Papers by Isabelle Sperano
When Design is Inspired by Theatre: Acting Techniques as Prospective Design Methods
In acting training, psychophysical exercises are used to strengthen the relationship between mind... more In acting training, psychophysical exercises are used to strengthen the relationship between mind and body, thus fostering a deeper understanding of the character [1]. Intrigued and inspired by the potential value of these techniques in design contexts, we explored their application for interaction designers as research methods in a pedagogical setting. To do so, we first created a single-session workshop that introduced design students to basic actor movement techniques in the winter of 2019. The goal of the workshop was to help students empathize with their users and discover solutions when designing digital products. Later, in the fall of 2020, we used reflections from the first activity to develop two longer workshops; both consisted of three sessions and were carried out consecutively in two different universities. In this article, we present a case study of those three workshops. After discussing considerations for the evolution of the workshops, we describe how each was condu...
User Experience and Digital Government: Exploring a Practice-Based Participatory Approach to Identify Research Opportunities
Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie
In this case study, the research team (RT) explores user experience design in relation to digital... more In this case study, the research team (RT) explores user experience design in relation to digital practices adopted by governments. The goal of this first phase was to identify research opportunities. To do so, the RT adopted a practice-centered participatory research approach (Holkup, 2004). The RT began a partnership with a municipal government (City of Edmonton). Regular meetings were held with the partner organization to discuss—among other things—the organization’s structure, current and future projects, the digital editorial strategies implemented by the organization, and the organization's issues and constraints when designing digital services. This allowed the teams to identify not only interesting research questions but also potential teaching collaborations related to work-integrated learning. In this paper, the practice-based participatory research approach is explained, the timeline and the outcome of the partnership are presented, and the lessons learned through tha...
Expérience utilisateur et gouvernement numérique
Presses de l'Université Laval eBooks, Oct 26, 2022
Content audit for the assessment of digital information space
Proceedings of the 35th ACM International Conference on the Design of Communication, 2017
Content audit is an evaluation method used to identify, describe, quantify, and assess content qu... more Content audit is an evaluation method used to identify, describe, quantify, and assess content quality of a website or of a larger information ecosystem (social media, web application, newsletter, intranet, etc.). Despite the growing popularity of the method in the last years, very little research has been conducted on this topic. However, it is extensively described and commented in a large body of literature, mostly written by information architecture (IA), content strategy and UX professionals. Hence, this is what led to further examine, in this research, a corpus of 200 publications (books, web pages, blog articles, journal articles) addressing content audit. This study attempts to take stock and establish a realistic picture of the current knowledge about the method, particularly concerning content audit definition components and content audit types, as well as to suggest possible means to further develop this evaluation method.
User Testing for Serious Game Design: Improving the Player Experience
Exploring New Usages of Journey Maps: Introducing the Pedagogical and the Project Planning Journey Maps
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2018
Journey maps are graphical and textual representations that intend to outline an experience over ... more Journey maps are graphical and textual representations that intend to outline an experience over time with a product, a system or a service (Kalbach 2016). In this article, we first describe how this visualization tool is used in interaction design. Secondly, through two case studies, we describe two innovative ways of using this tool. In the first case study, we present the pedagogical journey map, a journey mapping approach meant to be used by teachers as a collaborative design tool to support the creation of pedagogical activities. In the second case study, we introduce the project planning journey map, used as both a prospective and retrospective project planning tool to help student designers plan and reflect on their design process. This paper is meant to support the use of the journey map as a prospective design method by academics and practitioners (from fields such as interaction design, user experience design, prospective ergonomics, education, and engineering) addressing issues related to the design of innovative products and services.
Creative, Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research: An Educational Cell Biology Video Game Designed by Students for Students
In a three-year, practice-based, creative research project, the team designed a video game for un... more In a three-year, practice-based, creative research project, the team designed a video game for undergraduate biology students that aimed to find the right balance between educational content and entertainment. The project involved 7 faculty members and 14 undergraduate students from biological science, design, computer science, and music. This nontraditional approach to research was attractive to students. Working on an interdisciplinary practice-based research project required strategies related to timeline, recruitment, funding, team management, and mentoring. Although this project was time-consuming and full of challenges, it created meaningful learning experiences not only for students but also for faculty members.
Ses activités d’enseignement et de recherche portent sur l’UX design et l’architecture de l’infor... more Ses activités d’enseignement et de recherche portent sur l’UX design et l’architecture de l’information. Elle s’intéresse particulièrement à l’évaluation, à l’organisation et au design de l’information dans des environnements numériques de grande ampleur. Cet article présente une partie des résultats d’une étude conduite dans le cadre de sa thèse de doctorat en architecture de l’information à l’école de design de l’Université Laval (Québec) portant sur l’évaluation de la qualité des contenus numériques.
When Design is Inspired by Theatre: Acting Techniques as Prospective Design Methods
In acting training, psychophysical exercises are used to strengthen the relationship between mind... more In acting training, psychophysical exercises are used to strengthen the relationship between mind and body, thus fostering a deeper understanding of the character [1]. Intrigued and inspired by the potential value of these techniques in design contexts, we explored their application for interaction designers as research methods in a pedagogical setting. To do so, we first created a single-session workshop that introduced design students to basic actor movement techniques in the winter of 2019. The goal of the workshop was to help students empathize with their users and discover solutions when designing digital products. Later, in the fall of 2020, we used reflections from the first activity to develop two longer workshops; both consisted of three sessions and were carried out consecutively in two different universities. In this article, we present a case study of those three workshops. After discussing considerations for the evolution of the workshops, we describe how each was condu...
