Potential Exam Questions

Theory-focused practice questions generated from the lecture presentations first, with supporting concepts from the readings. The order is intentionally randomized.

What is Pugh concept selection?

Pugh selection compares concepts against criteria, often relative to a baseline, to support structured discussion and decision-making.
Why are follow-up probes important in interviews?

Probes deepen vague answers, ask for examples, clarify meanings, and uncover reasons behind experiences or actions.
How does experience-centered design frame users as participants in meaning-making?

It focuses on lived experience, meaning, dialogue, and the relationship between designers, users, and communities.
Why should research method choice follow the purpose of the study?

The method should fit the research purpose: understanding practice, generating ideas, evaluating interaction, measuring usability, or interpreting experience require different evidence.
Why are cultural probes often ambiguous, playful, or open-ended?

A cultural probe is an open-ended package of tasks or materials used to elicit personal, emotional, playful, or inspirational responses from participants.
What is the difference between incremental and radical innovation?

Incremental innovation improves existing meanings or technologies; radical innovation changes technology, meaning, or both in a more fundamental way.
Why can a larger pool of ideas improve the quality of the best idea?

More ideas increase variation, which raises the chance that at least one strong idea emerges.
How does a decision matrix support comparison between concepts?

A matrix makes criteria and trade-offs explicit so alternatives can be compared more systematically.
What is the danger of forcing qualitative data into premature categories?

Forcing categories too early can hide surprising findings, contradictions, and participant meanings that do not fit the researcher's assumptions.
What is a business model canvas?

It is a structured overview of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value.
What is an affinity diagram, and when is it useful?

An affinity diagram groups observations or notes by similarity to reveal themes and relationships during qualitative synthesis.
How does a semi-structured interview differ from a structured questionnaire?

It uses prepared topics or questions while allowing flexible follow-up probes based on what the participant says.
What is a prototype manifestation? Give an example.

A manifestation is the concrete form the prototype takes, such as a sketch, model, storyboard, paper mock-up, clickable mock-up, or working system.
What does it mean for design to be dialogical?

Design is dialogical when meaning develops through exchange among designers, users, materials, contexts, and communities.
How can exceptions or outliers be valuable in qualitative analysis?

Outliers can reveal edge cases, unmet needs, hidden assumptions, or alternative interpretations that improve design understanding.
What is active listening in an interview context?

It means attending closely, showing understanding, following the participant's meaning, and asking relevant follow-ups instead of mechanically reading questions.
Why should designers report both successful and problematic evaluation findings?

Problematic findings guide improvement, while successful findings show what works and should be preserved.
What are the strengths and limitations of storyboards in product design?

Storyboards show interaction as a sequence over time, including context, user actions, system behavior, and outcomes.
What is a future workshop?

A future workshop is a participatory method for moving from critique of the present to imaginative futures and possible implementation.
What is a dark pattern?

A dark pattern is an interface strategy that manipulates or deceives users into actions that benefit the provider at the user's expense.
What is the difference between quantitative usability measures and qualitative UX findings?

Quantitative measures count performance or ratings; qualitative UX findings explain meanings, expectations, feelings, reasons, and situated experience.
How can fixation limit creativity during concept development?

Fixation makes teams repeat familiar patterns or cling to first ideas, limiting creativity and exploration.
What is metaphorical design, and how can metaphors guide concept development?

Metaphorical design uses one domain as a lens for understanding and generating concepts in another domain.
What is the relation between design, values, and intentional change?

Design intentionally changes the world, so values guide what changes are desirable, acceptable, and responsible.
What is ideation, and why should teams generate many alternatives before selecting one?

Ideation is generating possible solutions. Producing many alternatives improves exploration and reduces early fixation on one idea.
What is the difference between low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototyping in terms of learning goals?

Low-fidelity prototypes support quick exploration and discussion; high-fidelity prototypes support detailed evaluation of interaction, appearance, or performance.
What can be lost when a team only records the final design decision?

The team loses the reasons, rejected alternatives, assumptions, and evidence that explain why the final design exists.
What is triangulation, and how can it strengthen a design study?

Triangulation combines multiple data sources, methods, researchers, or theories to check and enrich interpretations.
Why should evaluation tasks avoid leading participants toward a preferred answer?

Leading tasks bias behavior and feedback, making the study confirm the designer's assumptions rather than reveal users' actual interpretations and difficulties.
What is a semi-structured interview?

