Please, use the provided LaTex template or Word template to write the assignment.

CS 449: 2-3 pages + appendix: 5%
CS 649: 3-4 pages + appendix: 6%

Submit to Dropbox on Learn by 8:59 pm, January 18

In this assignment you will make an initial presentation of your project. The assignment should include the following four sections:

1. Description of the project
In this section you are expected to describe the general market segment you are targeting, and what potential contributions you see as important for the area. Take this as an opportunity to describe what motivates you to work on this specific project and what potential value you can bring to the area. What problems / empty niches did you identify and how? How can your project address those problems? That will naturally lead you to the next section.
Example: In the AirBnB video we watched in class: Joe Gebbia is talking about how they come up with the idea, that it was solving problems of finding place to stay during the conference, and how different they want this experience to be from the regular hotel stay.

2. Goals and Hypotheses
Here we ask you to specifically list the goals of your application and hypotheses you will be testing. What exactly are you focusing on within your market segment? What problems/obstacles do you want to solve? What information do you need to have in order to do so? What do you hypothesise regarding this information (you also need to briefly justify your hypotheses; if you use information from external sources, make sure you reference it appropriately).
Example: In the AirBnB video we watched in class: They realized that they need to help users to form trust, both for hosts and for guests. But how do you form this trust? Should there be communication prior to arrival? What should be communicated, would providing additional information help? If so, what kind of information and how much should people say?

3. Target users & users for the studies
An important part of identifying your market segment is to understand who your target users are. Does it mean your application can be used only by those user groups? Most likely no. But at least that is something we can start working with. Depending on your project topic, you may need to include different types of information here. Try to picture several *illustrative* generalized users of your future application. What separates them from others? Does it matter what area of the city they live in? Or does their age group, social status, everyday activities, language, common means of transportation, education, etc., matter? Once you identify your main target user group(s), think about participants for your studies. You need to design a group of participants that would be representative for your target user groups. You will need to work with 3-5 users for each of your user studies. Describe in this section relevant demographics for your future group of participants.

4. Plan for the exploratory user study
Finally, when everything above is identified, we now need to know what exactly we are planning to do with our user study participants. First step in this course is the exploratory user study, which should at least include interviews. Why do we do that? First, through this study you can test some of the hypotheses you described in the corresponding section above, and shed some light on the information you identified as required for your project. Second, you will most likely see some new information you did not anticipate, so make sure when planning your study to avoid leading questions (see lectures) and leave space to any free-form feedback your participants might have. In this section, please, describe your study designs for each method (interviews are required, other methods are optional). Describe what you are planning to achieve through the study and how this information can be used for your project, provide a list of interview questions you are planning to ask in appendix (note that interviews should not be longer than 15 min per session).

Marking breakdown:
(All subsections must be present in the assignment)
Description of the project: 20%
Goals & Hypothesis: 20%
Target user groups & users for the studies: 25%
Plan for the exploratory user study: 25%
Quality of the presentation (Structure; Language; Visualisation): 10%
Total: 100%

Please, use the provided LaTex template or Word template to write the assignment.

CS 449: 2-3 pages + appendix: 8%
CS 649: 3-4 pages + appendix: 10%

Submit to Dropbox on Learn by 8:59 pm, February 15

Please, include the name of your team in a title of your assignment.
Submit copies of all your consent forms to this assignment.

1. Exploratory study results
Now, when you have already conducted your exploratory studies, you need to report on your findings. In class we have discussed how to make your qualitative data actionable: first, we use for that purpose affinity diagrams as a tool to help us identify common themes in our data, second, we use work models. In this section of your assignment you need to report on your study results.
- Name and describe themes you have identified using an affinity diagram. Submit a picture of the affinity diagram you have created with your team. The picture should be readable, so if needed submit several.
- You are required to create at least cultural and flow work models. Name and describe what themes and breakdowns you have identified when working on work models. Submit a picture of each *consolidated* (combining all your participants) work model created with your team. The pictures should be readable.
- Conclude by discussing all your findings with respect to your original hypotheses: what did you learn? Did you find information supporting your hypotheses? Was there anything unexpected in your results? Which of the identified problems will you focus on? What could be reasons for these problems? What in your data can provide insight to address these problems?