De l'idéation au concept: les défis du designer dans un projet de nature prospective
Ideation is an essential process to any prospective design project. That collaborative process is... more Ideation is an essential process to any prospective design project. That collaborative process is cognitively demanding. Observing designers (n=133) working on prospective design projects allowed us to identify three categories of ideation problems recurrently occurring. Firstly, we identify the problems related to participants’ preparation. We notice that certain intellectual stance or lack of general knowledge is a handicap to some and impairs their ideation capability. Secondly, we introduce problems related to the focus of the ideation process. Those problems particularly affect the way the idea is developed and its scope. Finally, we discuss the idea externalisation difficulties, where we mainly deal with the language and sketching competencies required for the materialization of ideas.
L'audit de contenu en architecture d'information : examen de la méthode à travers les écrits d'experts
Bibliomaps - a software to create web-based interactive maps of science: The case of UX map
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Bibliomaps - a software to create web-based interactive maps of science: The case of UX map
Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Understanding Content Audit Practices: A Content Analysis of Experts’ Literature
Sage Research Methods, 2019
In this research, we conducted a content analysis of experts’ literature on the topic of content ... more In this research, we conducted a content analysis of experts’ literature on the topic of content audit. By carrying doing this our research aims to better understand expert’s discourse related to that method. This article present the methodology used to collect and analyse the results of this study. Partial results are presented at the end of the article, where we focus on the analysis of audit criteria.
The Content Audit: Who Should Conduct It?
Intercom, 2019
In this article, we focus on one aspect of the content audit: the auditor. What is their field of... more In this article, we focus on one aspect of the content audit: the auditor. What is their field of expertise, and what are their required characteristics and skills? Because auditors are the main actors in charge of conducting a content audit, they are also largely responsible for the quality and the credibility of the audit results (ISO 19011 2011). This confers to them great power, as well as a large responsibility.
Interaction Design and Educational Video Game: Motivating Undergraduate Students to Explore New Territories
Interaction Design Education Summit, 2019
Exploring New Usages of Journey Maps: Introducing the Pedagogical and the Project Planning Journey Maps
Journey maps are graphical and textual representations that intend to outline an experience over ... more Journey maps are graphical and textual representations that intend to outline an experience over time with a product, a system or a service (Kalbach 2016). In this article, we first describe how this visualization tool is used in interaction design. Secondly, through two case studies, we describe two innovative ways of using this tool. In the first case study, we present the pedagogical journey map, a journey mapping approach meant to be used by teachers as a collaborative design tool to support the creation of pedagogical activities. In the second case study, we introduce the project planning journey map, used as both a prospective and retrospective project planning tool to help student designers plan and reflect on their design process. This paper is meant to support the use of the journey map as a prospective design method by academics and practitioners (from fields such as interaction design, user experience design, prospective ergonomics, education, and engineering) addressing issues related to the design of innovative products and services.
Typologie exploratoire des affordances textuelles
Pratiques, 2017
Le concept d’affordance a été introduit par James J. Gibson dans le cadre de sa psychologie écolo... more Le concept d’affordance a été introduit par James J. Gibson dans le cadre de sa psychologie écologique en 1979. Les affordances sont des propriétés de l’environnement et des objets qui s’y trouvent. Lorsqu’elles sont perçues, ces propriétés permettent à l’animal – à l’humain – de savoir comment il peut agir dans un contexte donné. Omniprésentes, dans le monde et dans les objets du monde, ces propriétés concernent donc aussi tous les artéfacts destinés à la lecture, qu’il s’agisse d’un roman, d’une page Web, d’un formulaire fiscal, etc. En ce sens, les affordances doivent intéresser la rédactologie parce qu’elles influencent à divers degrés les interactions avec les documents et les textes en circulation dans notre société. Dans une logique exploratoire, nous proposons six types d’affordances qui nous semblent caractériser tous les documents et les textes (imprimés et numériques) susceptibles d’exister : les affordances gibsoniennes, les affordances de lisibilité fondamentale, les affordances linguistiques fondamentales, les affordances du genre, les affordances des zones informationnelles et les affordances microstructurelles. Les types proposés s’inscrivent dans un mouvement perceptuel allant des affordances macroscopiques vers les affordances microscopiques, mais toujours en marge du processus de lecture psycholinguistique.
Content audit for the assessment of digital information space: definitions and exploratory typology
SIGDOC, 2017
Content audit is an evaluation method used to identify, describe, quantify, and assess content qu... more Content audit is an evaluation method used to identify, describe, quantify, and assess content quality of a website or of a larger information ecosystem (social media, web application, newsletter, intranet, etc.). Despite the growing popularity of the method in the last years, very little research has been conducted on this topic. However, it is extensively described and commented in a large body of literature, mostly written by information architecture (IA), content strategy and UX professionals. Hence, this is what led to further examine, in this research, a corpus of 200 publications (books, web pages, blog articles, journal articles) addressing content audit. This study attempts to take stock and establish a realistic picture of the current knowledge about the method, particularly concerning content audit definition components and content audit types, as well as to suggest possible means to further develop this evaluation method.
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Papers by Isabelle Sperano