common to design, test and refine the design based on the test's results to test again. But you should at least consider the possibility to research. | |||
So what is all that good for? Following the steps helps you to understand your users by doing research. So you don't design for non-existing needs or interfaces nobody can use. It helps as well to be more creative at the end: by dealing with your users, you will see your designs from a new perspective and so develop new ideas. | |||
'''A small Example''' | |||
Imagine you design a new mobile phone. You can use the process that is suggested here to design the general product: You will research how people will use the phone, you will determine which features you need for meeting the users needs. Than you will design how all features work together in the phone and how it will look like. At the end you test it. | |||
During this process you will see that you need to answer smaller questions like how to implement sending messages: Is it better to have different facilities for SMS, MMS and e-mail, or shall they be combined in one view so that the user can ignore the differences between the different techniques? | During this process you will see that you need to answer smaller questions like how to implement sending messages: Is it better to have different facilities for SMS, MMS and e-mail, or shall they be combined in one view so that the user can ignore the differences between the different techniques? | ||
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1) Find out how the users think about messages and how they use them. | 1) Find out how the users think about messages and how they use them. | ||
''You may find out that users think of their messages all in the same way when they get them but in technical terms when they write them'' | |||
2) Write down what you need to keep in mind when you design | 2) Write down what you need to keep in mind when you design | ||
''I want to design a unified view for incoming messages while still providing explicit control over self initiated or reply-messages'' | |||
3)Than you design... | 3)Than you design... | ||
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Example:''It turns out that your design was overall easy to use but that some users had trouble with selecting the message type while sending'' | Example:''It turns out that your design was overall easy to use but that some users had trouble with selecting the message type while sending'' | ||
What you do now is trying out different ways to make the type-selection easier, so you just repeate the "mini-cycle" of testing and design. | |||
===Usability Goals=== | ===Usability Goals=== | ||