PROCESS
I collaborated with a team of three other designers to carry out the research and design of
Gallery interface. Operating in a tight four-month time frame, we followed the user-centered
design process, which involved iterations contextual inquiry, affinity diagramming, persona
creation, sketching, prototyping, and usability testing. In-depth information of our process is
recorded on the project site.
Reach Out to the Middle Ground Users
Our team first performed an in-depth study of Gallery "help" forums, chat logs and mailing-
lists to figure out the kinds of problems users faced. Since these conversations were
limited to either expert or novice system users, we reached out to 'average' users i.e.
"experienced individuals who are using Gallery on their sites, but who are not involved with
Gallery development community." Extensive surveys, e-mails, and phone interviews with
international users followed.
Select Findings and Design Focus
Our initial findings defined the focus of our design:
Scenario-based Prototyping
We developed a scenario to guide our prototype development. The scenario allowed us to
step through each activity that our persona would conduct. The scenario provided us with a
good starting point and forced us to think about each screen the user would encounter.
Design Solution
I collaborated with a team of three other designers to carry out the research and design of
Gallery interface. Operating in a tight four-month time frame, we followed the user-centered
design process, which involved iterations contextual inquiry, affinity diagramming, persona
creation, sketching, prototyping, and usability testing. In-depth information of our process is
recorded on the project site.
Reach Out to the Middle Ground Users
Our team first performed an in-depth study of Gallery "help" forums, chat logs and mailing-
lists to figure out the kinds of problems users faced. Since these conversations were
limited to either expert or novice system users, we reached out to 'average' users i.e.
"experienced individuals who are using Gallery on their sites, but who are not involved with
Gallery development community." Extensive surveys, e-mails, and phone interviews with
international users followed.
Select Findings and Design Focus
Our initial findings defined the focus of our design:
- Users choose Gallery over its alternatives because it is free, open source, and
offers greater control over content. However, for editing and configuring, alternatives
are preferable. - Because of the requirements for server integration, Gallery installation process is a
major barrier to adoption for non-technical users. Updating Gallery is problematic
because it is unstable and technically difficult. - Gallery interface is generally cluttered, clumsy to use, and suffers from a lack of
feedback and poor visual affordances. - Also, users desired modern features such as drag-and-drop, region tagging and
AJAX-like animations.
Scenario-based Prototyping
We developed a scenario to guide our prototype development. The scenario allowed us to
step through each activity that our persona would conduct. The scenario provided us with a
good starting point and forced us to think about each screen the user would encounter.
Design Solution
- Rather than fill the interface with an abundance of "features," we sought a clutter-
free layout focusing on the experience of image browsing. Clean lines, and bold
color accents have been chosen to give interface a modern 'ajax-like' look as
desired by users. - With increased focus on image browsing, three options of image browsing were
provided for different user preferences reveled in user interviews - Notification-based scenarios add "narrative" and "conversational" metaphors to the
interface - Drag-and-drop region tagging persuades users to provide metadata in a fun way,
which is useful for later retrieval, a problem noted by users in current interface
| / |
Gallery
User Research and Interaction Design of Open Source
Photo Album System
University of Michigan
DESIGN CHALLENGE
Gallery is an open-source photo album system that allows users to host ‘their
photos on their website.’ Gallery team is working on substantial product
changes, and wants the software to be customizable by user themselves. The
goal was to understand Gallery users’ needs, and to redesign the system into
a visually compelling, highly usable interface on the lines of Flickr, Picasa et al.
User Research and Interaction Design of Open Source
Photo Album System
University of Michigan
DESIGN CHALLENGE
Gallery is an open-source photo album system that allows users to host ‘their
photos on their website.’ Gallery team is working on substantial product
changes, and wants the software to be customizable by user themselves. The
goal was to understand Gallery users’ needs, and to redesign the system into
a visually compelling, highly usable interface on the lines of Flickr, Picasa et al.
Professional Work
ACL Wireless
British Council
Ford Motors
ACL Wireless
British Council
Ford Motors
From Research to Design: Stages of User-Centered Design Process
RESULTS
Usability testing found that
users could immediately
comprehend the site
structure and complete
tasks without confusion.
Across the board, users
reported a positive
association with the
look-and-feel and features.
Gallery developer
community instantly
accepted our solutions,
and are currently in the
process of making some
of them go live.
Project Deliverables
Affinity diagrams, Personas
Scenarios, Lo-fi prototype,
Hi-fi prototype, User
testing, Final presentation
Usability testing found that
users could immediately
comprehend the site
structure and complete
tasks without confusion.
Across the board, users
reported a positive
association with the
look-and-feel and features.
Gallery developer
community instantly
accepted our solutions,
and are currently in the
process of making some
of them go live.
Project Deliverables
Affinity diagrams, Personas
Scenarios, Lo-fi prototype,
Hi-fi prototype, User
testing, Final presentation
Jump to
Academic Projects
Interaction Design
Design Process
Service Design
Web 2.0
Usability Evaluation
Contextual Inquiry
IA Strategy
Contact
646. 510. 2529
agaurav@umich.edu
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Networks
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Academic Projects
Interaction Design
Design Process
Service Design
Web 2.0
Usability Evaluation
Contextual Inquiry
IA Strategy
Contact
646. 510. 2529
agaurav@umich.edu
Resume
MS Word
Networks
| About Me | Thoughts | Projects Copyright Gaurav Anand | agaurav@umich.edu | 646. 510. 2529 |
