Phenomena and Theories of Human Computer Interaction

Project » Design Briefs

You may choose to use the following two design briefs as fodder for your ideation. You are in no way obligated to do so. The below are incomplete design briefs. To adopt these briefs, you should narrow their scope in terms of goals and audience, and complete them with the body of the brief that describe the solution using first-person language ("We will design ..."), in general terms with respect to the execution (no specific implementation or materials mentioned), but with specifics on necessary requirements or constraints.

Enséñame

We know that young children after 18 months of ago learn fast because their nervous system is physically ready to get all wired up. Bilingual parents used to worry that they should only speak one language for fear that they confuse their children. Now we know that this is not the case, and that multilingual education from young is very helpful. However, parents who desire to teach their children bilingually may not be bilingual themselves.

Hint: this brief requires considering more than one primary stakeholder; in particular, young children have many considerations (e.g., limited attention span, limited motor control) that make design most "tricky" (perhaps I would say "interesting").

The HungryGoSocial Games

Current tablet gaming apps do not encourage co-located social interaction. IM and chat conspire to make people who even sit next to each other stay silent and interact through the computing medium, while research shows that such interaction pales in comparison to face-to-face, tactile interaction. Few tablet apps encourage different family members or friends from jointly interacting with a single device in a synchronous and co-located fashion.

Hint: think of the affective theories and phenomena of group dynamics as factors in your project.

Bedridden Boredom

Elderly patients in hospitals are bored with too much time on their hands and no mobility or literacy to make use of their time. They need activities or devices to help them be productive during their hospital or hospice stay. Productivity could be interpreted in a mental, social or physical sense. The design must be able to be operated resting while in bed.

Hint: think of the evaluative problems that this scenario represents. Are longitudinal studies needed? Also, how does universal usability factors affect the design of your design brief (i.e., some elderly coming from poor socio-economic backgrounds may be not literate).