Humen campoter interaction, ITEC

Assignment 9: The ITEC444 Reflective Paper

This paper is designed to bring together all aspects of the ITEC444 course. Here is your chance to spout

back that fountain of HCI design knowledge you have been absorbing this semester. This assignment is a

regular research paper and all citations should appear in the bibliography. Include the following:

• There must be at least 10 bibliography entries and 25% of these entries need to be from

published journals and/or papers.

• Citations must be current (no more than 2 years old unless your are referencing historical

information.

• Each bibliographic entry needs to be cited at least once in the body of the work. All citations must be

in either APA or MLA style and appear in your bibliography. (if you need help see:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/)

• Please note that University plagiarism rules will be applied.

• This paper will be NO MORE THAN 5 PAGES double spaced in 12pt times.

• Use bullet points and subheadings to add clarity to your organization.

• The following heading should be used to separate the sections of your work, however you may add

more if you feel it will add clarity to your work. Under each heading here I have listed questions

and/or statements that are intended to provoke thought; they are NOT intended to be answered

specifically. Use a report like style (please see a good and poor examples vided on blackboard ).

Description

What is your application (app) designed to do; what problem space does it address? What was your inspiration:

why did you design it the way you did? By what process did you determine your app direction and design?

Be thorough in this area and describe in detail the process by which your application became real and

what variables affected the evolution of your design. This is a good place for analyzing your methodology

for development and finding resources that support your methodological choices.

Market Research (includes duplicate apps and cannibalism)

What other apps are there addressing the same market as the one you developed? Have there been others? Did

they succeed or fail and why? What companies, large or small, developed the product and what are some of

the other products or services they offer (if any)? Pretend that you are going to take your app to seek funding

for development and include in your description answers to juror questions like, "How are you different from

? Why would people use your application instead of ? In what situations would people use instead of

your application?" What tasks are left to complete to get your app ready for the market? What do you think

would be the best distribution method for getting your application/website the widest possible market

exposure?

Now discuss how you might cannibalize your competition (or other similar app). What parts would you add

to yours, might you hire their developer, designer, etc? What would you do if another company tried to

cannibalize your app? How would you prevent someone from copying your work?

In this area you defend why your application is different and then prove that it is different. You might find

some statistics that support your defense by looking at popularity and/or sales figures of applications that

address your problem space. Such statistics are often found in the Google app store or in Apple store. If you

have created something that is more along the lines of a web based solution then see if you can get any

analytics from those websites. To get some information about traffic and to compare it with yours you can use

https://serpstat.com. Also you can get some insights about social and content metrics there.

Some web sites show their statistics to attract advertisers so you can get some data there. Other tools to use are

Ahrefs (Link: SEO Backlink Checker & Competitor Research Tools), Similarweb (Link: Similarweb.com -

Digital World Market Intelligence Platform), Buzzsumo (Link: BuzzSumo: Find the Most Shared Content and

Key Influencers

Design

What was your thinking when you created your design (remember your brainstorming and inspiration boards)?

Why (e.g. models, themes, or paradigms) did you choose the buttons, menus, and/or dialog options that you

used? From your readings (note the chapter and page in the citation but does not need to appear in the

bibliography) discuss what other options were available and why you did not choose them. How would you

figure cost of development?

This is your area to show some in-depth research as well as what you have retained from course materials. At

this point you could lean heavily on your book and use it as a guide for both defending your design choices as

well as discovering other outside resources or supporting your choices. Be sure to cite any information used

from a source other than your opinion. Remember, I’m not interested in your opinion in this paper I am

interested in your ability to defend your project based on activities, lectures, and assignments done in this

course.

Testing

Present your development and UX testing plans then evaluate both plans based on what happened. Was your

development plan effective ended include all components you assumed would be needed in the development

process. Were the deadlines realistic?

Regarding your UX testing plan, start with describing your procedure then present the results. Take time to

quantify the results (eg. What was similar between the tests, what was unique, which test did you get the most

valuable information and why, etc.?) What was the most unexpected finding? What would you do

differently? What metrics would you need to know to proceed with production? What would be your plan

for gathering user information metrics (user data) once your application went to market? Be sure to use the

concepts and terms presented in the chapter on research.

Summary (what I learned this semester)

In this section, simply state in your own opinion what you think about the course, course content, instructional

style, etc. if you found the course useful or not useful please explain. Do you think it had merit in your

curriculum and did you learn anything that you think may be useful to you after college? You do not need to

support any of these opinion statements and in this section, feel free to offer suggestions for course

improvement.

10/24/16 Primary (used with permission)

Reflective Essay Rubric Proficiency Level Beginning Developing Accomplished

Student is aware of

his/her own thinking

Student has an emerging awareness of his/her

own thinking: provides confusing, little, or no

report of the thinking one might use to solve a

problem or complete a task; falters in his or her

explanation of how the new information will

influence their practice.

Student is somewhat aware of his or her own

thinking: provides a vague or incomplete

description of how one might think through a

task or problem. Provides only a few ideas

about how the new information could

influence his or her performance.

Explains in detail the sequence of thought he or

she used when facing a task or problem.

Provides a detailed analysis of how an

awareness of his or her thinking has enhanced

performance.

Student is able to

analyze differing

perspectives

Defends his or her dominant and privileged

beliefs, expectations, and values without

sufficiently considering alternative points of

view. Ignores explicit and implicit points of

disagreement.

Identifies and articulates issues that are not

points of disagreement as important issues of

disagreement. Shows unexplained bias in

discussion of alternative views.

Explains the reasoning behind differing points

of view and considers and discusses alternative

views rationally and impartially. Student thinks

flexibly and objectively.

Student is able to

construct support

Identifies and defends information that does

not require support; fails to identify a claim

that should have support.

Takes a strong position on an issue that does

not necessarily warrant defense; articulates a

position but doesn’t present a clear line of

reasoning behind it.

Determines when it is appropriate to take a

position on an issue and is able to justify the

position by providing “careful and reasoned

qualifications or restrictions” for his or her

position.

Student interprets

information

Reflections are descriptive: a reiteration of

what happened or was read. Serious

misinterpretations or not interpretation of the

information is evident. Reflection is shallow

and egocentric.

References are made to other readings or

experiences, but explanations about how the

information extends insights are undeveloped

or missing. Interpretations of information are

imprecise or awkward.

Interprets information in accurate and highly

insightful ways. Cites readings and prior

experiences and explains how these references

extend and refine insights.

Student synthesizes

information

Explanations of how the information will effect

their practice and the practice of other

professionals is not addressed

Inconsistent or incomplete explanations of how

the information will effect their own practice

and the practice of other professionals

Clearly identifies and explains the social,

political, and/or professional implications of

the information and insights

Supporting

Information

No references are supported in the form of

citations for information presented or

referenced from outside sources and there is

no bibliography.

Some references are supported in the form of

citations are mostly current and from outside

sources. All citations are in either MLA or APA

style and appear in a bibliography.

Provides support in the form of citations for

any information presented or referenced from

outside sources. All citations are current and in

either MLA or APA style and appear in a

bibliography.

10/24/16 Primary (used with permission)

Writing style and

grammar

There are too many errors and the sheer

quantity makes the paper unreadable.

There are a few problems with style and/or

grammar but they do not interfere with

understanding of the writing.

There are no stylistic of grammatical errors.