Design Rationale Report

This report delves into the concept of design rationale, emphasizing its importance in the design process. It explains how design rationale helps designers make informed decisions, record their process, and communicate effectively. The report further explores key elements of design rationale, including personas (fictional representations of users), user journeys (mapping user interactions), hierarchical task analysis (breaking down tasks into smaller steps), and object analysis (documenting data and processes). Each element is explained with examples and its role in creating a user-centered design is highlighted. The report concludes with a discussion summarizing the key findings and suggesting areas for further exploration, including potential issues and solutions within the design process. References to relevant online resources are also provided.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Personas...........................................................................................................................................2
User Journey....................................................................................................................................2
Hierarchical Task Analysis..............................................................................................................3
Object Analysis................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Reference.........................................................................................................................................5

Executive Summary
Design rationale is mainly used during the design process of the specific system. In this the main
decisions are made for designing the process. It also helps and supports the designers by
recording and communicating about the design process. Personas can be the fictional characters
where they are the users of the designing process. The main thing that is focused in user journeys
is how the user interacts with the process in current situation and how the user will interact with
the process later. It also describes about the task analysis and the object analysis of the process.
Introduction
Design rationale is mainly used during the design process of the specific system. In this the main
decisions are made for designing the process. It also helps and supports the designers by
recording and communicating about the design process. While the design rationale is used it
should identify the reasons why this design has been chosen and they should also justify about
the facts they have considered while designing. The discussion should also provide the
arguments and alternatives that have chosen for this process.
Personas
Personas can be the fictional characters where they are the users of the designing process. While
designing a persona for a specific design, it will help the creators to understand the users need,
behaviors and their goals. Different user has different expectations so that the persona will help
them to satisfy the users according to their needs. The personas can be classified into four
different types like goal directed personas, role based persona, engaging persona and fictional
persona. The process identification and the process work flow can be examined in the goal
oriented persona. The objective of the role oriented persona is to focus on the attitude and the
behaviors of the specific users. Engaged personas can be termed as goal oriented or role oriented
personas. They can look into all aspects of the users and write user stories regarding that.
Fictional personas are raised from the UX design team where the assumptions are made by them.
User Journey
User journey can be defined as the number of steps that are used by the user to make the
interaction with the designs. The main thing that is focused in user journeys is how the user

interacts with the process in current situation and how the user will interact with the process
later. User journey helps to demonstrate the vision of the process and help to understand the
process clearly. The user journey can be created and attached to the design activities in the
information architecture. While creating the user journey the main factors that should be
considered are user goals, their motivations, important aspects, user needs and the tasks that the
user need to achieve.
Hierarchical Task Analysis
Hierarchical task analysis is a kind of the approach that helps to improve the user experience
while creating the new design or modifying the existing process. It can be defined as the
objective approach where it helps to describe the tasks or performance of the user. It also helps to
perform the tasks required in order to achieve the specific goals. In the hierarchical design, the
task can be divided into multiple tasks. If this is done then it can improve the interaction between
the user and the system software. In hierarchical task analysis multiple approaches can be
applied in order to complete the task. Once the task analysis is done it can be referred as the full
system documentation. When the task analysis is done the main factors that should be analyzed
are user goals should be identified, the steps that should be followed by the users to achieve the
goals and the procedures that are used with the optimization facts. For example, if the task
analysis should be made for book ordering system, the main steps in that can be searching and
identifying the book, entering the details and performing the payment procedures. In order to do
this task many steps can be followed by the users. The steps can be locating the place to enter the
detail, moving the insertion point to particular place and enter the details or select the details
from the list for completing the task.
Object Analysis
The object analysis can be defined as a method where that is used for the documentation
purpose. The documentation includes the data or objects that are to be processed and the
functions or the actions that are used to process those data or object. While performing the object
analysis it can be performed at the early stage because it helps us to understand the system
functionality, better analysis of the object terms, it also helps to ensure that the process and the
tasks are designed at the early stage according to the user needs and the simplified user interfaces
can be created. The main objective of the object analysis is not to create a perfect model instead

it is helpful for creating the logical with all the workflows of the system. When the workflow is
made for the design then it will be helpful during the project implementation phase.
Discussion
Thus in this report the better analysis has been made for the design rationale of the design
process. While designing the process the facts that are to be considered are discussed with all the
factors like task analysis and object analysis. The personas involved in design analysis are also
explained with its objectives and the user goals. When the designing is done by the designers
their goal is to focus into the user goals and their needs when they use the process or the system.
The models that are used in the design rationale have been discussed in this report. The further
discussions can be made for the stages that are involved in designing process and the rationales
or the methods that will be used. The issues and the solutions of the design process will be
provided.

Reference
Janet E. Burge and David C. Brown. 2011. Design Rationale Types and Tools. [ONLINE]
Available at: https://web.cs.wpi.edu/Research/aidg/DR-Rpt98.html. [Accessed 8 March 2018].
Peter Hornsby. 2010. Hierarchical Task Analysis Innovating UX Practice. [ONLINE] Available
at: https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2010/02/hierarchical-task-analysis.php. [Accessed 8
March 2018].
Jen. 2017. How to Write a Design Rationale Based on the Elements & Principles of Design.
[ONLINE] Available at: http://jennifercederstam.com/how-to-write-a-design-rationale/.
[Accessed 8 March 2018].
RIKKE DAM. 2013. Personas – Why and How You Should Use Them. [ONLINE] Available at:
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/personas-why-and-how-you-should-use-
them. [Accessed 8 March 2018].
CHRIS MEARS. 2013. User Journeys – The Beginner’s Guide. [ONLINE] Available at:
https://theuxreview.co.uk/user-journeys-beginners-guide/. [Accessed 8 March 2018].
LeeRoy Bronner. 2015. Argumentative Design Rationale and the Object-Oriented Development
Process: better analysis, better design. [ONLINE] Available at:
https://www.asee.org/documents/sections/middle-atlantic/fall-2006/Argumentative-Design-
Rationale-and-the-Object-Oriented-Development-Process-better-analysis,-better-design.pdf.
[Accessed 8 March 2018].