Chapter 2 The Wheel: A Lifecycle Template

Chapter 2

The Wheel: A Lifecycle Template

By,Robert LarmoreLisa Paul Palathingal

02/20/2014

Introduction

Iterative, evaluation-centered, UX lifecycle template

Iterative Process: All or part is repeated for the purpose of exploring, fixing or refining a design

Lifecycle: Structured framework consisting of a series of stages and corresponding activities

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Four basic abstract activities

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The Wheel

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UX process activities

1) Analyze

2) Design

3) Implement

4) Evaluate

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UX process activities

1) Analyze

2) Design

3) Implement

4) Evaluate

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UX process activities

Analyze: Understanding the business domain, user work and user needs

Sub-activities: Contextual Inquiry Contextual analysis Extracting requirements Synthesizing design-informing models

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UX process activities

1) Analyze

2) Design

3) Implement

4) Evaluate

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UX process activities

Design: Creating conceptual design, interaction behavior, and look and feel

Sub-activities: Design ideation and sketching Mental models and conceptual design Design production

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UX process activities

1) Analyze

2) Design

3) Implement

4) Evaluate

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UX process activities

Implement: Prototyping

Types: Vertical Horizontal T Local

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UX process activities

1) Analyze

2) Design

3) Implement

4) Evaluate

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UX process activities

Evaluate: Verifying and refining interaction design

Methods: Rapid evaluation Fully rigorous

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Flow among UX process activities

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Flow among UX process activities

Activities can overlap

Objective: Move forward to production

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Managing the process with activity transition criteria

Team must be able to decide:

When to leave an activity Where to go after any given activity When to revisit a previous process activity When to stop making transitions and proceed to

production

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Managing the process with activity transition criteria

Answers depend on transition criterion:

Whether designers have met the goals and objectives

Whether there are adequate resources (time and budget) remaining to continue

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Choosing a process instance for project

Factors:

Risk tolerance Project goals Project resources Type of system being designed Stage of progress within project

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Project Parameters

Risk: Things going wrong Features or requirements being missing Not meeting needs of users

The less tolerance for risks, the more need for rigor and completeness in the process

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Project Parameters

Resources:

Budget Schedule Person Power

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Practitioners with extensive experience need less rigorous process

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Project Parameters

Project Parameters

Type of system being designed:Example: mp3 player vs. air traffic control system

Stage of progress within project:Early stage: AnalysisLater stage: Evaluation

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Mapping project parameters to process choices

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The system complexity space

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Interaction complexity

About elaborateness of user actions to accomplish tasks in the system

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Interaction complexity

Low interaction complexity:• smaller, easier tasks • Example: ordering flowers from a Website

High interaction complexity:• larger, more difficult tasks• requires special skills or training • Example: manipulating a color image with Adobe

Photoshop

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