2. Design ideas
After formulating the results of your exploratory study and identifying specific problems you want to focus on, it is time to think about how we can solve these problems with design.
- When creating design solutions, you first need to brainstorm possible high-level ideas of how a challenge can be approached. Describe here these ideas (goals) you have chosen for your design solutions. Describe how, in your opinion, they will address the challenge and why.
- Now, when design solutions are chosen, you need to visualize them and integrate them into some specific system (smartphone application, for example). To visualize ideas and the workflow, at the beginning we use sketches which then help us to create low-fidelity (paper) prototypes. Both sketches and paper prototypes are fast, cheap and easy to create. Describe your user flow here and support it with examples of user stories. Include sketches that outline your user flow.
Note: At this stage you only need to submit a rough layout (static) of an application you are designing. These sketches should not be paper prototypes yet. You will need to submit descriptive pictures of your paper prototype(s) you have created with your team in the next (!) assignment.
- Each team is expected to go through an early design critiques session with a UX industry specialist. Please, conclude this section by discussing the results of this meeting for your team. For example, what feedback have you received? Are there any changes you decided to make after the meeting? What did you find helpful?

3. Plan for prototype test and evaluation
How do we know that the solution we have designed would actually solve the challenge and suit our users' needs? We test and evaluate the ideas and prototypes. Although you do not need to submit your paper prototypes yet, you should already plan what you want to test and evaluate about your prototypes. In this section you need to:
- Formulate goals for your evaluation studies (what exact features/aspects of your design you want to test),
- Formulate and justify hypotheses for your evaluation studies (why you expect specific features to be successful, for example),
- Provide a detailed plan for your paper prototypes evaluation studies (including verbal script of instructions and description of the environment settings). Note: each study session should not be longer than 15 min.

ONLY FOR CS 649 STUDENTS:

Graduate students are required to have an additional section - literature review, relevant to the challenges you want to focus on and your design solutions. Please review some academic literature on behavioural, design, and/or social aspects related to the challenges and your solutions. Your assignment then should include 4 sections:
1. Exploratory study results
2. Design ideas
3. Related literature
4. Plan for prototype test and evaluation

Marking breakdown (449):
Exploratory study results 30%
Design ideas 36%
Test and Evaluation studies plan 27%
Quality of the presentation (Structure; Language; Visualisation) 7%

Marking breakdown (649):
Exploratory study results 26%
Design ideas 32%
Related literature review 15%
Test and Evaluation studies plan 22%
Quality of the presentation (Structure; Language; Visualisation) 5%

Please, use the provided LaTex template or Word template to write the assignment.

CS 449: 2-3 pages + appendix: 10%
CS 649: 3-4 pages + appendix: 12%

Submit to Dropbox on Learn by 8:59 pm, March 15

Please, include the name of your team in a title of your assignment.
Attach copies of all your consent forms to this assignment.

1. Results of paper prototype evaluation
- First reflect on results in relation to the study goals you have previously identified for your paper prototype evaluation. Did you meet all your goals? If no, what is your opinion on why that happened? Did your study design reflect your goals well and why?
- Then report on discovered themes and detailed results of your paper prototype evaluation study. How do your results correspond to your hypotheses? What trends/themes did you find? What specifically did you learn about your design in relation to each theme? You need to report both on positive results (what did you find to be good design decisions) and negative results (identified problem areas in your design). Give your analysis on why identified design problems may occur, what causes them.
- In this assignment you also need to submit descriptive images of your paper prototypes that have been tested. Include all tested screens and interactions, support with short notes if required. You can attach your images in appendix or as a separate file.

2. Design progression
- Use this section to describe and discuss changes that should be made to your initial design (used in the tested paper prototype) to address prototype evaluation results. Explain in detail why you expect each specific suggested change to be beneficial compared to the original design.
- Optionally, you can support your design progression ideas with wireframes. Wireframes are important for visualization and documentation purposes. With high level of precision and details, they should reflect such aspects of your design as structure of content on your screens and intended user flow through screens. Thus, creating wireframes is a valuable step on your way from ideation to high fidelity product implementation.
3. Plan for high fidelity prototype evaluation
First describe your goals for high fidelity prototype evaluation. What type of information do you expect to get and why do you need it? What questions do you want to answer through this evaluation?
Describe your plan for heuristic evaluation. What set heuristics are you planning to use and why (in relation to your goals)? Provide a set of scenario based tasks you are planning to use for the evaluation and briefly discuss your reasoning for chosen scenarios. Note: heuristic evaluation is to be conducted with an assigned group and does not require consent forms since it includes only the class members.
Describe your plan for cognitive walkthrough evaluation. Include a description of the study environment and verbal script of the instructions for your participants. Provide set of scenario based tasks you are planning to use for the evaluation. If it is different from the set for heuristic evaluation, discuss your reasoning. Note: consent forms are required.
If you are planning to use any additional methods, provide a detailed plan, including a description of the study environment and verbal script of the instructions for your participants.

