usability testing prototyping writing & research web design graphic art
Prototyping
As of Spring 2011, I am working with Roland Hubscher at Bentley to design a program educators can use to assign students to work groups based on their own criteria. Since it is important to talk to users from the very beginning of a design, the wireframe I am developing now is based on findings from user research I performed last Fall.
User Interviews (download interview protocol)

Last fall, I interviewed 7 teachers and professors about the methods and artifacts they currently use to come up with group assignments, as well as their expectations for a group assignment software tool.

User and Task Analysis, Scenarios (download user & task analysis, download scenario)

Based on the data from the interviews, I came up with a description of who our users are and what they need and want to do in terms of assigning students to work groups. In addition, I drafted a brief scenario that I could keep in mind while developing the prototype.

Wireframe Development

Right now, I am working to design a prototype that will fulfill the user and task requirements I have come up with. I started out working witha lot of different designs on paper, and am now working with the latest version in Balsamiq. (view larger images)

early sketch for prototype early sketch for prototype