IEOR 170: The Design Cycle and Brainstorming

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IEOR 170 The Design Cycle and Brainstorming

• Jingtao Wang
• 1/22/2007

Slides based on those of Prof. John Canny and
Maneesh Agrawala
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Due Today (before class)

• Creation of wiki account
• Course petition
• 1 comment per reading
• Readings for lecture 1 on last Wednesday are also
  required, due 1159PM 1/26/2007

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Administrivia

• Tingtings office hours have been changed from
  200PM-300PM Wednesday to 1230PM 130PM
  Monday
• Most of the class entry codes will be sent out by
  500PM Friday. If you dont receive one but
  believe you should, please contact us after that.

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Topics

• The Design Cycle
• Brainstorming

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• The Design Cycle

Primarily based on Koberg Bagnall 1981
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(No Transcript)
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The Art of Design

• However, theres more to it
• A soufflé is eggs, butter, milk flour, but the
  difference between soaring and sinking is in the
  execution.

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The Design Process Koberg Bagnall
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Acceptance

• Getting started
• Because of a deadline
• Because of possible reward
• Because you are forced to
• Commitment
• Time
• Resources
• Responsibility
• Key is to set motivation

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Analysis

• Understand users and tasks
• Who are the users?
• What are their tasks?
• Observe and test, dont guess

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Analysis

• Understand users and tasks
• Who are the users?
• What are their tasks?
• Observe and test, dont guess

• Tools
• Notebook
• Tape recorder
• Camera
• Camcorder

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Who are the Users?

• Its one of the most important design questions
  you will ask everything else follows from that.
  
• Remember that most users are different from you,
  in ways you may not realize
• Test, dont guess
• Remember that the user is paying for the product,
  so give them something worthwhile.

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What are the Tasks

• Tasks are goal-directed behaviors like
• Finding a table in a restaurant
• Composing an email message
• Searching an address book
• Performing a web search
• Getting money from an ATM
• Tasks are the building blocks for user behavior,
  and we can study them with or without a design
  solution

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Task Analysis and Contextual Inquiry

• You normally discover tasks during a structured
  observation/interview process called Contextual
  Inquiry (next time).
• The analysis in task analysis provides more
  information to guide you in design. There are
  several approaches, which well talk about later.

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Definition

• Focus on the problem
• Choose appropriate level of detail
• Not bicycle cup-holders but helping cyclists
  to drink coffee without accidents

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Ideation

• Brainstorming
• Stretch mental muscles
• Loosen up with simple games
• Do homework
• Seed with related ideas/objects
• Get physical
• Sketch
• Make models
• Act out
• IDEO rules
• One conversation at a time
• Stay focused
• Encourage wild ideas
• Defer judgment
• Build upon idea from others
• Aim for Quantity

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Idea Selection

• Define importance of each idea
• Does it address problem
• Will target users like it
• Is hardware/software available
• What is the cost
• Market window
• Rank ideas according your criteria
• Pick top N
• Choices depend on resources and stage of the
  project

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Implementation

• Scale up low -gt high fidelity

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Implementation

• Scale up low -gt high fidelity
• Low-fidelity (quick, cheap, dirty)
• Sketches, paper models, foam core

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Implementation

• Scale up low -gt high fidelity
• Low-fidelity (quick, cheap, dirty)
• Sketches, paper models, foam core
• Medium fidelity (slower, more expensive)
• Flash, PowerPoint, Breadboard,

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Implementation

• Scale up low -gt high fidelity
• Low-fidelity (quick, cheap, dirty)
• Sketches, paper models, foam core
• Medium fidelity (slower, more expensive)
• Flash, JavaScript, AJAX,
• High fidelity (slowest, most expensive)
• The full design

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Evaluation

• Goal is to
• Discover problems as early as possible
• Discover other needs or features from the users,
  i.e. needs analysis is not a one-shot deal
• What evaluation isnt for
• Proving that all your design decisions were right

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Evaluation

• Early tests
• Wizard of Oz approach

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Evaluation

• Walk-through prototype design

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Design Cycle Over Project Lifespan
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Design Cycle Over Project Lifespan
Evaluation reveals problems with design.
Re-design requires cycling the process.
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Design Cycle Over Project Lifespan
Prototype implementations eventually increase in
fidelity to each final product.
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Plan to Throw One Away

• In most projects, the first system built is
  barely usable. It may be too slow, too big,
  awkward to use, or all three. There is no
  alternative but to start again, smarting but
  smarter, and build a redesigned version in which
  these problems are solved. The discard and
  re-design may be done in one lump, or it may be
  done piece-by-piece. But all large-system
  experience shows that it will be done. Where a
  new system concept or new technology is used, one
  has to build a system to throw away, for even the
  best planning is not so omniscient as to get it
  right the first time.
• The management question, therefore is not
  whether to build a pilot system and throw it
  away. You will do that. The only question is
  whether to plan in advance to build a throwaway,
  or to promise to deliver the throwaway to
  customers. Seen this way, the answer is much
  clearer. Delivering that throwaway to customers
  buys time, but is does so only at the cost of
  agony for the user, distraction for the builders
  while they do the redesign, and a bad reputation
  for the product that the best redesign will find
  hard to live down.
• Hence, plan to throw one away you will,
  anyhow.
• -Frederick Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month

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Comparison - 1
Lewis Rieman
Koberg Bagnall

• Who will use?
• What are their tasks?
• Plagiarize
• Rough out a design
• Think about design
• Create a prototype
• Test it with users
• Iterate
• Build a production version
• Track use
• Evolve the design

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Comparison - 2
Ken Goldberg
Koberg Bagnall

• Define
• Research
• Brainstorm
• Vote
• Focus
• Delegate
• Prototype
• Test
• Refine
• Present

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Why Adopt a Design Process ?

