Project assignment UCSD spring 2011

Overview

The purpose of the assignment is to describe, plan and discuss the process for the development of a real IT system based on a specific approach to UCSD. This semester the project will be a real project with three client from industry.

Design, programing, interviewing users, making use cases and other things that is a part of the systems development is not a part of this project.

We will have three different assignments from different areas, and each group is responsible for one assignment. In addition we have three (more or less) different user-centred approaches, each of which is described in a separate book:

  • Contextual design by Beyer & Holtzblatt
  • Usage-centered design/engineering by Constantine & Lockwood
  • Usability engineering lifecycle by Mayhew.

Each group describes their assignment according to a specific approach. Every group will have a unique combination of assignments and approaches. All assignments will be covered by all approaches which leaves us with an excellent opportunity of discussing your experiences from planning the same assignment, but from various standpoints.

Formalities

  • Group assignment.
  • Written report to be submitted at the latest on Thursday, March 10 at 24.00.
  • Submit the written report electronically (pdf, doc, rtf, txt), through Studentportalen, to the file area: Project assignment. Name the file to your last name.
  • The report should have between 15-20 A4 pages (including TOC and cover page)
  • The report should be well structured, it must contain a cover page with, name, e-mail address, project and book title. It must be well written in terms of language and layout.
  • The report will be presented orally at a mandatory seminar on Friday, March 18. For more information about time and place see the schedule.

Assignment

The assignment should be solved using the methods/approaches described in your book. You should describe and discuss how your process should be applied to carry out your assignment in a user-centered fashion. The results should be documented in a report that should contain the following:

  • A brief introduction to the process used in your book. Please note that the purpose of this is to give the reader a short introduction to the process. Details can be saved for the next section of the report.
  • The most important part of the project is a description of how you would perform the user-centered work, based on the description in your book.
    • Which activities should be conducted - here you should describe what you intend to do, based on the book, but it is important that you tailor the activities to fit the conditions in your particular project.
    • Which input do each activity require and how are the results meant to be used later on in the process.
    • How and when do you intend to involve users, in which activities, why these activities, which users?
    • Which artifacts (documentation, models scenarios, mock-ups, sketches, prototypes, etc.) are the results of each activity?
    • Which roles are responsible for the various activities, artifacts and documents in the process.
    • Which products are the result of the entire process.
    • What does your timeline look like. Make a rough time plan involving an estimation of presumed calendar time and number of hours per activity. The time plan should also show who is involved in each activity.
  • Describe advantages and drawbacks with the approach. If you encounter drawbacks, suggest what can be done to overcome these drawbacks.

In conclusion should your report in a clear way, based on the methods/techniques/processes described in your book, show how to plan and conduct a user-centered systems development project. You are not requested to conduct the project for real, but plan how you would conduct the project. Given this you need to make valid judgments on limitations to your assignment. Therefore you need to investigate many different things. The important thing is that you try to map out which possible users your development project need to address. Where and how to find them. In which way you can work with your users and the organization according to your process. You also need to explain in what way your process needs to adapt to the specific assignment.

It is important that you critically examine the methods/models/processes that are suggested in "your book". You have full freedom to modify and exchange parts in case you do not think that what is described in the book works. But, you need to be able to motivate why. Please note that the books have been written with a "commercial purpose" and that the advantages with the methods are emphasized, and disadvantages must be toned down.

Seminar

The project assignments will be presented and discussed at a seminar on March 18. Participation in the seminar is mandatory. For detailed times see schedule. The client(s) to the projects will be present and discuss and reflect on your work.

- All submitted reports will be made available for all the others as soon as they have been handed in via the project home page or through Studentportalen. You are requested to read through the reports that are to be presented in parallel to yours before the presentation.

- Everybody will present their approach to the plan of the project during maximum 20 minutes. Please note that you should not present the book, rather present how your project will be planned, using the approach presented in the book. If you want to use Powerpoint presentations a projector will be available.

- After that we will have a discussion with everybody about the projects in relation to the literature.
To pass the grade you need to be active in the subsequent discussion and show that you have read the reports from the other groups.

Groups, "assignments" and literature

ASSIGNMENT a) Project Headlight b) Project Metso c) Project SVA d) Project Uppsala University
LITERATURE
Beyer & Holtzblatt 1 2 3 4
Constantine & Lockwood 5 6 7 8
Mayhew 9 10 11 12

"Assignments"

a) Project Headlight -

How would you plan such a project according to Constantine & Lockwood / Mayhew / Beyer & Holtzblatt?

b) Project Metso -

How would you plan such a project according to Constantine & Lockwood / Mayhew / Beyer & Holtzblatt?

c) Project SVA -

How would you plan such a project according to Constantine & Lockwood / Mayhew / Beyer & Holtzblatt?

d) Project Uppsala University -

How would you plan such a project according to Constantine & Lockwood / Mayhew / Beyer & Holtzblatt?

Resources

Supervision

If you have any specific questions in relation to the literature, feel free to book a meeting with Åsa Cajander. It might be advisable to start with an e-mail. Issues relating to the examination procedure or planning, contact Åsa Cajander.

Back to the course home page