Bonus - Donald MacLeod

I cannot say I took any interesting risks in this class, but treated it like any other class. I remember somethings, forgot somethings, but there are things that I will take away from it and hopefully never forget.  I really appreciated the life stories, they were incredible insights of stuff that I might have already known, but its always good to have a story to back it up.  In other cases they were interesting tidbits that are important to think about. I will always remember the idea that school is almost designed to make us feel stupid.  And I cant say I haven't brought this up with others.

Iterate, its important.  Everywhere.  We do it without realizing, but still its important to iterate more.  Fail early, fail fast, fail hard and try again.  Now that school is ending I will focus more on my overall heath and hope that my job does not get in the way.  Do what makes you happy, and you are who you think you are.  Seems like a mind dump, but I am tired and maybe this is somewhat interesting.  

Thank you for the class and enjoy the summer.  

DJM

Bonus Blog Assignment - Hayden Mills

I learned a lot about design and life in general throughout this class. I always looked forward to going to INFO 300 because of its relevant content and great professor. I thoroughly enjoyed the "life lessons" that were talked about in this class.

I was impacted most by the realization that life is to short to worry about what others will think about you. I have always had the dream of starting my own business and this class helped encourage me along towards that dream. This class has taught me to not fear taking risks but to take more and fail faster. So that is what I am going to do. 


Mills Digital (http://bymills.com/) will be launching in the fall of 2014. I have been doing freelance web development for the past two years and I have finally decided to take that and make it a legit business. I have met a couple of friends here at IU that are as passionate as I am about the web and they will be working along side me. Mills Digital will start out as a web development, design, and video production agency with hopes of becoming much more as we grow and learn more skills along the way. Feel free to follow us on our journey its going to be exciting!

Bonus Blog Assignment

Your last (optional) blog assignment. You have until next Monday, May 5th, to complete it. This is completely a bonus assignment for extra credit. Writing a thoughtful response will give you THREE magic points.

Designing Your Life

That's the topic of this blog assignment. We spent an entire semester talking about human-computer interaction design; you know, designing the obvious. And perhaps you've learned something along the way; not just the intellectual skills, not just the things you learn in order to pass a course, get the grade, but real things — the things that are truly important. Slow Change. Not twitter, not IM, not your smartphone — not the high school-like chatter that occupies so many of our conversations: "she said …; he said …" Really, who cares? What does it really matter, anyway? I'm talking instead about Slow Change. Important stuff. Life stuff.

Did this class teach you to take a risk? To learn in a new way? Did it make you think that on the next iteration of "playing the [design] game" you might actually change something about yourself? When will you stop taking from the planet and give something back instead? What are you planning to do to minimize bad habits and focus on the new and healthy?

I realize this note is a bit strange. Hey, it's the last blog note! Let's mess it up a little bit. Give me something interesting to read this week. It's just between you and me. No one is watching. Have fun. The deadline is the last day of class. An easy 3 bonus/magic points.

9 - Donald MacLeod

Help systems can be useful; however, they are no substitute for obvious design. Some of the help systems I find useful are contextual - the help is tailored to what is being presented at the moment.  The help menu that gives help for an entire product all at once is not very useful because one needs to search to find the help.  If anything, the help feature should embody obvious design as well. For example, on pages with lots of inputs, I like it when there is something that explains the purpose or explains each individual field.  While help systems are always going to be necessary - no amount of obvious design can explain everything - the help should go complimentary with the design.  So that the design and help are one cohesive functioning unit to the user.  

Some persona categories for project 5 include, the avid comic book fan, the causal movie watcher, and the casual fan of movies and comics.

9-Ying Yu Hong

I think the usefulness of the HELP systems such as online help and tutorial videos is limited to a certain extent. There is no perfect design, which means there is always some bugs or imperfect features exist in a design. When users have to figure out the problem in order to make the program run, the HELP systems played an important role of fixing problems. However, users may complaint about the inconvenience of looking up a solution because they have to read the instruction or watch videos to understand how to solve and they have to manually fix the problem themselves. This drawback contradicts to the aim of "designing the obvious". Users may change to other program that doesn't have problems.

