Lean Design Critique: Optimize UX when Design Time is Limited
0Eclipse tools for scientific and related industries are often feature rich. However, there is often limited time and/or budget for optimizing the user-experience of these tools. Lean design critique is a 7-step technique to get the most worthwhile optimizations in a short space of time.
This talk follows a case study of applying this technique to the function fitting tool in the Data Analysis WorkbeNch (DAWN). Data Analysis WorkbeNch (DAWN - http://www.dawnsci.org/) is an Eclipse based workbench for doing scientific data analysis used at synchrotrons and scientific facilities throughout Europe. The function fitting tool is a scientific tool that enables the user to methodically find the best fit (in terms of a mathematical function like linear or Gaussian) for a series of data points. This tool was run through the seven stages, namely:
1. Identify the 90% task
2. Do a Cognitive Walkthrough
3. Analyse Eye Travel, Mouse Travel & Clicks
4. Analyse Screen Space Usage
5. Explore Existing Designs
6. Optimize
7. Rerun Analysis
This talk looks at how each stage was performed, what the outcome was and the resulting improved design. (A blog post with some of the details can be viewed at http://kichwacoders.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/lean-design-critique-function...). The aim is to empower industry tool developers with limited resources to give their tool-flows the same treatment and improve their user experiences.