SWE 205 Project
Spring 2024
Design and Usability Analysis of an Interface

Overview

The goal for this class is for you to be able to analyze and design digital interactions from a usability perspective. Part of this is being able to using appropriate language and terminology, part of this is identifying appropriate analysis approaches, and part of this is choosing good solutions.

Hence, that's what this project assignment asks for and how your project will be evaluated.

Assignment

Choose a (digital) product to design. The most likely way for you to do this is choose something where you can do better thank an existing interface, in which case the goal is a re-design.

Describe the overall use case(s), and identify 3 to 5 key interactions. For each one:

Describe the interaction.
Analyze the interaction.
Design your solution.
Illustrate the advantage of your solution by showing (inferior) alternatives.

These steps need to be specific and detailed. See the grading section.

Milestones

Milestones:

Intitial project decription. (Due March 14). Outline what you propose to do. Prize clarity over length. Choose an interesing project - not something like BB or PW. We'll grade this as a homework. One possible outcome is that we will ask you to resubmit.
Full solutions (written document) AND oral presentations. Yes, you need BOTH. This is the full project grade.

Grading

Overall use case: Is it interesting? Are your choices justified? Is your project description clear? Is it convincing? Does it use appropriate language and terminology?

For the key interactions, grading criteria are:

Appropriate usability analysis approach.
Appropriate usability conclusions.
Concrete, detailed solution. You don't need a working implementation. But you do need convincing mock-ups. You can do this with html. Or you can do it with drawings. Or you can pick some other model. But it has to be specific and concrete.

You are encouraged to review the draft rubric.

Note

I want projects to be different. To implement this, groups will post their chosen project (in a suitable thread). There is no particular due date on this, but it's first-come first-served: If the project your group wants to do is already in the thread, you'll have to find a different project.

Note that some interfaces are very large, and so it may be possible to have two groups working on different aspects of the same interface. Check if you're not sure; the review panel (Parth and Paul) will help you make a determination.