Reading Seminar 2

Chapter 13 explains the key concepts of evaluation and how important it is for the design process. It brings up different types of evaluation methods including controlled settings involving users, natural settings involving users and any setting not involving users. There are pros and cons for each type and deciding which one to use depends on what you want to evaluate. Often combining two or more is the best way to go if you want to get a broad understanding of how the design process is going. Doing evaluation in the early stages of the design process where you are involving the users does seem to be a important point the book wants to make.

Chapter 13 also discusses how you need to be aware of the potential of misinterpreting the data once it is collected. This involves the reliability, validity and the possibility of biases towards the data or evaluation method. Making sure the data you collected is valid is obviously very important for the evaluation but still something that may be overlooked sometimes. Triangulating the data is a good method to make sure the data is valid and thus improving the evaluation process.

Chapter 15 discusses evaluation methods without  involving the users. One method is called Inspections where one form of it is called Heuristic evaluation where a expert conducts an evaluation guided by a set of usability principles called heuristics. The expert is meant to go through the interface to search for any interaction element that would not uphold the usability principles, fix them and do several more iterations.

Evaluation is a crucial part of the design process because it tells you if you are going in the right direction, if you have to adjust something before moving forward or simply start over again. How to conduct the evaluation is entirely dependent upon the specific project. Obviously it would be great to have 100 experts evaluating every step, but it would not be financially feasible. Evaluating with the help of users is most likely cheaper but then the data might have to be more analyzed. Finding the right balance is what appears to be the designers most important job.