EECS 493

EECS 493 Final Project Spec

Project Overview

Throughout the semester, you’ll be working together on a team project that follows the user-centered design process. This project makes up 25% of your total course grade. You will submit milestones at different stages of the project, and the detailed timeline is provided below.

Project Theme

Your team will come up with your own project theme, with the only restriction being that the stakeholder group should be people you can easily have access to, e.g., other undergraduate students. You can find a list of final project examples below.

Detailed Timeline

Milestone	Due date	Task / Objective
Milestone 0 Team Formation	Sun 2/1 11:59 PM	- Team Formation
Milestone 1 Need Identification	Sun 2/15 11:59 PM	- User need - Break point
Milestone 2 Ideation & Speed Dating	Thur 2/27 3:00 PM (before class)	- In-class storyboard showcase
	Sun 3/13 11:59 PM	- Storyboards - Speed dating with users - Written report
Milestone 3 Prototype & Evaluation	Sun 3/29 11:59 PM	- High-fi Figma prototype
	Sun 3/29 11:59 PM	- First user evaluation using think-aloud with 2 users - Written report
Milestone 4 Iterate on Prototype & Evaluation	Tue 4/7 3:00 PM (before class)	- User need - Break point -Prototype iteration
Final Presentation Poster	Tue 4/21 3:00 PM (before class)	- Final Presentation Poster Ready
Milestone 4 Deliverables Deliverables and Final Presentation Video	Sun 4/26 11:59 PM	- Evaluation Report -Final Presentation Video

Milestones

Milestone 0: Team Formation

Due date	Task / Objective
Sun 2/1 11:59 PM	Team registration form / team finding form
Wed 2/4 11:59 PM	Team registration form for assigned teams

Resource	Description
Team Registration Form	Register your teams here
Team Finding Form	Fill this out, if you would like us to form a team for you
Project Team Spreadsheet (Te be released)	A detailed list of all project teams for this semester

Goals

• Form a team of 4 members (either self-selected or assigned by the course staff).
  • If you formed your own team, fill out this Team Registration form.
  • If you would like us to form a team for you, fill out this Team Finding form. - We will form teams for you after the due date; after you are assigned to a team, your team will have 2 days to submit the Team Registration form.

Team Membership

Teams should ideally consist of 4 members.

• If you select your own team:
  • Please submit a list of team members via the Team Registration Form.
    • Note: Please only submit one form per team.
• If you choose to have us assign you to a team:
  • Please fill out the Team Finding Form, where you will describe your skillsets and background, e.g., strengths, time available to work, etc.
  • Please note that if you choose this option, you will be assigned to a team after the due date, and your team will have 2 days to submit the Team Registration form, i.e. slightly behind on the project.

Additional Notes for Team Formations

• You are welcome to use Piazza’s search for teammates feature, or try to meet new people in class or discussion!
• You should aim for a team of 4. A team of 3 will be expected to do the same amount of work as a team of 4. A team of 5 will be expected to take on additional work.
• Aim for diverse skills (e.g., design/drawing, interviewing, Figma).
• All members must be present for the Storyboard Showcase, Prototype Showcase, and Final Presentation. Absent member(s) will receive a 4% deduction from the final project grade for each absence.
• If conflicts with team members arise, notify the staff promptly. Grading will be based on deliverables as a group.

Choosing a Project Theme

• Propose your project theme in the Team Registration form.
• The only requirement: your stakeholder group must be accessible to you (e.g., other undergraduate students).

Milestone 1

(Worth 20% of final project grade, 5% of total grade)

Due date	Task / Objective
Sun 2/15 11:59 PM	All Milestone 1 deliverables

Resource	Description
Example Interview Transcripts	Exemplar interview transcripts from previous semesters
Example Interview Background and Design Document	Exemplar interview background and design documents from previous semesters

Deliverables

Submit the following as one zip file on Canvas.

