SwitchBack
Information overalod, UI design, Writing process, Selective Reading, Video Prototype, Design Process
Project details
The problem statement in one line: How can we support creation and presentation of documents so that one can switch between lengthy detail oriented scholarly styled content and quick to read summary style depending on interest in a sub topic of the document?
To achieve the above stated goal, I broke down the problem into 3 different parts:
- SwitchBack reader's view,
- Authoring process and
- a way for authors to map the created content into switchback's various sections.
The approach is to suggest designs for each of them while understanding the problem as a whole. The writing process still needs lot of work to make it as less painful as possible for the authors.
Before you continue reading, you might want to check the final video prototype at the bottom that explains the problem and solution at this stage of iteration. What follows below is an account of my very long journey thinking about SwitchBack since 2008 October and the design is never complete. This problem is particularly complex and addictive. There are infinite things that still need to be thought about, observed and balanced.
In Information design and research group
My introduction to this problem in through a course on Information Design by Prof.David Farkas. This was called 3cmp then referring to a document format that has 3 components: (i)lite, (ii)study and (iii)social. So, in the course I worked on creating a my first designs for such a document that could have these multiple components for variation project that deals with understanding how different document formats (powerpoint, word, web page etc) effect the communication. Here are brief snapshot of from those initial designs:
Below are the wireframes of some of the iterations of SwitchBack's presentation UI done in the research group:
As independent course project
I also worked on SwitchBack design problem in a HCI design foundation course.
I started with defining the problem as a one line "How" question, How can we support creation and presentation of documents so that one can switch between lengthy detail oriented scholarly styled content and quick to read summary style depending on interest in a sub topic of the document?
Immersed in the design problem and observing stakeholders I came up with 40 different high level ideas to address the design question as shown below in 2x2inch sketches.
Then I came up with representation of design dimensions and constraints underlying all the ideas and came up with more ideas in the dimension less explored.
At this stage I focused on detailing out the design sub dividing the problem in to multiple questions. Detailing out the design also required me to write content and to try various prototyping techniques.
In the next step I worked towards getting feedback on the designs using paper-prototypes. It focused on 3 aspects of the design idea:
- What is the reaction to SwitchBack authoring process?
- Does the SwitchBack author’s interface support uploading a SwitchBack document?
- Does navigation through the lite, study and pre-reqs work?
Please see user testing protocol for more details.
work in progress
Based on the feedback I fine-tuned the interface for Switchback upload interface and the Switchback writing process and created a detailed spec document that explains pros n cons and the design rationale of the various elements.
The improved paper prototypes based on the feedback from user studies:
People
- Faculty: Dave Farkas (SwitchBack Research Group)
- Faculty: Andrew Ko (INSC 541, HCI Design Foundations course, in which I am working on the design aspects of SwitchBack)
- SwitchBack Research Group
- Christopher Raleigh (who is working on SwitchBack for his Masters thesis)
- Pallavi Damera (I am working on SwitchBack in both the research group and as a course(INSC 541) project
Course Page
Artifacts
Created by me in the research group and earlier:
- What does design mediate? (a class assignment)Variations
- Wireframes
Created independently in the Design course:
