6.831 User Interface Design & Implementation
Fall 2004

GR2: Design Sketches

Due Wednesday, October 6, 2004, in class

In this group assignment, you will continue the design of your term project by doing the following:

Scenarios. For the 3 most important tasks in your task analysis, devise a scenario -- a concrete, realistic example of the task. Where your task descriptions were abstract (e.g., "Buy groceries"), your scenarios should be concrete, complete with details (e.g., "Frodo stops by the supermarket on his way home from work to buy some milk, bread, and tomatoes...")
Preliminary interface design. Using your task analysis, organize the tasks into a preliminary design. A preliminary design consists of one or more sketched windows or dialog boxes, along with the menus and controls that the user manipulates.
Storyboards. For each of your scenarios, describe how your preliminary interface would be used to perform the task. Use rough sketches to illustrate how the interface would look at important points in the task.

Take a little time now to brainstorm a variety of different interface designs, sketching them by hand on paper or a whiteboard. Then choose one that seems the most promising, or a combination of them, to hand in.

When you draw your sketches, don't get bogged down in details like wording, icon appearance, or layout. Keep things simple. Focus on the model you're trying to communicate to the user, and think about your task analysis: what the user needs to do and how they can do it. Putting too much time into low-level details is pointless if big things have to change on the next design iteration. Hand-drawn sketches are encouraged.

What to Hand In

Include the following parts in your report:

Your project title.
Overall design. Describe your preliminary design by presenting sketches of important windows, dialog boxes, and menu trees, and briefly explaining the function of each item.
Scenario storyboards. Present each of your scenarios in story form, including sketches to illustrate how your interface would look at important points in the task.