Concept Models

The following notes are from the Concept Models session, presented by Dan Brown, at Interaction08.

Presentation slides - click on Download File as the text is all garbled on the slideshow but the PDF is fine.
Video

• Have to create the tools to use in creating the design
• You have requirements now what? Sketch, scenarios, flow charts, mockups, wireframes, whiteboarding
• What if the requirements are unclear or incomplete?
• Can use Concept Models to flesh out underlying concepts (nouns) and connections between them (verbs)
• Ex. Design an expense report. Nouns = Employee, Expense, Amount, Manager, etc.
• Concept Models represent reality through nouns connected to verbs
• Helps to
  • establish an agreed upon vocabulary
  • bring out questions
  • understand new domains
  • synthesize new ideas and start designing
  • determine key concepts to focus on
  • determine relationships & interactions you need to design for
  • define scope, minimize concepts you don't need to focus on
  • define views (pages, states) and components (elements)
• From the model then blow out detail as needed for each concept. what should this look like online?
• Ex. concept is Expense, what are the components - amount, receipt, category, etc.
• The determine how to represent the lines = interactions, online?
• Collect & categorize all possible interactions which can then map to a pattern.
• Determine a particular kind of relationship always map to a particular interaction?
• Steps:
  1. Gather concepts
  2. Create connections
  3. Research and elaborate
  4. Validate concepts and connections (are these the right ones?)
  5. Simplify - remove redundant or unnecessary concepts
• Always ask questions!!
• Share concept models with stakeholders
  • set expectations, what this is, purpose, how to review it
  • generate questions
  • explain implications: if we take away X users will not be able to...
  • go in with a set of questions, generate conversation: what's missing?, are these correct?, do these relationships matter?, correct labels/wording?, can we enforce these relationships?
• Final thoughts
  • use when underlying structure is unclear to help get clarification
  • use to help escape the page metaphor
  • use to bridge gap between what & how
  • helps in understanding the problem and coming to a solution
  • useful in translating concepts into objects for developers, have them validate concepts