User Experience Design MA: Examples of student work

Here you can see some examples of student work, and see the sorts of projects undertaken on this course.

Usability testing

This video shows an experiment looking at usability, credibility and persuasion, and what prompts a user to abandon a travel website:

This experiment looks at user requirements of a mobile wardrobe:

OpenID Demonstrator  (from CIM506 Usability Engineering 2008-09)

A student on the Usability Engineering module showed how novel user authentication protocols lead to different 'Sign on' dialogs.

It often seems that the more secure the Internet becomes, the less usable it is. For example, the need to create and remember a different password for every secure site we visit, deters us from visiting them in the first place.  In response to this dilemma, the OpenID protocol enables web sites to, in effect, 'out source' their user authentication.  When a user arrives at a web site, the site passes the user to a third party where the user establishes his or he identity.  The user is then passed back to the site with their identity confirmed.  Now users only have a single password to remember (their OpenID password).  However, to be successful, the OpenID sign on process must be executed efficiently, and immediately gain the user's understanding and trust.

This mock-up of signing onto a major government website using OpenID user authentication was later fully integrated with the site by an MSc Software Engineering student, to produce the site's first working demonstration of decentralised identity management.

Usability Test of Interactive Seating Plans (from CIM506 Usability Engineering 2008-09)

A student on the Usability Engineering module compared part of an existing web site with a prototype of its replacement.

Purchasing a ticket for major sports, music or other entertainment events at modern arenas is not necessarily a simple task. Users must make a select from various price, accessibility and viewing options, and from tickets with various terms and conditions (e.g. season ticket holders only) and many seats may have already been sold.  Further, performing this task must be a pleasant and engaging experience for all users - if it isn't, a user is just a few clicks away from a different ticket selling site. 

The design of interactive seating plans, then, is critical to the success of web sites selling tickets. Proposed designs are often tested on a selected audience before being released to the public at large. 

Working with a major ticketing website, a student tested two versions of an interactive seating plan with users from different European countries, and compared the results. The use of pop-up windows, the representation of seating options, and the means of navigating around the arena, all turn out to have important impacts upon ease of use and user preferences.

Interactive Seating Plan (copyright Ticketmaster)