1. Assignment Cover Sheet
MSc in User Experience Design
Student Name: Stephen Norman
Student Number: N00147768
Programme: MSc UX Design
Year of Programme: 2015
Module Name: Design Thinking
Assignment: Paper Prototyping and Evaluation
Assignment Deadline: 04/11/2015
I declare that that this submission is my own work. Where I have read, consulted
and used the work of others I have acknowledged this in the text.
Signature: Stephen Norman Date: 05/11/2015
3. Contents
1. Introduction: aim and objectives of the project ....................................................... 3
2. Methodology: overview of the methodology followed to complete the project ........ 3
2.1 Identifying Problems ......................................................................................... 3
2.2 User Research.................................................................................................. 4
2.3 Personas: rationale and description.................................................................. 4
2.4 Scenarios: rational and description................................................................... 5
2.5 Prototypes: overview, storyboard, screen and other interface elements........... 5
3. Results: heuristic evaluation of each prototype ...................................................... 8
3.1 Visibility of system status.................................................................................. 8
3.2 Match between system and the real world....................................................... 8
3.3 Consistency and standards ............................................................................. 9
4. Discussion and conclusion: including self and peer evaluation .............................. 9
5. References and bibliography................................................................................ 10
6. Appendix .............................................................................................................. 11
6.1 Personas ........................................................................................................ 11
6.2 Scenarios........................................................................................................ 14
6.3 Final Prototype................................................................................................ 16
6.4 Literature Review............................................................................................ 21
4. 1. Introduction: aim and objectives of the project
The aim of the project was to redesign Salud through the use of low fidelity paper
prototyping. These designs would be led by proto-personas, scenarios and a heuristic
evaluation session. The discussion will revolve around the process flow covering each
phase of the project and how it was conducted. The scope of the project focused on
two specific areas of the existing product; Patient Overview, and Dental section.
During the project the choice was made to cater the design towards tablets specific
devices only. All aspects will be discussed in the following sections.
2. Methodology: overview of the methodology followed to complete the project
The following methodology was conducted to fully appreciated the scope of the
project, as well as a basic understanding of the user; the dental practitioner.
2.1 Identifying Problems
Salud is a comprehensive application covering a range of dental exam utilities from
patient records, dental examinations and treatment planning. Reviewing the
software to fully digest the navigation created question. How does a dentist know
where they are? What is the information architecture, as there is no clearly defined
structure on where to proceed? This comprehensiveness could be prone to error
creation, and user frustration. As an example; Figure 1 highlights the locations of
multiple separate navigation structures. Another problem which theoretically could
cause a poor experience is the use of window layering. Multiple windows can
become unmanageable and the user could become intimidated and frustrated when
searching for the correct location. Reducing or eliminating this all together will
drastically reduce errors and increase productivity. A simple and structured
approached is required, beginning with the removal of all unnecessary items and
operate all screens through one view. A further discussion will be conducted in
Section 2.5 Prototypes.
Figure 1 – An image of Salud showing it’s multiple navigations.
5. 2.2 User Research
Surplus to requirement, two interviews were conducted. The initial impromptu light
discussion was carried out during a dental exam. The entire journey was witnessed
and examined. The second interview was conducted over the phone. Questions
were asked about the current software in use and its problems and benefits.
Consensus being, robust, well use of colours, and efficient. However, lack easy
learnability. Taking on these results, three personas were created.
2.3 Personas: rationale and description
Dr. Jennifer Coady
Dr. Coady was created to address attributes such as efficient, time savings, detailed
and flexible system. Her pain points revolved around inefficient software costing
the potential to increase the customer turn over.
Dr. Coady is typical dentist in the height of her career. Juggling a busy lifestyle, she
is keeps her practice at the forefront of her life. A smoothly operating practice with
exceptional patient care to the daily routine is her main objective. She is to speed
with tablets and touch screen applications. However, they must still meet her
requirements or they are dropped.
Dr. John C. Murray PhD
Dr. Murray’s persona addressed a dentist who has extensive knowledge in the field.
However, a lack of understanding change and a hesitance to adapt to technology.
Any system which he approaches must be intuitive from the start. A sense of
familiarity is required as this persona type would much prefer to use pen and paper.
The system’s challenge needs to assimilate real world knowledge and adapt it
digitally.
As a consultant, his experience and knowledge come highly regarded. Even though
he finds it hard to adapt, he accepts any challenge as long as it meets his high
degree of standards and is an intuitive replacement to their hardcopy alternatives.
James O’Neill
The design requirement needed to address students – Salud’s other main user
group. Applications designed for students would need to be able to cope and
prevent the potential for large amounts of errors to occur during a stressful
examination.
6. James is a third year dental student committed to becoming a dentist. He would
prefer digital applications as they are quicker and easier to use. Having a cloud
based system means that he can access all his patient data whenever, where ever
and taking the pressure of his other duties.
2.4 Scenarios: rational and description
Two context scenarios were created to allow for designs to be built up using a
scenario catered to be their ideal experience. Additionally, a key path scenario was
also created to understand the interface interactions with the design as discuss by
Cooper et al. 2014. The key path scenario pinpointed many problems and also
some good designs which evolved in to a second iteration before the evaluation
discussed in Section 3.
Dr. Coady’s context scenario places her in a busy dental clinic with pressure from
management to increase patient turn over. It addresses many problems that would
occur outside the dental examination which add efficiency to the business model.
The context scenario designed for Dr. Murray places him in a role where he is
observing and evaluating the interactions of his students. By observing the speed
and ease of use, his hesitancy in the product is eliminated and has a proven that it
could also be useful in his general practice.