1. A folder with clean transcripts following the format of the example transcripts. There should be two transcripts per team member.
2. A spreadsheet with 70+ interpretation / white notes.
3. A pdf/image file of the affinity diagram. You can do this on paper + whiteboard (we recommend printing out the notes on paper rather than writing), or on a digital platform like Mural or Miro. Make sure all texts are legible. You need to have at least 70+ white notes, 18-24 blue notes, 6-12 pink notes, and 3-4 green notes.
4. Interview Background and Design Document: A document with background information about the interview (including procedure, goals, and context), interview questions, and a demographic table of participants.
5. Written Report: An up to 700-word written report of up to two user needs and two break points your team have identified in a .docx.

Overview: User Need & Break Point Discovery

The goal for this milestone is to identify authentic user needs that will drive your product design. You’ll conduct your own interviews and transcribe them following the format of our provided example transcripts, particularly the primary example (A1: Improving undergraduate students’ career development experiences) that the teaching staff has carefully annotated.

For additional guidance, we’ve provided four more sets of interview questions from previous semesters covering diverse themes:

1. A2: A business communication platform that simplifies interaction across groups
2. A3: Empowering undergraduate students to make informed and affordable sustainable consumer choices
3. A4: Mood tracking for undergraduate students
4. A5: Gamified study planning app to improve undergraduate students’ productivity

For each theme’s first interview transcript (P1), the teaching staff has annotated strengths and weaknesses in the question design, which should help you craft your own interview questions.

Interview Requirements

Each team member should conduct at least 2 interviews, with each session lasting 20-30 minutes. After conducting interviews, transcribe and clean your transcripts for submission. That means 8 interviews for teams of 3 or 4, and 10 interviews for teams of 5.

Analysis Process

Based on your transcripts, identify up to two user needs and two break points, using the techniques for synthesizing qualitative data from lectures (e.g. affinity diagram). Your team should come together and analyze all your interview transcripts. To generate robust insights for your final project, aim to create as many notes as possible from the transcripts. The minimum requirements are:

• 70+ white notes
• 18-24 blue notes
• 6-12 pink notes
• 3-4 green notes

You’ll also create a spreadsheet with interpretation notes and a final affinity diagram for this submission. The format and content should follow the examples from lecture 8 and discussion 4. We’ve provided student submissions from previous semesters for each of the 5 projects listed above in the folder: [SHARED] Example Transcripts. Each example includes instructor comments highlighting areas for improvement.

Additionally, prepare a document with (1) background information, (2) how you conducted interviews, (3) your interview questions, and (4) a participant demographic table. Refer to this document Example Interview Background and Design Document for an example.

Grading Rubric

You will be graded on:

• 70 Interpretation notes well distributed among participants (3 pts)
• Quality of interpretation notes (3 pts)
• Quantity of blue, pink, and green notes (3 pts)
• Quality of blue, pink, and green notes (3 pts)
• Written Report (2 pts)
• Interview Design Document (6 pts)

Milestone 2

(Worth 20% of final project grade, 5% of total grade)

Due date	Task / Objective
Wednesday 2/25 Noon	In-Class Project Showcase Signup Form
Friday 2/26 Before Class	Storyboards
Friday 3/13 11:59 PM	Zip file of all deliverables

Links and Resources

• In-Class Project Showcase Assignment Form
• Team Information and Staff Contacts

Goals

• Ideation (8%)
  • Brainstorm as many solutions as you can using the IDEO Ideation method taught in class among your team.
  • Based on these ideas, group and filter them down to a subset of 8-10 ideas that will be used for creating your storyboards.
• In-class Project Showcase (4%)
  • In your class on Friday 2/26, we will host an in-class storyboard session to help you ideate better. We will organize the class to facilitate in-class feedback for your ideas.
• Speed dating (8%)
  • Speed date the storyboards with at least 4 potential users (5 for teams of five) in order to
    • Validate the user need
    • Get feedback on the proposed solutions
    • Figure out the final design you want to implement in the next step
• Deliverables: You need to submit the following as one zip file on Canvas.
  • A PDF of a list of at least 80 ideas your team came up with using the IDEO ideation method, and also a subset of 8-10 ideas your team picked for storyboarding.
  • A PDF including all of your storyboards.
  • A PDF/image of the post-it notes you collected during in-class project showcase.
  • Transcripts or notes for at least 4 or 5 speed dating sessions (please do not submit the original recordings).
  • A written report of your method, findings, and final design idea (~700 words, not strict)

Ideation

In the ideation step, you need to first brainstorm at least 80 ideas/solutions to the user need(s) you identified in Milestone 1. And then, you need to pick 8-10 ideas to be ferreted out using the storyboards. These ideas can cover one of the identified user needs or both. This is to say, you can probe storyboards for two different user needs as a way to validate which one is more relatable to target users. These storyboards should help you present your ideas visually, without any specific UI designs/implementations.