It uses prepared topics or questions while allowing flexible follow-up probes based on what the participant says.
How should a team choose the appropriate level of detail for a design representation?

Choose detail based on the learning goal: explore broadly with rough forms, test specific interactions with more concrete prototypes.
What are diary studies useful for in design research?

Diary studies collect repeated self-reports close to the moment of experience, making everyday routines, changes, and contextual details visible.
What makes a good opening question in a research interview?

A good opening question is easy, non-threatening, relevant, and encourages the participant to start speaking concretely.
What does empathy mean in design research?

Empathy is an informed effort to understand users' situations, meanings, feelings, and constraints through research and reflection.
What is the purpose of a pilot study before an evaluation?

A pilot tests the procedure, timing, tasks, prompts, equipment, and recording setup so problems can be fixed before the real sessions.
What is a leading question, and why should it be avoided?

A leading question suggests the desired answer. It should be avoided because it biases the participant and weakens the data.
Why is design not only problem solving?

Design also frames problems, creates possibilities, changes situations, expresses values, and deals with uncertainty.
What is the difference between a sketch, wireframe, mock-up, and prototype?

A sketch is rough idea exploration; a wireframe shows layout/structure; a mock-up shows appearance; a prototype enables some form of interaction or testing.
Why is fidelity alone a weak way to describe a prototype?

High versus low fidelity is too broad. It does not explain what the prototype intentionally reveals, hides, tests, or makes discussable.
What is contextual design, and why does context matter?

Contextual design studies people in the context of their real work or activity so design is grounded in situated practice.
What is experience-centered design?

It focuses on lived experience, meaning, dialogue, and the relationship between designers, users, and communities.
How is qualitative HCI research different from survey-style data collection?

It studies situated practices, needs, meanings, and experiences where answers are contextual and may be unexpected rather than predefined.
What is the difference between description and interpretation in qualitative findings?

Description reports what was observed or said; interpretation explains what it may mean for users, design, or theory.
How can a final design argument connect theory, data, concept development, prototyping, and evaluation?

A strong argument links theory, user data, design alternatives, prototype learning, and evaluation evidence into a coherent justification.
How does a Wizard of Oz evaluation work, and what kinds of questions can it answer?

A user interacts with what appears to be a functioning system while a hidden person simulates parts of the behavior. It is useful for evaluating concepts, interaction flows, expectations, and system intelligence before full implementation.
How can design rationale support later evaluation or redesign?

Design rationale records why decisions were made, including alternatives, arguments, evidence, trade-offs, and assumptions.
What is anticipated UX, and why is it useful before a product exists?

Anticipated UX is the experience users expect or imagine before real use. It helps designers evaluate expectations, needs, worries, and desired feelings early.
What does it mean to design for others rather than for yourself?

Designers must investigate other people's contexts, values, practices, and constraints instead of assuming their own preferences represent the users.
How do inspiration cards combine domain knowledge and technology possibilities?

They combine domain cards and technology cards to trigger new connections between user situations and technical possibilities.
How do dark patterns differ from poor usability?

A dark pattern is an interface strategy that manipulates or deceives users into actions that benefit the provider at the user's expense.
What should be included in a basic evaluation plan?

It should define purpose, participants, tasks, setting, roles, consent, data capture, procedure, interview or questionnaire elements, debriefing, and analysis plan.
How are cultural probes different from conventional requirements gathering?

A cultural probe is an open-ended package of tasks or materials used to elicit personal, emotional, playful, or inspirational responses from participants.
How can extreme characters help designers explore unusual interaction possibilities?

Extreme characters exaggerate unusual needs, values, or behaviors to push designers beyond average-user assumptions.
How do diary studies capture experiences that interviews might miss?

Diary studies collect repeated self-reports close to the moment of experience, making everyday routines, changes, and contextual details visible.
What is design rationale?

Design rationale records why decisions were made, including alternatives, arguments, evidence, trade-offs, and assumptions.
What is interaction relabelling?

Interaction relabelling reinterprets an existing object's interactions as if they belonged to a new design problem, opening alternative interaction ideas.
Why should concept selection preserve learning rather than just declare a winner?

Selection should reveal strengths, weaknesses, combinations, and open questions, not simply eliminate alternatives too early.
How can critical incidents be used to elicit concrete experience rather than general opinion?

