M364 Interaction Design

Acronyms schmacronyms.

The DECIDE framework.

DECIDE doesn't really help with the meaty points here, what does it stand for, well this:

Determine
Explore
Choose
Identify
Decide
Evaluate

The only one of those that applies to the point of the process is Evaluate.  So obviously I had to come up with a string of characters for the key processes, not an acronym.

GQEPTPIEID

I'm sure you'll agree that makes much more sense.  Or at least it will once I explain how to remember it and what it represents.

Gentlemen's Quarterly Eats Pine Top Private I Ends In Death

It's a mnemonic to recall the key words associated with the DECIDE framework, here's what that now represents:

Goals
Questions
Evaluation Paradigms and Techniques
Practical Issues
Ethical Issues
Data

So put it all together and what have we got:

Determine the Goals the evaluation addresses.
Explore the specific Questions to be answered.
Choose the Evaluation Paradigms and Techniques to answer the questions.
Identify the Practical Issues that must be addressed.
Decide how to deal with the Ethical Issues.
Evaluate, interpret, and present the Data.

Much better, and I can remember it.  It had better come up on the exam.

Usability goals and user experience goals can be remembered using these tortuous, nonsense acronyms/phrases respectively:

Eff Eff SULM

and

SHEf Ap ScREEM

Or in real words:

Effective, Efficient, Safety, Utility, Learnability, Memorability.

and

Satisfying, Helpful, Emotionally fulfilling, Aesthetically pleasing, Supportive of creativity, Rewarding, Entertaining, Enjoyable, Motivating.

Hopefully that's of use to someone, or provides ideas for their own phrases and/or methods.

Obviously there's a need to remember what all of these processes are for and what they mean, but this is a useful trigger for use under stressful conditions like the exam.

Good luck.


Deliberate mistake now corrected;-)

Revision

The Horror. The Horror.

There's just too much to do, arghhh!

I've spent the last two weeks writing up the course objectives for M364 and M366. No, I don't know them all... I've been re-doing the exercises in the course material and I've just started on past papers.

I ended up dropping marks on an assignment and losing ground due to having flu, was absolutely exhausted for most of about 4 weeks and so lost time. I also had work commitments during quite a few evenings and weekends, and then all sorts of systems problems occurred in a short space of time.

Nightmare.

I would have needed to have been a month ahead on both courses for this to have been even slightly manageable, and I was probably only a week ahead.

I'm just getting my head down and doing it, onwards and etc!

Concussion as a consolidation technique

I was completely astonished to receive a mark of 93% for the final report I wrote for T209 after being concussed and having canaries fly in circles above my head, and to receive a distinction for the course overall.

A few simple rules and questions made a huge difference:
Who are the intended audience of the report?
What is the purpose of the report?
What is the medium of the report?
Separation of concerns.
What sequence of concerns is best for the explanation?
Check for factual and typographic errors.

Gather as much information as possible from a variety of up to date sources, and justify every recommendation and argument (for and against) with sound, tested explanations and examples.