Here is a rough template (please see lecture for more examples):

• Scenario with a persona (illustrate the user need): 1 panel
• Solution (illustrate how the user need is resolved): 1-2 panels
• Outcome (illustrate the result of the resolution): 1 panel
• For each storyboard, you also need to write two leading questions which show what question you will ask during the speed dating session. (see lecture for examples)

You will present these storyboards for speed dating and in the in-class project showcase. For Canvas submission, take a screenshot/picture of your storyboards and put them into one document.

Speed Dating

Then, you need to make sure that the user need you have identified is real and narrow down your solutions. You will perform speed dating with at least 4 or 5 potential users, analyze the results, and write a brief report.

Assuming you have 8-10 storyboards, each speed dating session should take less than 30 minutes, during which you should present all of your 8-10 storyboards. We encourage each team member to perform one speed dating session and you will then come together to synthesize the results.

Speed Dating Procedure

• Speed date with at least 4 potential users using the storyboards you have created.
  • You are responsible for finding your participants. They should belong to your target user group(s).
  • Each team member needs to perform at least one speed dating session.
  • The speed dating session can be done in person or over Zoom (where you can share your screen).
• You will present each storyboard, explain what’s happening.
• Here are some suggestions of questions that you can ask the participants:
  • Need validation
    • Have you been in a similar situation before?
    • Does the scenario reflect an authentic situation you’ve been in before?
  • Attitudes towards solution
    • Can you share your thoughts on the solution proposed?
    • What aspects of the technology/solution do you find compelling?
    • What are your concerns about the solution proposed?
    • Would you use this technology in your own [specific context, e.g., business, work, project]?
    • How can this technology/solution be made more suitable for your context?
    • Include your solution-specific questions.
• Please note that the above are suggestions. You can use your own questions. In the final report, you need to include at least one question for need validation, and at least one question to gather thoughts on the solution. Feel free to re-use the options above.
• If the participant consents, recording the session is encouraged. Please then use transcription services such as Zoom Cloud Recording to get the transcript, and modify it when necessary.
• If the participant does not consent to be recorded, please take deliberate notes throughout the session.
• You should clean up the transcripts before submitting to us. Please follow the format as the previous transcripts we’ve provided in A2 and Milestone 1. Please do not upload the recordings themselves.

Analyzing Data from Speed Dating and Presenting your Findings

• Summarize your findings from the 4 or 5 speed dating sessions.
• You can use a method of your choice, such as affinity diagramming.
• Specifically, your goal is to answer the questions including:
  • Is the user need real?
  • Why is this an important problem to solve?
  • What challenges do people face in similar situations?
  • What design solution do you converge on for the next step based on the speed dating findings?

In-Class Project Showcase

The class on 2/26 will be devoted to live critiques, and in short rounds (e.g. ~20 minutes for each round), several teams at a time will post their storyboards on the wall or lay them out on tables around the room. We assume many teams haven’t started running the speed dating sessions yet. Please use this as an opportunity to get feedback to improve your storyboards.

Make sure to bring your printed storyboards for this showcase!

Please complete the “Storyboard Session Sign-up Form” linked under “Goals” heading BY NOON ON 2/25.

Here’s what will happen at the in-class storyboard session:

• There will be a list of team assignments for each round.
• For each round:
  • If you are presenting your team’s storyboard in that round:
    • Post all pages of your storyboard at the station.
    • You must have one additional blank page available for post-its.
    • Stand at your station to explain your storyboard and take comments.
    • One person gets the job of notetaker to write down all the great ideas you’re given.
    • At the end of the session, take a picture of the post-it notes page(s) your team gathered and submit to Canvas as part of your Milestone 2 submission.
  • If you are not presenting:
    • Your job is to go make other group’s projects better.
    • Go see the other team’s storyboards.
    • Ask questions that help you to understand it (not to critique it).
    • Make suggestions on how to make it better.
    • You are also encouraged to learn from the other teams’ great ideas!
    • Leave your suggestions on post-it notes on the extra page with the team.

