CSCW Design Projects

This project will be done in groups of three. However in order to gain more experiences working in different teams, you will work with different people than on the usability project. Your first task will be to share with each other your experiences and findings from your usability studies (e.g., you may want to share the reports submitted). Based on these discussions, you will choose a system evaluated by someone on the team as the starting point of your design effort.

1. Scenario-based design and storyboard: Your general design goal is to create a "new and improved version" of the system evaluated in the earlier project. However, you should feel free to make your new design very different from the original (e.g., changing its functionality, organization, look and feel), as long as the changes are well-motivated. You need not be constrained by hardware or software development concerns when envisioning your new design, although you may choose to raise such issues as part of your design rationale (see below).

Specify your new design as a set of five collaborative activity scenarios, each one illustrated with simulated screens that fill in the details of the envisioned user interaction. These screens should not be hand-drawn, but you may create them with whatever authoring or programming tools you prefer (e.g., Powerpoint, Authorware or other Macromedia tools, HTML). Together, the scenario narratives and simulated screens will serve as a multi-task "storyboard" for your design ideas. The scenarios should overlap to some degree, for example featuring the same actors, covering different aspects of the same activity, or using the same objects or tools in different ways; this will help to increase the coherence and meaningfulness of the partial design specification.

There are many examples of scenarios in our usability case study library that you can use as models for length, level of detail, etc. The Virtual Science Fair example may be particularly relevant, as that case describes the design of a collaborative system.

2. Design document: Develop a document that specifies your design. This document should have the following sections:

- Title page (give your new system an evocative name)

- Table of Contents (for ease of review, number all pages and provide pointers to major sections and subsections)

- Overview (1-2 pages introducing your design vision, emphasizing the CSCW issues raised or addressed)

- Scenarios (Each scenario, accompanied by simulated screenshots; label and annotate the screenshots as relevant, and include references to them in the scenario narratives; use each scenario name as a subheading in this section).

- Design Rationale (a 2-3 page discussion of how and why you ended up with this design; focus on a few most important or interesting features of your design with an explanation of why you made these decisions, and what you would expect to find if the design were to be implemented and used).

- Future Work (brief discussion of open issues, implementation concerns, etc.)

- References (cite CSCW or other related papers relevant to your design work and provide the full citations here)

This document will be your major deliverable, and will count for 85% of this project grade. The document must be submitted (hard-copy) by the beginning of class on Monday May 3.

3. Class presentation: The last week of class (with extended sessions if necessary) is reserved for project presentations. Both partners must participate in the presentation, which should cover the most interesting aspects of the design work (you will not have enough time to go through all scenarios, design rationale, etc., so part of your job is to summarize the work for others in the class). As for the individual presentations, you will have access to a projector and laptop as needed.

The presentation will be graded and count as 15% of this project grade. The schedule of presentations is TBD.