Preparing for Academic Writing week 3

Preparing for Academic Writing

For week 3 we sat down in class and used an interactive mind mapping software known as coggle. The point of this experiment was to sit down and identify the many categories and steps that go into creating a successful project. An example of how we created this map was by putting down big broad topics and then branching the out to the smaller sections which make up the full project all combined together. This could be the topic of design, as design is a very broad topic we identified much smaller elements that contribute to the end design, Design could span out to many sub-categories such as UI, typography, graphics and story + narrative. The point of this mindmap was to identify all elements that will be involved in the project and break them down further to make sure we have a checklist of elements and give us a good way of including all the relevant factors and not skipping over anything that could contribute to the end goal. 

The element I decided to conduct my academic research on was prototyping. I chose this as I believe that it plays a very big part in perfecting the overall final product. Prototyping allows a developer to look at what they have created, what they like/ dislike, view any bugs and conduct user testing. These elements are key as without these a product may be faulty or not appeal to the people. A key part of creating a prototype is allowing for others to test it, This is a very efficient way of hearing general faults with the product, general strengths of the product and allows for a large number of opinions to be heard in a period of time. User testing allows the developer to sit down and have an idea oh how the product will perform and how they can change it to suit the demographic. 

Orignal piece by 

Marion Buchena IDEO San Francisco Pier 28 Annex, The Embarcadero San Francisco, CA 94105 USA mbuchenau@ideo.com

 In this paper, we describe "Experience Prototyping" as a form of prototyping that enables design team members, users and clients to gain first-hand appreciation of existing or future conditions through active engagement with prototypes. We use examples from commercial design projects to illustrate the value of such prototypes in three critical design activities: understanding existing experiences, exploring design ideas and in communicating design concepts. 

Original piece by 

Christiane Floyd Institut für Angewandte Informatik TU BerLin Sekr. SWT FRS-6 A Systematic Look at Prototyping

This paper originates from a series of discussions between programme committee members during the preparation of the Working Conference on Prototyping. While trying to define the topic of the conference, it became clear to us that we each held our own viewpoint on the subject. Views differed as to the specific use of terminology as well as the application-oriented emphasis on particular strategies, and so did our judgements about the potential usefulness of prototyping. The views did not, however, seem contradictory but rather complementary.

Origonal piece by 

TorGuimaraes∗ Tennessee Technological University, College of Business Administration, Cookeville, TN 38505, USA Author links open overlay panelJayant V.Saraph∗∗ St. Cloud State University, College of Business Administration, St. Cloud, MN 56301, USA

Prototyping has been widely acclaimed as an effective approach to requirements definition and systems development. It is often claimed to be particularly useful in the development of systems to support executive decision making, which by definition deal with unstructured business problems. Data from 109 top executives and 34 MIS managers from 40 organizations are used to identify executives' problems with information systems and the alternative and complementary solutions to these problems. Prototyping is rated quite highly by MIS managers as a solution to many executive problems. The benefits of prototyping suggested in the literature are clearly borne out by the study.

Origonal piece by 

 Department of Computer Information Systems, College of Business Administration, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO 65804-0095, USA

E.R.DokeN.E.Swanson Department of Computer Information Systems, College of Business Administration, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, MO 65804-0095, USA

The use of prototyping in the information systems development process is frequently advocated by both practitioners and academics; however, the decision variables that must be assessed when prototyping is considered have not been well defined. A literature review produced nineteen variables that potentially matter. Then a Delphi panel of MIS managers from Computerworld's Premier 100 firms, who are currently using prototyping, identified and ranked variables they consider when deciding whether to include prototyping in their systems development project. After three Delphi rounds, ten important decision variables emerged as most important, including one added during the process by the panel. Seven variables frequently cited in the literature were ranked low and hence are considered unimportant.

Orgonal piece by 

Maria C. Yang Daniel J. Epstein Dept. of Industrial & Systems Engineering University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089 

The building of prototypes is an important part of the product design and development process. This paper examines factors in prototyping, including part count and time spent on design and fabrication activity, and their correlations with design outcome. The research questions asked: Do simpler prototypes mean a more successful design? Does more prototyping lead to better designs? Does the amount of time spent on a project, both overall and on different activities over a project cycle, relate to design success? One of the main findings of this study is that prototypes with fewer parts correlate with better design outcome, as do prototypes that have fewer parts added to them over the course of development. This paper also finds that committing more time to a project is not necessarily associated with a successful design outcome.