Joyce Yee

The role of the interaction designer in an agile software development process

In this paper we describe observations of a contrast in thinking styles between a user-interface design team and a software engineering team developing a new software product. Presented in case study form, it is a first hand account by the interaction designers of work-in-progress. It concludes by identifying some key roles for the interaction designer working in an agile software development environment .

Surrogate users: a pragmatic approach to defining user needs

It is often difficult for practising interaction designers to engage with real end-users because of the competing economic pressures on projects. Preliminary research with end-users (a particularly rich source of information) may be squeezed in favour of more tangible, later-stage project deliverables. This case study paper presents a pragmatic approach to getting closer to end-users by briefing project stakeholders to think as surrogate users within managed 90 to 120 minute-long focus groups. It concludes with an evaluation of the approach in terms of the experiences of the research participants and its merits in terms of project delivery and outcomes. It finds that the method described is particularly useful in multi-stakeholder projects and provides a rich design brief with clear, agreed, user-centred design goals.

Research Through Design: Twenty-First Century Makers and Materialities

The Research Through Design (RTD) conference is a new, experimental dissemination platform to support design practitioner-researchers. Founded in 2013, RTD was established as a biennial conference series with RTD 2015, held in Cambridge, UK (March 25 – 27, 2015). This special issue brings together a set of perspectives from those who attended the RTD 2015 conference, offering new experiential insight about what it means to practice, disseminate, and understand design-led inquiry within academic communities and beyond.

At the mobile experience flicks: making short films to make sense for mobile interaction design

We introduce four short films to analyse, display and make sense of mobile experience and mobile context for design purposes. The films were scripted and produced on the basis of diary and interview data looking at mobile texting and mobile social media use. We experience the making of the films as a way to understand, frame and focus the design space for researchers and designers. We reflect on our own process of making these short films and discuss the value of such an approach for mobile interaction design.

Helping design educators foster collaborative learning amongst design students

AbstractThis paper discusses the development of online teaching resources that enable design educators to foster collaborative learning amongst students in the design disciplines. These online teaching resources will be made available through the Design Collaboration website (http://www.designcollaboration.org). This website was recently set up by Northumbria University, a UK based institution, to provide an online resource for design educators wishing to develop collaborative pedagogies in design education. It currently contains case studies of collaborative student projects but lacks practical teaching resources. As a result, a research project was set up to compliment the current case studies by creating a suite of design-specific tools and resources that will help foster team management and development. Although various institutions have addressed the subject of group work and collaborative learning, there has been no online resource dedicated to the development of practical teaching tools to help des...