Rubric

Your Milestone 2 submissions will be graded on:

• Ideas (E.g., Are there 80 ideas in total?)
• Storyboards
  • Basic requirements: amount of storyboards, amount of panels per storyboard, presence of captions, personas, etc.
  • Quality: including but not limited to: coverage of user needs/breakpoints identified in Milestone 1, diversity and scope of solutions, etc.
• Speed dating protocol and transcripts
  • Basic requirements: amount of users & transcripts, presence of need validation and attitudes toward solutions, etc.
  • Quality: including but not limited to: the representation of target user groups, quality of questions, coverage of questions for eliciting user needs.
• Report
  • Basic requirements
  • Quality: e.g., is the report clear and well-written? Are findings and conclusions well supported? Are findings insightful and relevant to the problem?

Milestone 3

(Worth 20% of final project grade, 5% of total grade)

Goals

• Prototype (12%)
  • Design & implement a high-fi prototype using Figma
• Evaluation (8%)
  • Perform at least two user tests regarding the usability of your prototype using the think-aloud protocol.
  • Synthesizing the results using usability findings templates.
  • Write a report describing the usability issues discovered from the user test, and summarize a list of things to fix.
• Link to Assignment: Canvas Assignment
• Due Date: Sunday, March 29, 11:59 PM

Prototype

For the prototype step, your team will design and build a high-fidelity prototype using Figma.

• The prototype should be built using Figma, instead of web/app technologies (e.g., HTML, CSS, Javascript, Swift, etc.).
• The prototype should have a significant amount of work or details. Compared to Assignment 4, your prototype should have at least 4 times the amount of work or details for a team of 3 or 4 and 5 times the amount for a team of 5. This includes but not limited to the number of frames, features, functions, supported interactions, and more.
  • We will primarily evaluate this from the perspective of “tasks”/”critical user journeys”, i.e., a sequence of user interactions your prototype supports for users to accomplish one of their primary goals. For example, in Assignment 4, you designed a task of favoriting, accepting and completing quests (i.e., engage with and complete a quest). This task contains a series of subtasks, including browsing quests, viewing quest details, favoriting a quest, accepting a quest, completing a quest, receiving rewards, etc, where the user could perform one or multiple interactions to complete the subtasks.
  • For this milestone, your prototype should support 2 key tasks, with at least 8 subtasks per task. Subtasks need to be part of the task rather than just a combination of different features.
  • Both tasks need to support the same goal (e.g., “improve resume”) and the goal should not be too general (e.g., “find a job”, since there will be many directions you can go under this goal). If your task has less than 8 subtasks, it may indicate the task is too specific (e.g., “favorite the quest”, “accept the quest”).
  • The task should be key goals users need to accomplish using your prototype, such as 1) sign up for a career fair event, find it on your calendar, and cancel it, or 2) carry out a consultation session with an AI agent to do a mock interview and provide feedback (with many conversation turns to concretely achieve something). In the context of Gmail, a task would be to compose and send an email, or create a folder and sort emails into it, where each of them would include a series of steps and interactions.
  • Unless highly relevant and really needed, we want to discourage you from prototyping tasks or designs that are commonly seen or not adding values to your users, such as managing accounts, signing-in, etc. (but can be a part of your system-specific tasks).
• You can use and build on external templates, but please document them clearly of what is from others, what is from you, when making the submission on Canvas.
• A link to your Figma prototype should be submitted on Canvas by the due date.
• Please describe your tasks, subtasks in the report as a separate section.
• Please consider attending staff office hours to discuss your prototypes to get timely feedback. Also feel free to email us with your prototype for qiuck feedback or prototype-related questions.

