Project Two: Design for Fun

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Project Two
Design for Fun
A Positive User Experience


OVERVIEW

You are to apply your design skills to create a positive user experience. This experience, which will take the form of a toy, will reflect your emerging command of:

• Ethnographic observation, analysis and interpretation
• Strategies for establishing structure
• Human perception and strategies for conveying information
• Basic principles of experience design
• Narrative and metaphorical strategies
• Personas, scenario-planning and user-specificity
• The nature of positive user experiences


BREAKDOWN

1. As with any design project, begin with research and brainstorming. The aim at this stage is to develop an understanding of our experiences with toys. Collect as many different toys as possible. Observe and analyze how each design succeeds or fails to create a positive user experience. Compile and interpret these analyses, and attempt to establish structure: what is fun? (This portion of the project will be completed in the following Exercise: “Deconstruct a Toy: What is Fun?") Also, begin to generate concepts for your own toys in your sketchbook.

2. Expand your “fun research” to include games. Play several games, and deconstruct the experiences. How are games different from toys? How can narrative and metaphor be employed to contribute to a positive user experience? How can these strategies be incorporated into the design of a toy? (This portion of the project will be completed in the following Exercises: “Photoshop Tennis” and “A Meeting in a Supermarket.”)

3. Develop and present five concepts for a toy. Solicit feedback on your concepts from your partner from Exercise Six, and deliver feedback to them in return. Your feedback should consider how each concept responds to our notions of what constitutes fun, and how the course material presented to date can be employed to improve the concept. Your five concepts must be posted to the blog by 08:30 on Wednesday, February 11, and your feedback must be posted to the blog by 18:00 on Friday, February 13.

4. Narrow your concepts down to one, and produce a working prototype. The prototype need not be exquisitely constructed, but should be robust enough to survive user testing. You will not be permitted to explain your toy, so any required instructions should also be prepared in prototype form. You must bring your prototype to class at 08:30 on Wednesday, February 25 for user testing by your colleagues.

5. Create a formal proposal that details your final concept. Your proposal should include visual representation of your concept, as well as a written description of why your toy or game is fun and how it employs the course concepts presented to date. You should incorporate improvements derived from user testing. Your proposal must be posted to the blog by 08:30 on Wednesday, March 4.


DELIVERABLES

08:30 on February 11: Five toy concepts, posted to the blog

18:00 on February 13: Constructive feedback on your partner's five
toy concepts, posted to the blog as a comment on their original post.

08:30 on February 25: A mock-up of your final concept for
user-testing

08:30 on March 4: A formal proposal of your revised final concept,
posted to the blog.


EVALUATION

Five concepts in sketch form, posted to the blog: /5
Feedback to your partner, posted to the blog: /5
Mock-up (robustness, use-ability, “fun-ness”): /8
Formal Proposal (proposal quality, clarity and
convincingness; synthesis of course material to date): /7
TOTAL: /25