Marking breakdown (449 and 649):
Results of paper prototype evaluation 35%
Design progression 36%
Plan for high fidelity prototype evaluation 24%
Quality of the presentation (Structure; Language; Visualisation) 5%

Please, use the provided LaTex template or Word template to write the final report.

CS 449: 8-12 pages + appendix: 25%
CS 649: 12-16 pages + appendix: 30%

Submit to Dropbox on Learn by 8:59 pm, April 4

Please, include the name of your team in a title of your final paper.
Attach copies of all not yet submitted consent forms to your final submission as a separate file .

Your final paper should include all work you have done for your project throughout the course. As you might notice from the marking breakdown, it is important for us to see that you have addressed our feedback throughout the course.
While split into sections, final paper should still tell one coherent story of your project development.

Description of the project
Describe the general market segment you are targeting, potential contributions you see as important for the area, what potential value you are bringing to the area, what problems / empty niches you originally identified and how your project addressed them.

Goals of the project
What specifically you are focusing on within your market segment and what exact purpose(s) do you see for your project.

Product anticipated users
In this section describe user groups you have identified for your product and include personas you have created.

Exploratory study
In this section you are expected to have the following:
- description of goals, hypotheses and focus you have formulated for your exploratory studies,
- description of your participants (number, average age, gender distribution, other demographic information important for your study),
- description of methods you have used including brief summary of your study designs: what themes you covered in your interview question, etc.
- report on exploratory study results: describe and discuss identified themes and detailed results, problems (breakdowns) you decided to focus on.

Initial design ideas
- Discuss how you decided to address identified problems and why.
- Describe what specific information from your exploratory results you used in your design.
- Describe results of your design critique session with a UX expert.
- Include sketches and images of your paper prototypes (final versions) - you can include some images in your main text for illustrative purposes, but appendix should contain all images, clear, readable and in good quality.

Only CS 649 student:
Literature review relevant to the challenges you want to focus on and your design solutions.

Paper prototypes and evaluation
In this section you are expected to have the following:
- description of goals and hypotheses you have formulated for your paper prototype evaluation study,
- description of your participants (number, average age, gender distribution, other demographic information important for your study),
- set of scenario/goal based tasks you gave to your participants,
- report on paper prototype evaluation results: describe and discuss identified themes and detailed results, your analysis of possible reasons for identified problems in design.

Design progress
- Describe design adjustments you have identified as required based on paper prototype evaluation results, provide corresponding reasoning.
- Include wireframes you have created - you can include some images in your main text for illustrative purposes, but appendix should contain all images, clear, readable and in good quality.

High fidelity prototypes and evaluation
In this section you are expected to have the following:
- description of goals you have formulated for your high fidelity prototype evaluation study,
- description and results of heuristic evaluation:
--- description of your participants,
--- name used heuristics and reasoning for choosing them,
--- description of used scenarios and goal-based tasks,
--- report on results
- description and results of cognitive walkthrough:
--- description of your participants (number, average age, gender distribution, other demographic information important for your study),
--- description of used scenarios and goal-based tasks,
--- report on results
- report on consolidated required design changes identified in the studies.

Conclusion
Use this section to provide comparison of the initial project ideas and the final result, to reflect on design process you went through and to include you final thoughts on the project.

Marking breakdown (CS 449):
Description and goals of the project - 10%
Product anticipated users - 7%
Exploratory study - 13%
Initial design ideas - 8%
Paper prototypes and evaluation - 14%
Design progress - 8%
High fidelity prototypes and evaluation - 15%
Conclusion - 10%
Feedback integration - 10%
Quality of the presentation (Structure; Language; Visualisation) 5%

Marking breakdown (CS 649):
Description and goals of the project - 9%
Product anticipated users - 6%
Exploratory study - 12%
Initial design ideas - 7%
Design-relevant literature review - 7%
Paper prototypes and evaluation - 13%
Design progress - 7%
High fidelity prototypes and evaluation - 15%
Conclusion - 9%
Feedback integration - 10%
Quality of the presentation (Structure; Language; Visualisation) 5%