Tutorial #19

Practical Interface Design: Getting the Most from Your Development Budget

Debra Herschmann, Wang Software

Monday, April 15, full-day

Benefits

Tight deadlines, limited budget and staff, shifting priorities, and conflicting agendas all affect the final product design and prevent the development of the "ultimate" user interface. In this tutorial, you will learn techniques for designing a user interface within real-world development constraints while preserving the usability of the system.

Origins

This tutorial is new for CHI 96.

Features

defining the best user interface that can be implemented within the constraints of limited project resources
factors that influence user interface design in a commercial environment including budget, schedule, choice of development tools, conflicting agendas of the development team, and skill level of the development team
how to revise, scale down, or even eliminate features while preserving the integrity of the user interface
communicating within and across project teams
tracking the user interface through the development process

Audience

User interface designers, project managers, and developers involved with application design and implementation in production environments. Familiarity with concepts of GUI design and team software development is assumed.

Presentation

Lecture, real-life examples, and individual and group exercises.

Instructors

Debra Herschmann is a Senior Designer at Wang Software, responsible for developing graphical user interfaces for a variety of workflow and document imaging applications. She has extensive experience designing interactive applications for businesses, museums, and educational institutions. Debra also teaches Interactive Design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.