• Make sure everyone knows what you are solving.
• Make sure what you are creating is what the users
  actually need. (not necessarily what they asked
  for)
• Make sure you explore a big enough design space
• Make sure you can discover and fix problems in
  your design. (You are unlikely to do everything
  right in your first attempt).
• And discover and fix them early
• Make sure your design is for your users, not for
  yourself.

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(No Transcript)
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Video The Deep Dive
Design
Prototype
Evaluate

• How well do they follow the cycle?
• What do they do for each step of the cycle?
• How many cycles do you thin they went through?

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Brainstorming
Based on IDEOs Brainstorming Rules
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The Psychology of Creativity

• Conformity the enemy of creativity
• Group and organizations encourage conformity

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The Psychology of Creativity

• Pressure to conform affects judgment and
  perception
• The emperors new clothes
• MCarthyism if youre not one of us, youre on of
  them
• People in the minority will adopt majority
  opinion and even manufacture their own
  explanation of it.

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Enhancing Creativity

• Thinking outside the box
• Draw a series of 4 straight lines through all the
  points below, without lifting pen from paper

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Another Anecdote

• A user rushed into his cube, quickly typed his
  credentials, and was told that his password was
  invalid. He sat down, entered his password again,
  and it was fine. Curious, he logged out, stood
  up, and tried again. No access. When he was
  standing up, logging in always failed. When he
  was seated, he always succeeded.
• How could the computer possibly know whether he
  was standing or sitting?

From Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
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The Answer -

• It turns out that somebody had switched a couple
  of the (physical) keys on his keyboard as a joke.
  When the user was standing at the keyboard, he
  used "hunt-and-peck" typing. When he was seated,
  he was touch typing.

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Why are These Hard ?

• We adopt expectations about the solutions
• Based on conventions
• Based on what we believe the questioner expects.

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Creativity and Dissent

• Authentic dissenters people who really disagree
  with the group can enhance group creativity.
• Their opinion neednt be right but they can
  free the group from stagnant thinking.
• The originality of the minority stimulates the
  majority.

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Dissent and Authenticity

• The benefits of dissent are weakened if either
• Dissent is not real A deliberate devils
  advocate in the group can actually stifle
  dissent, because the majority know their opinion
  is manufactured.
• Dissent is not encouraged Polite or pro-forma
  acceptance is not enough.

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The Origin of Brainstorming

• Proposed by Alex Faickney Osborn
• May 24, 1888 May 4, 1966
• Was an advertising manager
• Originated in 1957 in a book called Applied
  Imagination.

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IDEOs Brainstorming Rules

• Sharpen the Focus
• Playful Rules
• Number your Ideas
• Build and Jump
• The Space Remembers
• Stretch Your Mental Muscles
• Get Physical
• Aim for quantity
• Hope for Quality

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1. Sharpen the Focus

• Posing the right problem is critical neither
  too narrow, nor too fuzzy
• Not bicycle cup-holders but helping cyclists
  to drink coffee without accidents.

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2. Playful Rules

• Rules constrain choice and inhibit exploration.
• Making the rules playful or ironical can shape
  the discussion without limiting it.
• Examples encourage wild ideas, be visual,
  go for quantity.

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3. Number Your Ideas

• Obvious but very useful
• Helps keep track of them when the brainstormer is
  successful (and a hundred or more ideas are in
  play).
• Allows ideas to take on an identity of their own.

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4. Build and Jump

• Build to keep momentum on an idea
• shock absorbers are a great idea what are other
  ways to reduce coffee spillage on bumps?
• Jump to regain momentum when a theme tapers out
• OK, but what about hands-free solutions?

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Concept Refinement

• Premature idea rejection is a serious barrier to
  good design.
• One of the biggest differentiators between good
  designers and great ones is the latters ability
  to successfully develop unusual ideas.
• This requires a strong instinct tobe able to
  distinguish fatal vs. minor flaws in an idea.

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5. The Space Remembers

• Covering whiteboards or papering walls with text
  is extremely useful in group work.
• Its a very effective
• form of external memory
• for group members.
• Even better, its shared
• memory. Its a way for
• group members to
• share understanding.

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6. Stretch your Mental Muscles

• Warmups word games, puzzles
• Get immersed in the domain go visit the toy
  shop, or the bicycle shop, phone shop etc
• Bring some examples of the technology to the
  brainstomer.

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7. Get Physical

• Sketching
• Making models
• Acting out

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Ways to kill a Brainstormer

• The boss gets to speak first
• Everybody gets a turn
• Experts only
• Do it offsite
• No silly stuff
• Write down everything

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Next Time

• Sketching, Idea Logs and Storyboarding
• Cognetics and the Locus of Attention. Jeff
  Raskin,The Humane Interfaces, Chapter 2.
• Meanings, Modes, Monotony and Myths. Jeff Raskin
  The Humane Interfaces, Chapter 3.
• First Individual Assignment will be out on
  Wednesday!