The persona we are designing is the fans of the hero because they are the target consumer of the product. The design will be focusing on how to developing product that meets their needs. 

9- Emily Gries

This is an interesting question. After reading chapter 6, everything that was said makes sense. When I don't understand something online, I usually do not look at the help options because if I couldn't figure it out, the language used in the help options most likely would not help me out and it would probably frustrate me. This part made sense. However, experts would probably feel uncomfortable that they couldn't figure it out, so they would try to fix it to relieve that tension. They would also most likely understand the language and have minor problems with the application. Like the seven themes of good design says, no design can be perfect. Designers have to make sacrifices for designs, a little give and take. Therefore they sometimes cater to either experts or other users. The help options, even though aren't used by all types of users, I think are an essential tool because with that give and take, the help options can be useful for the group that the design is not catered to.


For project 5, I think the personas could be either kids/teenagers that read the comics or older fans who are invested in the comics. These people are the most likely to buy merchandise or a product.

9-Trevor Corradin

I believe that help systems are a great addition to any design. We all know the unlikelihood of a "perfect design", so a help system is a great way to assist users having trouble. While users should be able to figure out most aspects of a design, there will always be things that are not perfect. It is for this reason that a help system is a complement to good design, not a substitute. By offering additional support, a user can spend much less time trying to fix his/her problem and more using the design efficiently.

I believe that the different fan-groups of the superhero should be considered when developing personas. They are the ones who have an investment in the character and story, making them a significant aspect of the design process. For example, we would need to make sure to account for fans with an extensive and specific knowledge of the superhero and his story, as well as people more interested in the plot than the details.

9 - Hayden Mills

I do not believe HELP systems work. Personally, I never have the patience to walk through a tutorial or help box that pops up. I usually learn how to use an application through trial and error. I find it annoying when a box pops up and comes between me and the design of the application. HELP systems are definitely not substitutes for good design they just help cover up below average design. I cant see any situations where tutorials or help boxes would be necessary if the designers would focus on a better overall design for the application.

Persona categories to focus on for project 5:
- Avid comic book readers
- Fan that run fan websites
- Social media accounts for avid users and distribtuors
- Comic books themselves

- Comic Con attendees

9 - Kristi Starling

I am intrigued by this question.  I've never really thought about help features as a substitute for good design, but I guess in some cases they are.  From my own personal experience, help features are often as frustrating as whatever issue drives me to the help feature in the first place.  Video tutorials or step-by-step instructions are often helpful, but are often time consuming, so I don't bother with them until absolutely necessary.  In a way, I think sometimes they are an attempt to substitute for good design, and in such cases I think they're rarely all that helpful.  However, because of the breadth of the user base for most software and the variety of backgrounds, I think even the most obvious of designs should have some sort of help feature for the less tech savvy.  The goal is of course to make the design obvious enough that the help features are not needed by anyone, but often such goals are unobtainable.  It seems to me that the best option is to design in such a way that help features should not be needed by the average user, but still provide them for the security and peace of mind for the user with below-average comfort with technology.

For project 5, we are designing not for the superheros themselves but for the actual people who have some sort of investment in the story of the superhero.  Personas should then be drawn from groups such as the fan base, television producers, and comic book authors.

9-Adam Johnson

In my opinion, HELP systems are essential and useful for the majority of situations.  However, I also feel the majority of people don't bother to check these systems out, even when they are legitimately confused and need help.  I for the longest time did not use things like tutorials, until I just recently found spending time at the beginning learning the basics of a program/tool saves time in the long run.  In my opinion, HELP systems, as in the tutorials and "Help" sections created by the actual software/design are becoming slowly and slowly less used, and may one day become obsolete. This is because of third party search sites like Google or Bing, which have absolutely massive amounts of resources available.  Online help is extremely important, and will be even more in the future.  However, this does not mean in any way Google can be a substitute for a good design.  If for the most part a design can't be figured out just by a quick glance and seemingly use it effortlessly, it is destined to fail no matter what.  I feel most software will always have technical aspects that the not so technically savvy person will not understand, and look online for help so it is essential they be there, and at the same time does not make it a substitute.  No matter how simple the design, I feel there will be a need of some sort of online help or tutorial explaining how it works on all levels so everyone can understand it (this means everyone should understand the main concept of the design, but i don't think a design will ever be so good that there wont be a tutorial or online help threads for some feature of the design).

