How to be Critical

How to be Critical

1. Critique

   • Feedback on an Idea
   • collaborative deconstructions
   • Constructive feedback
     • New Ideas
   • Two-way
     • Design choices are justified by designer and then criticized by critic
   • Meaningful Feedback is expertise-based
   • Divergent
   • Convergent
     • better ideas
   • Being mindful when giving feedback
     • Respectful
     • Good before bad
   • Socratic Questioning
     • Questions Challenge Assumptions
     • Clarify
     • Call to mind Alternative Perspectives
     • Spell out consequences

2. Empiricism

   • Observation
   • Limits Subjectivity
   • Usability Testing
     • Breakdowns
       • Weakest Chain in link for user
     • Find Representative Users
     • Design Tasks
       • Set Goals
     • Think Aloud listening
     • Retrospective Interview

3. Analysis

   • Simulate Users
     • Heuristic Evaluation
       • real-world match
       • user interfaces should always make visible the system status
       • User control and freedom
       • Consistency and standards
       • Error prevention
       • Recognition versus recall
       • Flexibility and user efficiency
       • Help users diagnose and recover from errors
     • Walkthroughs
       • Think like a user
       • Cognitive Walkthrough
         • Select a task
           • Obtain a prototype to perform all steps in task
             • Ask how user interacts with the system for each task, effectiveness and simplicity of design
         • Develop personas
           • motivation
           • information processing style
           • self-efficacy
           • risk-taking
           • strategy
         • Systematic
     • Claims Analysis
     • Cognitive Modeling

4. What makes a design good

   • Intuitive Design Principles
   • User-Friendly Design principles
   • Simple
   • Novel
   • Effective
   • Universal
   • Invisible
   • Just