Project Status - Design Modeling

This week we finally started to design some of the interactions users might have with our android application and with other users. We began to construct Hierarchical Task Analyses for five separate user interactions with our application. We also started to think more about what our application might need to look like, and the different types of data it would need to provide, but we focused more on interactions this week, and will start constructing UI mockups later on in the project.

Interaction Design

Before we started formalizing user interactions, we held a meeting for about an hour and a half to discuss different possible solutions that might fit the users’ needs. For example, some of us thought that having users sign in to the application would be useful, but others commented that it would deter people from contributing. In the end, we were able to decide on a happy medium, allowing users to perform most actions without ever creating an account, but requiring users who contribute new content to register (so that we can keep track of their contributions).

Hierarchical Task Analyses (HTAs)

We split up the task of constructing HTAs so that each team member was responsible for one HTA. Overall, this task was fairly straightforward, since we had discussed how users might interact with the application already in our meeting. Overall, each team member spent roughly 30 minutes independently, working on and refining HTAs.

Future Plans

Next week, we will delve deeper into task analysis by developing personas and wireframes. We will create conceptual and intermediate designs to help us in the process of designing a good user experience.