DESIGN PROCESS

Review of the Product

First, we interacted with the CD individually ourselves to look for strengths and weaknesses. We found so many more of the former than the latter that our initial reaction was incomprehension of how we could possibly make it better. After our extended experience with VizAbility, we remain deeply impressed.

User tests and how they influenced the creation of a web component

Our user tests germinated the idea of forming a web community around VizAbility. The main problem seemed to be that learners were not quite sure what they had learned from their interaction with the CD or how those skills could apply to their particular work situations.

Reviewing our ideas with Bill and Kristina

Through much discussion with Bill Hill and Kristina Woolsey, members of the VizAbility design team (and much intense interaction with each other during the rides to and from San Francisco to see them), a picture of the web community that we envisioned began to emerge. On the web, it would be possible to create a meaningful, individualized learning environment in which assessment by peers would be possible and the relevance to particular learners would be expressible.

With the advent of the World Wide Web the future of CD-ROMs has become questionable. Bill, Kristina, and ourselves all felt that VizAbility needed a web component if it was to survive the changes in computing trends over the next couple of years. The WW seemed like an ideal medium to create a visual thinking community were individuals could interact and help one another make their ideas more visible.

Feature creation

We initially brainstormed ideas with Bill and Kristina that they would like to see in a web component of VizAbility. Then using those along with suggestions given to us in our user studies, we converged on a few ideas such as a discussion forum, and a user work database where users could critique and provide feedback on other users' work.

A brainstorm was later conducted in class by the members of Ed106. This brainstorm provided us with many new and innovative ideas that we had not considered. From this we decided to create a "relevance" section on the web site that would give users the ability to see how VizAbility was relevant to their type of work.

Final meeting with Kristina: design process

We had one final engagement with Kristina that was an intense three-hour lunch meeting. Kristina explained to us many of the design decisions that she made while creating VizAbility. She also explained the design process that her team used to construct this product. One example that was most interesting was the design process used to create the icons at the bottom of all the screens of VizAbility. Some of the icons at the bottom change depending on what section of the software the user is in. Other icons remain at the bottom of the screen for all of the sections in VizAbility. Those icons are features of the software that are independent of any of the sections. As a result, Kristina and her team felt that since these were independent features it would be appropriate to make them accessible to the users throughout the software.

Final meeting with Kristina: consolidation

We showed her our list of features that we hoped to incorporate into the web site and she helped us consolidate many of them. We went over each feature, presented the theory behind it, and the purpose of it. In the spirit of VizAbility, we then did some preliminary sketches with Kristina of each feature and modeled how users would interact with them on the web.

Construction

Once the features were finalized, we created a site map of the web site. The features were organized into "minor revision features" and "next generation features." We then constructed the "new user" section of the site as part of our prototype assignment. The "returning user" section has been mocked up.

The ability to work closely with her and with Bill at MetaDesign was a genuine treat for both of us. We both learned a tremendous amount about creating educational software from them.