The use of User-centered Design Canvas for Rapid Prototyping

Authors: Irwan Alnarus Kautsar¹, M. Ruslianor Maika²

¹ Program Studi Informatika, Fakultas Sains dan Teknologi, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo
² Program Studi Perbankan Syariah, Fakultas Agama Islam, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sidoarjo

Published in: Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol. 1764 (2021) 012175 (PVJ_ISComSET 2020), Bandung, Indonesia
DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/1764/1/012175
URL: IOP Publishing

Note: This article is open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence.

Abstract

This paper presents the use of User-Centered Design Canvas to help students design the user experience (UX) on the designated Collaborative Projects. The Collaborative Project itself has been conducted by students with multi-discipline backgrounds. The User-Centered design itself was widely used as an approach to software development in order to achieve better alignment between the user experience and the business goal. Adopting Business Model Canvas, the User-Centered Design Canvas was introduced as an acceleration tool for rapid prototyping and ensures the effectiveness and efficient manner for the sake of user satisfaction. As the results from the questionnaire, more than 78% of users express the benefits of the current adaptation of User-Centered Design Canvas. Also from the Log Metric Analysis, users have completed a designated task under 5 minutes with minimum repetition. This indicates that the use of proposed adaptation is easy to use and shows the effectiveness of the User-Centered Design Canvas for rapid prototyping.

1. Introduction

In the year of Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, distance learning is the most suitable learning model for implementing social distance and self-quarantine [1], [2]. On the other hand, prototyping is one of the software development stages that deliver the early product [3]–[5]. For learning experience, prototyping is the most suitable option to help students implement their idea [6], [7]. Prototyping in software development is needed to know if the problem was feasible to solve technically or not [8], [9].

In this paper, we briefly discuss the use of User Centered Design Canvas to help students explore, plan and develop the user experience with proposed ideas. Also, how to implement the prototyping process using User Centered Design among students while conducting distance learning.

2. Proposed Method

In this paper we propose the use of User Centered Design Canvas to help students develop the user experience in their developed application as course assignment. Also we developed an extra feature from our developed supportive tool to help students adapt the User Centered Design Canvas while implementing distance learning.

Figure 1. UCDC Experiments Method

2.1. User Centered Design Canvas

User Centered Design Canvas is a framework that is inspired by Business Model Canvas [10]. It was claimed the UX Tool combines user needs with the business goals [11]. By using UCDC, it will help UX designers to:

1. Understand the targeted user and market needs
2. Make a definition of product/market fit
3. Align the business goal for the competitive advantages
4. Define Unique Value Proposition as the brand communication strategy

Adapting the Business Model Canvas, UCDC is divided into 9 fields, starting with the user-centered approach until summarizing the Unique Value Proposition.

Table 1. UCDC Fields

2.2. Cloud Application and Supportive Tool Extended Features

As part of this research, we developed extended features that will be used by students to collaborate designing the UX. For the collaboration, we use Cloud Application (Google Spreadsheet).

Figure 2. UCDC collaboration using cloud application

After each group completes the UCDC template at Google Sheet, each group is requested to post the final results to our current development Supportive Tools [12].

Figure 3. UCDC entry at developed Supportive Tools

2.3. User Responses

After explaining the use of UCDC at the beginning of the academic semester, students have been given the assignment to develop some apps that might be needed by higher education students. Students were requested to design the user experience of the proposed app using UCDC. We conducted questionnaires about the use of UCDC in several classrooms consisting of 168 students as participants. The students varied from 1st until 4th year bachelor degree.

The aim of the questionnaire was: (1) to determine the effectiveness of the proposed method for rapid prototyping, and (2) to evaluate our current development supportive tools.

3. Results and Discussions

3.1. Results

Before using or learning UCDC, all participants filled the designated questionnaire.

Table 2. Questionnaire for participants (pre-experiment)

Next, a Likert scale was used to measure the perception from all participants using the formula [13], [14]:

$$P = \frac{N \times R}{I} \times 100\%$$

Where: P = percentage value of each question, N = value of each answer, R = answered value frequency, I = highest answered value × number of participants (5 × 168 = 840)

Table 3. Beta testing of the proposed method (post-experiment)

Figure 4. Accomplished Time using UCDC

3.2. Discussions

Based on the acceptance result, UCDC helps students do rapid prototyping. Furthermore, the use of existing cloud applications and supportive tools enable students to collaborate in online conditions. These learning models are suitable in the pandemic crisis, where physical distancing is needed. From this point of view, the use of UCDC is more practical to transform an idea into a real application. As part of the learning process, collaboration among each group member conducted in fully online conditions creates a new culture of creative process as a positive effect when the pandemic happened.

4. Conclusions and Future Works

User Centered Design Canvas (UCDC) helps do more rapid prototyping and define a more in-depth understanding about the basic need while designing User Experiences. Also, the use of cloud applications and supportive tools enable collaboration among students that implement distance learning during the pandemic era. For future works, it needs study to integrate the UCDC (for designing UX) with other prototyping tools for UI design.

References

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This article is open access (CC BY 3.0). The version of record is available at IOP Science.