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Groups came together to discuss their findings for Exercise Two – testing out their board games by playing it themselves, and observing others playing their board games. Our groups for this exercise are:

Group One: Silly Street
Group Two: Settlers of Catan
Group Three: What do you Meme?
Group Four: Monopoly
Group Five: Dodj or Daar

Professor Bethany presented a lecture on the five planes of user experience and we learned the importance of all the layers that go into building an interface — strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and finally the surface, which is usually the visual aspect we’re all most familiar with.

We went through a worksheet on how to build persona documents through observations and interviews, as a study in ethnography. Ideo is a leading organisation in ethnographic study, and they have great personal building tools for researchers.

The remainder of the class was spent in groups answering dissecting their games as Part Two (strategy and scope phases) for the exercise.

Each of the five groups presented their products, problems and proposed solutions using the research they did over the past week on personas, accessibility studies and user journeys.

Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 Polaroid presented solutions such as a more evident shutter and on-off button, and centred view-finder and a wider range of colors to better engage their millenial target group.

Sparoom oil diffuser created a more compact solution and highlighted accessibility issues that they addressed in their presentation.

Photive Hydra waterproof, portable bluetooth speaker went through their user journeys highlighting the need for less texture on their product for people with low vision to be able to feel the symbols for the volume buttons.

Hamilton Beach blender went through their personas as being more family-oriented and an older audience, and created a product for easier wrist movement.

Razer gaming headphones opted for a wireless solution, with extruded braille parts to provide their users with a more expressive gaming experience.

Each five minute presentation was followed by feedback from the rest of the class on how to enhance the solutions they provided, as well as organise their presentations better.
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Exercise Two – Game

After completing the first exercise, students took out board games (that they were asked to bring after the previous class). Groups formed organically as students interacted with games, and the rest of the class period was used to play these games and understand how physical games work, so that they could begin thinking about creating a digital interface for the same games.

[Reading for Exercise Two: “The Elements of User Experience” by Jesse James Garrett]

Students were asked to go over Part 3 of the first assignment individually, and came into class sharing the ideas they came up with and the sketches they created over the weekend. Each group moved forward with one persona based on a real person.

This class was a working class, where groups organised all their data into presentations for the next class. Each group worked differently to distil their individual information into the group presentation, based on the structure of assignment outline.

After introducing ourselves, we dived into a presentation about the difference between UI and UX.

Here’s your cheat sheet:
UI or User Interface is what stands between you and the object performing some sort of function.
UX or User Experience is how the interaction makes you feel.

Our very first warm-up exercise was to analyse the analog objects on the table (a coffee grinder, a coffee maker, a label maker and a universal adapter), first individually, then as a group, and use post-its to identify their weaknesses and possible solutions.

Welcome to Fall Quarter, and a new year of interface design, taught by Bethany Armstrong and assisted by Shruti Shyam. As the teaching intern for this class, I will make sure to update this blog daily with all the things we’ve learned in class and I will add other exciting material related to interface design that you’re welcome to peruse in your free time.

Happy interface-ing!

Shruti