They ask about specific memorable events, which produces concrete accounts of action, breakdown, emotion, and context rather than abstract opinion.
What role can participant-generated media play in diary studies?

Diary studies collect repeated self-reports close to the moment of experience, making everyday routines, changes, and contextual details visible.
What are the five usability quality components, and what does each measure?

Learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction: how easy first use is, how efficient skilled use is, how easy returning is, how many/severe/recoverable mistakes are, and how pleasant use feels.
How can researchers make qualitative analysis credible in a report?

Credibility comes from transparent methods, evidence, careful coding, examples, limitations, and a clear link between data and claims.
How do technology change and meaning change differ as sources of innovation?

Technology change introduces new technical possibilities; meaning change reframes why and how people value or use something.
What makes a scenario concrete enough to support design discussion?

It needs specific users, motives, setting, sequence of actions, system responses, and consequences for experience or work.
What is thoughtful interaction design?

It treats design as reflective, value-laden, situated work concerned with experience, use, and consequences.
How can designers reflect on the consequences of their design choices?

Designers can examine stakeholders, use contexts, long-term effects, ethical tensions, and alternative outcomes of their choices.
How do critique, fantasy, and implementation phases support vision generation?

Critique identifies problems, fantasy creates unconstrained visions, and implementation translates visions into possible actions or concepts.
What is scenario-based design?

Scenario-based design uses stories of use to reason about people, goals, context, interaction, and consequences before or during implementation.
Why can constraints support creativity rather than only restrict it?

Constraints focus attention, create productive friction, and force teams to search for non-obvious solutions.
What is an interview schedule, and why is it useful?

It is the guide of topics, prompts, and possible follow-ups that keeps the interview aligned with the research purpose.
Why should a prototype be matched to the question the team wants to answer?

The prototype should include just enough realism to answer the current design question without wasting effort on irrelevant detail.
What is cooperative prototyping?

Cooperative prototyping involves users and designers jointly exploring and shaping prototypes during the design process.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of asking participants to capture their own data?

It gives access to private or distributed situations, but data quality depends on participant motivation, interpretation, and burden.
How do scenarios connect users, goals, context, actions, and consequences?

A good scenario ties together who is acting, what they want, where they are, what they do, and what happens as a result.
Why is recruitment a methodological issue rather than just an administrative task?

Who participates shapes what can be learned, whose needs are represented, and which contexts or limitations the findings apply to.
What are the typical roles in a user evaluation session?

Typical roles are facilitator/interviewer, observer, note-taker/documenter, and technical operator, though one person may cover multiple roles in small studies.
How can technology shape users' actions and interpretations?

Technologies make some actions easier, harder, visible, invisible, encouraged, or discouraged, thereby shaping behavior and interpretation.
How does think-aloud data differ from post-test interview data?

Think-aloud captures reasoning during action; post-test interviews capture reflection after the fact. They reveal different kinds of data and can complement each other.
What is a cultural probe?

A cultural probe is an open-ended package of tasks or materials used to elicit personal, emotional, playful, or inspirational responses from participants.
What is a prototype filter? Give an example.

A filter is the aspect of the future design that the prototype focuses attention on, such as interaction flow, form, data, functionality, or spatial arrangement.
How does affinity diagramming help move from raw observations to themes?

An affinity diagram groups observations or notes by similarity to reveal themes and relationships during qualitative synthesis.
What are the advantages and limitations of observing participants during evaluation?

Observation reveals behavior, breakdowns, workarounds, and context, but it may miss internal motivations unless combined with questions or interviews.
Why should interview questions move from easier topics to more sensitive or reflective ones?

Starting easy builds trust and context before asking questions that require deeper reflection or may feel personal.
How can an interviewer balance consistency with flexibility?

Use the same core topics across interviews, but adapt order and probes to each participant's relevant experiences.
What is the difference between usability testing, UX evaluation, field evaluation, and analytical evaluation?

Usability testing is usually controlled and task-focused; UX evaluation also studies feelings, expectations, aesthetics, and meaning; field evaluation studies use in a natural setting; analytical evaluation is expert-based and does not involve users.
Why are sketches useful even when they are rough or incomplete?

Rough sketches invite change, lower commitment, support fast iteration, and keep attention on ideas rather than polish.
Why is it useful to document design alternatives, arguments, and decisions?

It helps teams remember reasoning, communicate decisions, avoid repeating debates, and support later evaluation or redesign.
How can storyboards represent interaction over time?

Storyboards show interaction as a sequence over time, including context, user actions, system behavior, and outcomes.
Why can business goals conflict with user autonomy in interface design?

Revenue, retention, data collection, or conversion goals can pressure designers to reduce transparency, autonomy, or user control.
How can value proposition, customer segments, channels, and revenue streams relate to a design concept?

They connect the concept to who it serves, what value it offers, how it reaches users, and how it can be sustained economically.
How does prototyping by demonstration involve users in shaping a design?

Users demonstrate needs, actions, or desired behavior through interaction with prototypes, helping the team refine the design.
Why might users be unable to fully explain their own routines or tacit practices?

Routines often become automatic, socially embedded, or invisible to users, so they may not be easy to explain directly.
Why is design research often associated with meaning change?

Design research can investigate culture, practices, values, and interpretation, making it well suited to discovering new meanings.
What is the difference between divergent and convergent thinking?

Divergent thinking expands the solution space; convergent thinking selects, combines, and refines promising options.
How can access, time, ethics approval, and messy data shape research quality?

These constraints affect what data can be collected, from whom, under what conditions, and how thoroughly it can be analyzed.
Why are scenarios useful for reasoning about use before implementation?

Scenarios make future use concrete, support comparison of alternatives, and reveal assumptions about context and action.
How can prototype fidelity vary across appearance, functionality, interactivity, data, and spatial structure?

Different parts of a prototype can be realistic or rough independently: visual appearance, working features, interactivity, data realism, and physical or spatial form can each have different fidelity.
How does sketching externalize design thinking?

Sketching makes ideas visible and manipulable, allowing designers to inspect, discuss, critique, and transform them.
What kinds of insights can cultural probes produce?

A cultural probe is an open-ended package of tasks or materials used to elicit personal, emotional, playful, or inspirational responses from participants.
What is the difference between observing work and asking people to describe work?

Observation can reveal tacit behavior and real context, while verbal descriptions may omit routine, embodied, or taken-for-granted details.
What is technological mediation?

Technological mediation means technologies shape how people perceive, act, decide, and relate to the world.
How can external representations support collaboration in design teams?

Shared representations help teams coordinate, compare ideas, remember decisions, and reason together.
Why should design teams consider viability alongside desirability and feasibility?

A design must not only be desirable and feasible; it also needs a plausible way to survive organizationally, economically, or operationally.
What is the role of systematic coding in qualitative analysis?

Coding organizes raw qualitative material into meaningful segments, patterns, themes, and exceptions that can support credible interpretation.
Why should evaluation data include both what users do and how they interpret the experience?

Behavior shows actions, errors, and workarounds; interpretation explains expectations, meanings, feelings, and reasons. Together they give a fuller UX evaluation.
What are the main elements of a business model canvas?

It is a structured overview of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value.
How can a prototype support exploration rather than validation?

It can make alternatives tangible, provoke reflection, expose assumptions, and open new design directions instead of only checking whether one solution works.
Why can early traditional usability testing be risky for unfinished concepts?

It can over-emphasize errors, speed, and measurable efficiency before the concept is mature, which may kill promising ideas that still need exploration.
How do work models help designers understand situated activity?

Work models externalize flows, roles, artifacts, communication, breakdowns, and constraints so teams can reason about practice.
How do consent, briefing, debriefing, and data handling affect evaluation ethics?

They protect participants by explaining the study, enabling informed choice, clarifying rights, reducing harm, and ensuring responsible data handling.
How is empathy different from assuming that you understand the user?

Empathy is an informed effort to understand users' situations, meanings, feelings, and constraints through research and reflection.
What are the limitations of scoring concepts with criteria and weights?

Scores can create false precision, hide assumptions, depend on chosen criteria, and underrepresent qualitative differences.
How can diary prompts affect the type and quality of data collected?

Prompts shape attention: specific prompts improve comparability, while open prompts may reveal unexpected issues.
Why should probe returns be treated as inspiration rather than objective measurements?

Probe materials are partial and subjective, so they should inspire design interpretation rather than be treated as representative measurement.
How can designers identify ethically problematic persuasion?

Look for deception, hidden costs, forced continuity, obstruction, pressure, asymmetry of information, and reduced user agency.
Why does mediation make ethics relevant during design rather than only after deployment?

Because design shapes action and perception, ethical responsibility belongs inside the design process, not only after release.