4  Co-designing

The user experience of a product will make or break your project. This section aims to provide terminology and practices to maximize the conversion of development effort into improved user experience.

The process can be summarized as:

  1. collect user stories
  2. create use case from the user stories
  3. solve the user story
  4. iterate!

4.0.1 user story collection

A “user story” can be represented by a statement in the following form:

"As a ___ I want ___ so that ___."

Early in the development of project ideas, collecting use-cases in this form will help identify the outcomes that are most important for your userbase.

4.0.2 select use case

Developing a user story can be an important part of explicitly defining the needs and wants of your target users. Once a set of use cases have been collected, a user story can be created that will satisfy multiple use cases. A good user story is generic enough to cover many use cases but specific enough to be clearly resolved.

A use case is a task or workflow for which your product is used.

Examples: * “check a region of interest for recent anomalous temperatures” * “get an email alert when a major temperature anomaly is detected” * “see where the most biologically diverse areas are”

User stories can be collected into a spreadsheet (example) to aid in the conversion of user stories into use-cases.

4.0.3 iterative design

The aim of an iterative design process is to involve users as the features of a product are built piece-by-piece.

4.0.4 Think Aloud Protocol

“Think aloud protocol” is a way of collecting user feedback that encourages a user of the product to speak their thoughts aloud when using the product. The facilitator should try to minimize guidance or influence on the user and encourage free-form expression from the user. This protocol can be particularly useful for identifying the pain points in a user workflow, wherein a user gets stuck wondering how to move to the next step of their task.

4.1 Definitions:

  • co-design : Designing with equal contribution from stakeholders at every step of development
  • user story : As a ___ I want ___ so that ___.
  • use case : Generalized summary of user stories in context of the application.
  • iterative design : Repeating pattern of 1) design next iteration 2) user evaluation
  • minimum viable product : First design iteration with minimal features to be useful.
  • speak aloud protocol : Method for user evaluation that aims to minimize evaluator impact.

4.2 References: