Unit 3: Organizing Data|Design

Analyze Technology

Advances in computing can lead to bursts of creativity in other fields. The advent of computer-generated graphics has revolutionized filmmaking, giving creators incredible tools to express their stories. Parallel and distributed computing has enabled apps and services to scale to millions—even billions—of people. Advances in computing also led to the development of machine-learning strategies that help engineers create experiences such as immersive augmented reality.

Consider the internet—which started as ARPANET, a simple network to support basic text communication among scientists at a handful of institutions. It has since evolved into a vast patchwork of fiber optic cable, phone lines, cable lines, and networking hardware that can transmit data of all kinds at tremendous speeds. It has come to be a platform for creative people all over the world to exchange and build on each others' ideas, and to find audiences for their work.

Image: some sort of connected world metaphor. Could be something like these below

Looking back, the original ARPANET could be considered a working prototype of today’s internet. A prototype is a preliminary model of something—anywhere from a simple sketch on a napkin to a tangible product that users can touch and interact with. Prototypes represent a critical element in the design process because they allow you to test your ideas before you actually build the real thing.

Analyze this:

Think about machine learning.

In Unit 2, you watched a video about machine learning. Work in small teams to explore applications of machine learning that relate to other fields, such as medicine, business, ecology, or the arts.

Collate your findings in a collaborative Keynote presentation and share your findings with the class.

Think Like a Developer

Imagine a development scenario where you’re the client and you’re asking a developer to design and build an app to your specifications. You’d need to explicitly describe the app specs: its purpose, the audience and their needs, the core functions of the app, and key features of the user interface. You’d also specify any development constraints that might exist, such as time available, funding available, or user requirements that can’t be compromised. Being clear and explicit about development constraints is an important step in the overall design process.

Try this:

Create an app development contract.

Earlier you explored a playground on data visualization. What sorts of entities might be interested in a data visualization app? Identify a business, an enterprise, or a government group—and take on the role of its Chief Operating Officer.

Your job is to engage a developer to build a data visualization app. You’ll need to identify your own audience and specific purpose, then think back to the playground to define other specs for the app.

Write a set of specifications for your contract with the app developer. You’ll need to do some investigating yourself to know what you require. Make sure to include the following:

App purpose

App audience and audience needs

Core functions

Key features of the user interface and sample user interactions

Development constraints

Plan and Build

You’re almost at the stage of prototyping your app. You won't build a fully functioning prototype; instead, you’ll create a mockup that looks like a real app and demonstrates its basic design and function. Keep in mind that a prototype doesn't have to contain every single screen or every functionality that you’d include in a finished app.

Before you build your prototype, it’s important to be clear what must be included and what can be part of a separate document that explains your thinking about the app. The best place to start is by articulating your app’s specifications. You’ve been iterating on these specs across Units 1 and 2 without explicitly naming them—now’s a good time to pull them together into a summary document that will guide development of your prototype.

Plan this:

Write out the specs for your app.

Just as you did earlier for the data visualization app, make sure you address the following:

App purpose

App audience and audience needs

Core functions

Key features of the user interface and sample user interactions

Development constraints

You can build a working prototype in Keynote using links and animation to emulate your app’s functionality and to provide a semi-realistic user experience. Keynote is also a useful tool for testing your user interface design. Take a look at this WWDC video on 60-second prototyping to find out how you can use Keynote to test ideas quickly. For a more in-depth exploration of app prototyping, watch this video on iterative design.

Use your app specs to focus your prototype. Don't try to build everything in your design; just make sure that your prototype delivers the minimum requirements to demonstrate how it meets your audience's needs.

Check out this finished prototype for inspiration.

Go Green prototype app Get Started screen

Go Green prototype app home screen

Go Green prototype app daily log screen

Go Green prototype app achievement screen

Build this:

Follow the process below to create your own prototype.

Sketch drawings of your app screens, or take screenshots of an existing app you’d like to reconfigure.

Import each image into its own individual Keynote slide. (You might want to create a custom slide that reflects the screen your app will run on.) Organize the slides the way you’d like a user to flow through the screens of your app.

Create a few different flows, and seek input from users (classmates) on which flow feels best to them. Select the best flow to use as the basis for your app design.

Create a storyboard describing the app behavior—specs about how the program will run or what is required for the program to work. You can use these descriptions as a reference during your build.

Use linking and animation to show how users can trigger touch events. To make sure the presentation changes slides only when the user taps the navigation buttons, click Document in the upper right corner, and choose Links Only from the Presentation Type menu.

To provide a great simulation of the app experience you've designed, you can play your presentation on iPhone or iPad.

Once you’ve built your prototype, you’ll want to develop a survey for systematic user testing. It may even be a good idea to get permission to record your users trying out your app. Recordings will make it easy to review where people made mistakes and might have needed feedback from the app—providing valuable information about how to improve your initial ask of the user. Be mindful that recording user interactions is a form of data collection, so you’ll need to think about how to safely store that data and how to safely dispose of it.

Build this:

Draft a user experience survey.

Your survey can include direct questions that you’ll ask of a user, as well as observation tools. To get you started, you can adapt and expand on the questions below:

What do you most like about this app?

What are you trying to do with the app?

Are there any features you think you need but are missing in the app?

Test out your survey with a peer. Do the questions and observations provide enough information for you to iterate on your design? If not, revisit your survey to elicit more detailed feedback.

Other Considerations

Systematic user testing helps improve your app before publication, but you can also learn from user experience metrics once your app is in market. User metrics refers to data collected by the app about user interactions—things like average time spent in the app, number of times the app is used in a day, number of screens viewed, and most-used app features. But remember: Including user metrics in your app design means that you need to consider how user data will be used, shared, and stored—and deleted when it’s no longer needed.

When you’re considering your app’s potential for data collection, you don’t have to limit it to user experience metrics. What other types of data could your app collect and share? Data collection can dramatically accelerate positive developments in many industries. Medical, engineering, communication, and artistic industries are seeing rapid development as a result of computing innovations that include data collection and analytics.

However, data collection by digital technologies raises many legal and ethical questions. Consider these examples:

If a landlord installs internet-connected security cameras in an apartment, do they have the right to share the video feed?
Can utility companies turn off a family’s power if their smart meter reports they’re using electricity inefficiently?
Do people have the right to opt out of a smart meter to keep their data from being used for other purposes?
Should the internet be considered a utility? Would this designation change how it’s regulated? How do you feel about the internet regulatory structures currently in place?