The Nature of Interactive Artifacts  and their Design

 

Antonio Rizzo & Alessandro Andreadis

Universityof Siena

This course will present to the students the theoretical foundation of Cultural Psychology and its relevance for the design of Information and Communication Technology. The student will be involved in a practical design exercise where the main steps of cognitive task design will be exemplified.

 1. Human Cognition: The role of artefacts

                        Cultural psychology

                        Foundation

                        Empirical evidence

                        Implication for Interaction design

Readings  

Reports on Activity Theory and Distributed Cognition available at the COTCOS web site, 

Theoretical Approaches: http://www-sv.cict.fr/cotcos/pjs/

2. Interaction Design: Activity and Enabling Technology  

                        Activity Analysis

                        Ethnography

                        Focus Groups

                        Scenarios

     Enabling technology analysis

Readings

Reports on Methods for gathering data during field study available at the COTCOS web site, 

Methodological Approaches: http://www-sv.cict.fr/cotcos/pjs/

3. Interaction Design: Prototyping and Evaluation  

            Concept Design

Mock-ups

            Network Technologies

Readings  

Houde, S, Hill, C. (1997) What Do Prototypes Prototype?, in Handbook of Human Computer Interaction (2^nd Ed.), M. Helander, T. Landauer, and P. Prabhu (eds.): Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B.V, 1997.

Rizzo, A., Marchigiani, E;, Andreadis, A. (1997).  Prototyping and evaluation with a Cognitive Walkthrough based on the Norman's model of action. Designing Interactive Systems. New York: ACM Press, pp.305-309.  

4. Design Exercise: I  

                        Designing a mobile service for tourist:

                        Team design

                        Vision

                        Scenario

                        Enabling technology/ Delivery modality

                        Concept

Readings  

Rizzo, A, Marti, P., DeCortis, F., Moderini, C., Rutgers, J: (In press) The design of the POGO story world. In E. Hollnagel (Ed.) Cognitive Task Design. London: Lawrence Earlbaum.  

5. Design Exercise: II  

                        Designing a mobile service for tourist:

                        Mock-ups

                        Testing

                        Presentation  

  Design groups  

Participants will get hands-on experience with simulated design practices. The design exercise will concern designing mobile services for tourist and students. The design team will be composed by groups of 4-5 students that will go through Lesson 4 and 5 including the afternoon sessions.  

Readings 

- CEC Deliverable n.04: “Usability requirements and application scenarios specification”, PALIO IST-1999-20656, January 2002, pp.12-21.

(To be included in lecture 2. “Interaction Design: Activity and Enabling Technology”)

  - CEC Deliverable n.07: “Definition of the characteristics of telecommunication and network facilities to be employed in the project”, PALIO IST-1999-20656, October 2001, pp.5-16.

(To be included in lecture 3. “Interaction Design: Prototyping and Evaluation”)

- CEC Deliverable n.03: “Interaction requirements specification”, PALIO IST-1999-20656, March 2001, pp.13-26.

(To be included in lecture 4. “Design Exercise: I”)

Assessment  

The students will present their mock-ups in a plenary session.

Last updated 23/08/2002