As far as the persona is concerned for project 5, I believe it is very important.  We will have two personas (obviously).  We hope to have one appeal to the younger crowd, kids that are avid fans of their favorite superhero.  Our other persona is that of a die-hard fan, who knows all aspects of the superhero.  Hopefully our design will appeal to both, as it is very important to satisfy the (although made up) needs and likes of our personas.

9- Nicholas Barker

In looking at chapter 6 dealing with the help system, it doesn't take long to determine that they are essential for our design.  Although we hope to provide users with the best possible design, as we have discussed in class, our design is never done and can always be improved.  With that being said I think HELP systems are effective. In saying that I also believe that HELP is not a substitute for good design.

For our persona for project 5, I believe we are going to focus on someone who would be a fan of our hero.  He would like technology and more futuristic things.

9 - Baiyan Zhang

I think the HELP system is an essential part of a design. Although users may not use them very often, it can help users when they met the problems. I think this is not the substitute of the good design because whatever good or bad design, part of users does not know how to solve the problems they met. So the HELP systems can give users some hints for solving or an explaination for why this problem happen. A good design would be attractive but the HELP system would be the tool to help users.

When we thinking the persona for Project 5, we think that person would be a movie fan of our hero. He might be the people who like the high-tech things.

9 - Nicholas Fields

I do not think that a good tutorial is equivalent or as helpful as just using 'obvious design' to begin with.  First, I think it ends up wasting more time trying to make a good tutorial than it would have in the first place if people put a little extra time into making the design better in itself.  Also, I think that tutorials are often still put into the 'programmer's lingo' too often and do not end up helping the people that actually need the help.  Finally, I do not think that people view or look at the tutorial that often even when they do need help. 

As for the persona for project #5, I think that a good target group would be an avid fan.  This could be classified as someone who has read some or most of the comics pertaining to a specific super hero.

9 - Jake Van Schouwen

I love HELP systems.  I have looked to help-tabs or tutorials for as long as I can remember when dealing with a design or game I am unfamiliar with.  I do not believe HELP systems are an excuse for poor design because I like to think most people are quick learners.  If the help tab nudges the user into the proper way of thinking then I think it is for the best.

The we are focusing on the people who are not die-hard fans of our hero but know enough about him to appreciate what we are trying to achieve with our design and who support our goals.

9 - Yousef

The HELP systems work depending on context. Even the HELP systems must have good design to work. They are definitely not substitutes to good design but they are supplementary. They help the user get what s/he wants. I think HELP systems are usually not as useful because it takes too much time to find what you want on them. It would take less time to struggle and learn from trial and error than it is to find the feature on a HELP system. Which leads back to the main point that good design should be user friendly. On another note I found it interesting that mostly expert users use the HELP systems. It is probably because it is much harder to find what you want when you are an expert thus making it faster to look for it than it is to use trial and error.

For our persona, I was thinking of video gamers in general most probably from ages ranging from 9 to 25? 

Week 09 Blog Assignment

Skim Chapter 6. (That is, read the chapter quickly but read slowly any section that grabs your interest.)

What do you think about HELP systems--online help, tutorials, etc.? Do they work? Are they substitutes for good design? That is, if the design were better and more "obvious," would you really need these help or tutorial systems?

Also, when you think about developing personas for Project #5, what are categories of people on whom to focus? (There is no single correct answer!)

Finally, comment on someone else's post to this blog assignment.

Yousef - Spring Break

Went to NYC for a couple of days with family. It was great! 

Spring break! #sbi300

The only highlight of my highly uneventful spring break (not complaining).. Turning 20 dollars into 700! #sbi300 #roulette