Evaluation

User Test

After building the prototype, your team will have to evaluate it by performing a user test with at least 2 target users, who will attempt to use your prototype without much prompting, while thinking-aloud. Here are the specific requirements:

• You need to have at least 2 users. You are responsible for finding your participants. You could have more than 1 team member to run the user test so that everyone on your team will have the opportunity to directly observe users.
• After each user testing session, please iteratively improve your prototype. The changes after each iteration should be discussed in your final report.
• You should use the key tasks your prototype supports for the users, but keep the instruction on a high level without specifying each subtask step the user needs to take.
  • The goal of this evaluation is to test your prototype’s usability, so you should give users the high-level task and let them figure out how to navigate the UI elements. You want to cover all functionalities of the prototype and progressively getting more difficult.
  • Example: Sign up for a career fair event, then cancel it from the calendar (easy); Carry out a consultation session with an AI agent to do a mock interview and provide feedback (hard).
  • Note that these tasks shouldn’t be too granular such as “accepting request” or “completing request” as separate tasks.
• Ask the users to do think-alouds as they try to use the prototype to perform the tasks.
  • Please follow the think-aloud protocol from lecture and check the lecture slides if unsure.
  • Test your prototype on the platform it’s designed for. If you are designing a mobile app, then run it on a mobile phone (try open in Figma mobile app). If you are designing a desktop website, then run it on a desktop browser. Consider context.
• Remember to screen record the user tests, so that you can analyze the audio and screen recordings afterwards to detect usability issues.
• If you find it difficult to do in-person testings, here are some alternatives:
  • You can share your prototype with them using Figma’s share feature, then you can ask the user to use it while sharing their screen in Zoom (or any other video conferencing system).
  • You can use Zoom screen sharing and give your participants remote control access, so they can interact with the prototype directly in Zoom.
  • If you used Zoom to record, please enable audio transcription in order to save the transcripts.
• Write up usability findings based on the usability findings template (UFT). Each team should submit at least 6 UFTs for this milestone. (namely 3 UFTs per think-aloud)

Link to usability findings template: Usability-Finding-Template

Example 1:

Example 2:

Deliverables (please put everything in a zipped folder and submit):

1. Link to the Figma prototype (check permission so anyone can view)
2. The think-aloud tasks (list the tasks you used in the think-aloud sessions)
3. UFTs based on the templates
4. Cleaned think-aloud transcripts, one per session (transcript only, no video)
5. A 1-page report (~700 words) describing your findings in .docx:
   • Connect the findings from the UFTs, what are some most serious problems with your prototype and what are some positive experiences you observed during the think-aloud tests.
   • Describe what changes you’ve made during the iterations, and what needs to be done next to the prototype in order to improve its usability.

Rubrics for Milestone 3

You will be graded on:

• Basic requirements for the prototype [9 points] (e.g., is the prototype developed using Figma? Does the prototype support at least 2 key tasks? Are tasks relevant to user goals and the team’s project themes?)
• Quality of the prototype (e.g., are think-alouds useful and thorough?) [3 points]
• Think Alouds and UFTs [5 points]
• Written Report [7 points]

Awesome Final Projects from Past Semesters

Winter 2025

• StudyScout: https://youtu.be/h8W3WvK1x8s
• Broke but Woke: https://youtu.be/R76cEL5xrVI
• Notionairy: https://youtu.be/gEyuubPOfOg
• The Sweats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfeK_lRBMXM
• Pixel Penguins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElFLOTaTQBo

Fall 2024

• rota: https://youtu.be/uoK-ry9dNps
• Dream Team: https://youtu.be/4aoBE29ejw0
• Pathfinders: https://youtu.be/0ierk4q-2X8
• Munchies: https://youtu.be/5FE_CT4h4UI
• The Department of the Exterior: https://youtu.be/EpLP3sDPayE

Winter 2024

• Ecowarriors: https://youtu.be/4Rj1ZjC0eNI
• Productivity Pals: https://youtu.be/-9xAUY1srDY
• Mood Mobile: https://youtu.be/m-gWpTrQHSU
• Error 493: https://youtu.be/qm9u8UXryaU
• Xiaolongbao: https://youtu.be/GfLDJhg9GbU
• Binary Beasts: https://youtu.be/ehC0HBSm5YU
• JSON Voorhees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7av5kOd8xLQ