Project 3: Informed Guesswork
Goal (what you need to do)
Each student will select a finished website that they designed. Each student will prepare tools for a heuristic evaluation of the chosen website as outlined in the assignment sheet and in class.
Your options for evaluation are:
-Your website from GRPH-2010: Graphic Design 1
-Your website for GDES-3091: Interactive Media: Web
-Your portfolio
-Other (If you do not have a website you designed come and speak with me about an alternative option. You are not to decide on your own which site to evaluate.)
Please fill out the following form. during the week 10 class to: Project 3: Informed Guesswork - Fill out form.
(1) Let us know which website option you are going to be working with.
(2) Identify a team of evaluators, Select up to 4 other students in the class who will be your "experts" to review your site with the tools you create. Note: You want to identify your teams members and prepare your tools as the evaluations will be our activity in-class for week 12 (November 27, 2025 8:30am to 11:30am).
Context:
You have started the course with a self-referential project; the analysis of graphic design style. found in a repository of images to inform. the creation of a graphic designed work. An exhibition poster. The second project you had to generate a research question, substantiate your question with secondary sources, and produce a 'thumbnail' idea for a graphic project that would attempt to answer that research question. In the third project we round out the course by turning our attention to people and how observations of people and their behaviours can help designers create and evaluate the work they produce.
But a word of caution. There is never a guarantee that we can make a bulletproof project. Human behaviour is a nuanced concoction of motivation, culture, rituals/habits, and expectations in a given context in a given moment. We can not create something that will perfectly align with all people and all needs. This leads us to the meaning behind the title of project 3 which is inspired by this definition "Heuristics, [a] term borrowed from cognitive science to describe the range of pre-existing values that decision-makers use to negotiate a problem. Heuristics-derived from the Ancient Greek eureka-embodies what might be called informed guesswork. (Visual Research: An introduction to Research Methods in Graphic Design, 4th Edition. pg 237)
Purpose (why are we doing this assignment): How do you know what you don't know? Designing for and with people
With graphic designed works such as posters and books you make them, they go into the world to preform. their intended purposes...or not...you don't really know.
Why? Because graphic design is one element of many that make up the 'whole' of a project.
Is a book successful because of it's cover?
Is a play a hit because of it's playbill or poster campaign?
This means the 'success' of a graphic designed work is often nebulous.
Graphic design is not about absolutes or "solutions" or "solving," which can be confusing given how often we are asked to solve problems.
With the advent of digital work graphic design practice expands to include user-experience design and a range of methods (alternatively called strategies or tactics in business settings)
WEEK 11: This project is comprised of 3 deliverables to be produced for week 11 for discussion and peer review:
DUE NOVEMBER 20, 2025 8:30am
(1) INSTRUCTION SHEET FOR USER TESTING
While we hope to create websites and applications that are as intuitive as possible, there is always some kind of instruction one needs to understand how to use a website (I am looking at you instagram and your "see the link in our bio") or app. You are to create a basic "cheat sheet" for your heuristic evaluators. There are several examples here that you can use to model yours on.
Example 1: example_instructionsheet.pdf
Example 2: https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/software/animation-software/blender/blenderfor-dummies-cheat-sheet-208646/
Example 3: https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/attachments/PhotoshopCC-KBSC.pdf
(2) TASK-BASED SCENARIOS: Each student will create a minimum of 3 task-based scenarios.
Each scenario must identify one of the 10 heuristics found here:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
and be focused on what features/functions on the website you wish to get feedback on.
See example in lecture slides for Week 10
(3 a and b) VISUAL-CLICK STREAM SHEET WITH AN OPINION-BASED RATING SYSTEM
This sheet is used for efficiency and consistency in data collection and to determine patterns in the participants' approach of interaction and highlight areas of confusion or opportunities to improve the capacity of a website or app. It can also helped to answer questions such as: When do participants follow the assumed path? Do they veer off the path and, if so, where do they go and what do they do? What do they look for in terms of labeling or flow?
(a) Visual click-stream sheet. When designing a website you have an idea of how someone will navigate and "click" through to access various areas of your website. For each task you will create a visual click stream sheet. This is a simple series of screen captures of your site used to create a visual layout of an intended pathway for each task.
(b) In addition this sheet will have an opinion-based rating system that will be used to document the perceived levels of difficulty experienced by a participant.
Example 1 (click through): Task1_FOOD_clickthrough.pdf
Example 2 (a possible flow): https://media.nngroup.com/media/editor/2023/06/12/heuristic-evaluationworkbook-23-1.jpg
WEEK 12: And 3 deliverables produced during the last class week 12 for evaluation with peer groups: DUE NOVEMBER 27, 2025 8:30am
(4) DOCUMENTATION OF HEURISTIC EVALUATIONS (WORK SHEET)
The groups identified in week 10 will get together on the last class to test each others evaluation tools. You will use the tools to have at least two people run through your scenarios.
(5) ANATOMIZATION OF IMAGES
When documenting aspects of research you may be required to anatomize your data. Anonymity refers to any information revealed by participants must not have any distinctive character or recognition factors such that information can be matched to individual participants (as defined by the OCADU REB application). For example, faces or tattoos are blurred or redrawn in images. See examples from the slides for Week 11.