2.5 Prototypes: overview, storyboard, screen and other interface elements
Following the decision to base all designs on a tablet some initial sketches were
done. The designs were of the high priority input elements (See Fig. 2) such as the
teeth. Initial concept ideas were to base the design around a flat design user
interface. Flat designs appear to the user to be lighter and enable information to
be visualised clearer on smaller screen sizes. However, a skeuominimalism
approach using both flat and skeuomorphic designs could blend real world and light
weight to create a better design as discussed by Page, 2014.
7. Figure 2 – Early prototype of flat design UI teeth.
To gauge designs, competitor research was carried out resulting in a number of
designs having skeuomorphic, flat or both styles together. Using skeuomorphic
designs enabled the system to match the real world. Also adding colour created a
new level of visibility for each diagnosis (See Fig.3).
Figure 3 – Competitor dental diagnosis screen.
This addressed two issues; a real world similarity, which is easy to recognise
providing real-time visual feedback for each diagnosis. However, when interacting
with a tooth there is not enough pixel space to interact with precision. The solution
to this was to allow the system to recognised diagnosis type (ie: Cavity) , upon
selection zoom in to the tooth and overlay the selection with a grid. Each grid
represented an area on the tooth’s surface (See Fig. 4).
8. Figure 4 – Initial concept of the grid system being used to identify a localised diagnosis.
Early in its development the grid system was identified as a useful design, and
operated very well when placed with the key path scenario for Dr. Coady (See
Appendix 6.2 Scenarios).
As mentioned earlier, Salud’s navigation had no clearly defined information
architecture, the solution to which was to remove unneeded sections. As stated by
Dieter Rams:
“I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary.
That means eliminating everything that is modish
because this kind of thing is only short-lived.”
- Dieter Rams
All patient related information was now store in the hamburger menu. This
eliminated the clutter and allowed for the main navigation to be created around a
clearer goal (See Fig. 5).
9. Figure 5 – Patient Hamburger menu
The question is, how effective is the new design? Will other users find it to be an
improvement?
3. Results: heuristic evaluation of each prototype
The following heuristic evaluation (Nielsen, 1994) has been designed to reveal
usability problems. Due to time the evaluations were brief, and only certain segments
were covered.
3.1 Visibility of system status
The prototype slides were laid out in a chronological order according to the key path
scenario. With each prototype screen represented a single step in the examination.
The method of explaining to the evaluators that this related to a key path scenario
was lost. It caused more confusion about the software as the user jumped around
the panels and became lost in the information overload. Following this learning the
final prototype was designed with a freer flow approach.
3.2 Match between system and the real world
The language was easily recognisable and there were no issues around navigating
or across the desired path. The system lacked feedback, or any clear reference to
giving information of the last known location. These items were also address by
bolding the menu text or highlighting it with a colour while also adding highlighted
circle under the selected tooth (Fig. 6).
Figure 6 – Upper Right, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are selected.
10. 3.3 Consistency and standards
During the evaluation there were differences between the overview and dental
prototype. The icons of the teeth consisted of fully skeuomorphic on the dental,
where it was skeuomorphic on the other. Questions arose as to why it had been
designed that way. This minor issue had been an overlooked, and was rectified in
the final prototype.
The heuristic evaluation went well for both prototypes. Some issues arose based on
communicating the prototypes across properly. These were learnings which will be
taken on board. When evaluating other prototypes, it was noted that the evaluation
consisted of voice recording or an easy method of recording the data. Using a rating
scale for each segment. These methods were a very organised approach to the
heuristic evaluation, and noted to be used in further evaluations.
4. Discussion and conclusion: including self and peer evaluation
The project set out to re-design the Salud by improving the user interface through
utilisation of two proto-personas and corresponding scenarios. Based on the research
and learnings taken from those personas, the new interface would be a very suitable
candidate to begin further user testing with a working prototype. The key problems
and pain points were all addressed. It’s unfortunate to not be able to carry on the
design any further. It would have been nice to see the fruit of our labour in action, or
in an interactive prototype.
During the process we worked very well together. A lack of understanding of persona,
and scenarios creation was intimidating at first. However, each of us had done parts
of this process before and were able to build up some very good and detailed models
of our ideas of who would engage with the product. The research carried out by Laura
came at such a benefit to the designs. As a team we were very fortunate to have been
able to get those interviews. It was also very good working with Sara; another great
designer. I really admired her hands on approach and creativity to the project. It was
comforting being able to speak the same language and bounce off ideas back and
forth. It was highly useful to all of us. The task came together very well, and we all
enjoyed working together. Being that this is running outside of work it does make it
more difficult to communicate, where if this was in a working environment there were
be many more face to face meetings, and or phone calls. However many Starbucks
(not my favourite at all) coffees later, and a few weekend meets I believe we
successfully delivered a well-designed prototype, and learned so many new things
along the way. Learning by doing, there is no better way.
11. 5. References and bibliography
Cooper, A. (2014). About Face. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.
Nielsen, J., & Mack, R. (1994). Usability inspection methods. New York: Wiley.
Nngroup.com,. (2015). 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design: Article by Jakob Nielsen.
Retrieved 1 November 2015, from http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-
heuristics/
Simplestepsdental.com,. (2015). Your Dental Visit: What To Expect. Retrieved 1 November
2015, from http://www.simplestepsdental.com/SS/ihtSS/r.==/st.31855/t.32270/pr.3.html
YouTube,. (2015). Hard Tissue Exam. Retrieved 31 October 2015, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYll-fL7voQ
YouTube,. (2015). 10 Usability Heuristics. Retrieved 1 November 2015, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWc0Fd2AS3s
Page, T. (2014). Skeuomorphism or flat design: future directions in mobile device User
Interface (UI) design education. International Journal of Mobile Learning and
Organisation, 8(2), 130-142.
