Streamlining the Design Process

by

RACING WITH THE CLOCK

Will SchroederMathWorks

Your therapist will tell you

… that the most important part of the hour is the last five minutes

What can we accomplish in two hours?

Choose Teams4: Good size for a rapid design team

Set The Task

The Use

Case is the test task

DesignDesig

n time:

5minut

es

Show and TellShow and Tell 10

minutes

Fix and Repeat

Keep

strict

time

2X

• At the break:–Teams formed–Design task introduced and explained–Functional prototypes of 3 approaches–Two design reviews for each design

Hour #1

Prepare for Test

Prep for test

2X

Test

Test

2X Rotate and

Test

Test

Rotate and Test

2X

Test

2X Rotate and

Test

Debrief

Debrief

2X

• In the second hour:–Prototypes polished for testing–3 usability tests – for each design –Users gave comparative feedback–Developers, observing, absorbed all this

Hour #2

Feedback was good ...

Participants:• “Having artifacts [designs and

supporting materials] to go back to was very valuable.”

• “Seeing designs is better than simply recording them in a spec.”

• “I like including users in collaborative design.”

• “No time to over-think solutions.”

• “… the opportunity to view the ideas of other groups and borrow ‘guilt free’ was a good thing.”

Developers:• “… we had done quite a bit of

design work on this feature”• “… pleasantly surprised with

the designs.” • “… validated our design

(there were many similarities), came up with new ideas, and exposed a design issue ….”

• “… created and explored more design ideas in minutes than we had come up with in a month.”

Have you heard the one about the talking dog?

One short year later ...

Still perfect team size

2X

Starting a design task is very

difficult

2X

Nature abhors a vacuum

People LOVE their own ideas

So they add unnecessary requirements

Giving pre-work failed

Stern speeches failed

Handing out lists failed

The facilitator describes a problem

Each team makes its own list of specific instances of the problem

Then they chose one to seed their design

Later some teams chose to cover more cases

Design always works

out fine – 5 minutes is

plenty

2X

Show and tell

enhanced the

designs

2X

2X

Not getting the full benefit

Facilitator prompts the explanation, orchestrates the design critique

... and keeps up the tempo

Could go on longer (under control)

Participants give notes – even draw ideas

Wastes time,

dilutes effort

2X

• Participants lose the thread of their design

• ... Enthusiasm• ... Momentum• They need to

“renegotiate the contract”

• “preparing for test” just wastes time

• Breaks aren’t needed

• Tests work fine with minimal or no preparation

Rotated users gave astounding

feedback

2X

No scouting, no show and

tell, not enough revision

2X

Participants did not see all tests

... And they did not take notes

... So there was not enough feedback

And there was no “fixing” between tests

One user testing all designs is about the useful limit

Multiple rounds of testing requires more than two hours

No formal process

2X

Make recording part of the process- List of pains- Keep and

number sketches

Take notes in show-and-tell

Facilitate debriefing

IN A NUTSHELL

PIECES• Players chose

goals • Blitz design

sessions• Show and tell• Parallel testing• Iteration• No breaks

GLUE• Facilitation• Time Pressure• Structured

activities– For timing– For feedback

• Levels of design

WILL.SCHROEDER@MATHWORKS.COM

Questions?

Getting the right design and the design right, Maryam Tohidi, William Buxton, Ronald Baecker, Abigail Sellen - April 2006CHI '06: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems