As a guideline for this project ‘A design process for Creative Technology’ [48] was used to follow a clear structure for the design process. It is a suitable example to follow for the process of developing and designing a graduation project for Creative Technology students. A visualization of this process can be found in Figure 3.1. The structure of it is alternating divergent-convergent. The divergent phase an open design space is define, whereas the convergent phase consists of reduced design space leading towards finding a solution. Iterations of the design can theoretically be repeated as many times as wished. Furthermore the process has four phases, namely the ideation phase, specification phase, realisation phase and evaluation phase. The purpose of the ideation phase is creating ideas and coming up with a concept of a prototype. During the specification phase functionalities are supposed to be described to give a structure upon which the prototype can be build. In the realisation phase the prototype will be developed based on the functional structure and the concept. The final phase, evaluation is supposed to validate whether the prototype is working properly. In addition is the prototype tested by users to also validate the user experience.
3.1.1 Ideation phase
The first phase of ‘A design process for Creative Technology’ is the ideation phase. The beginning of the phase starts with a creating ideas and the phase ends with an elaborate product idea based on
preliminary requirements. Sources of inspiration for this product idea could be technologies, user needs and creative ideas. Regarding this project the technologies are related to the second sub-research question, the user needs would refer to the third sub-research question and creative ideas relate to the fourth sub-question. Methods used in the ideation are brainstorms, interviews and iPACT analysis, which are described later.
3.1.1.1 Technology
The technology that will be used to realize the GUI still has to be determined during the Ideation phase. Created ideas need to determine whether they fit for a design within a mobile device like a tablet or mobile phone or whether implementing a screen into the wearable might be a better solution.
Furthermore also a non-graphical user interface could be developed and has to be considered. Possible technology solutions will be considered during the brainstorms which will be explained later on in the Methods and Techniques chapter.
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In the beginning there will be a stakeholder analysis conducted. Later in this chapter the stakeholder analysis will be further elaborated on. In addition to determine the user needs interviews with possible users are conducted. These are supposed to get a better understanding of what feature the user might prefer for the interface. The information gathered from the interviews and stakeholder analysis will be used to form personas.
3.1.1.3 Creative Ideas
The background research conducted will be the first reference point to inspire the process of finding creative ideas. The findings on habit formation, biofeedback as well as already existing applications and wearables provide some insights on possible ways to approach the solution. To concretize these insights into novel ideas for an interface solution an individual brainstorm followed by a group brainstorm session are going to be conducted.
Finally all gathered information of this phase will be processed to tailor a final product idea. This idea will be presented with first sketches of the interface to give a first understanding of the design. Followed by this is the first Iteration of list of Requirements the interface has to fulfil is given.
3.1.2 Specification phase
The generated product idea of the Ideation phase is going to be the basis for the specification phase. During this phase all different functionalities the system will have are going to be determined and elaborated on. The method to explain such functionalities will be functional system architecture by providing visualization and verbal explanation of the system’s functions and interaction between the user and the interface. Based on the elaboration of the systems structure a reiterated and updated list of requirements will be presented.
3.1.3 Realisation phase
During the realisation phase the first prototype for the interface will be build. This prototype is going to be based on the most recent list of requirements as well as the functional architecture of the
specification phase. Which frameworks are used for creating this prototype and how they are used for the realisation are explained. Furthermore it is explained how the design choices changed during the realisation due to certain factors. The built prototype can be used as tool for the evaluation.
3.1.4 Evaluation phase
The purpose of the evaluation phase is to test whether the prototyped interface meets all the
requirements given during the development phase. Based on the findings it can be determined which parts of the interface have to be changed or improved. The evaluation phase is split up into two parts which are a functional test and usability testing. The functional test will be fully conducted by the author
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and is investigating whether all functions are working. During the usability test the prototype is going to be presented and tested by possible users from the target group. The usability test will focus on quality factors and non-functional requirements that are supposed to be met by the prototype. Based on this a reflection on the prototype’s positive and negative aspects will be given.
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