CM160 Foundation of HumanComputer Interaction Discovering requirements part 2

1
CM160 Foundation of Human-Computer
InteractionDiscovering requirements (part 2)

• RolesWhat hats are your users wearing?
• (HoltzBlatt, K, Burns Wendell, J. and Wood,S.
  (2005) Rapid Contextual Design. Morgan Kaufman.
  p.186)
• Further references in the slides that follow are
  to the above book unless otherwise noted.

2
Starting Point what do people do?

• Understand your users
• Before your can start specifying requirements
  properly you need to know about the people who
  might have a need for your future product.
• Who are they, what do they do and why?
• Nothing is really new
• In virtually every case there are some more or
  less equivalent experiences and practices that
  can be drawn on investigate these
• Usability fix, low-hanging fruit, quick fix for
  existing product e.g. a company information
  system, Microsoft Word.
• Market-leading product innovation e.g. ipod.
• Talk to the right people
• e,g. senior managers are not good sources of
  information about administrative assistants work
  practices.
• e.g. information systems maintenance staff are
  not good sources of information about a ward
  nurses work.

3
Walk a mile in the users shoes

• It can take lots of effort to get into the users
  shoes, especially if they are not your style.
• You need to immerse yourself in the work
  practices or the life style of typical users
• You need to become sensitive to their ways of
  thinking
• But you also need to be able to distance yourself
  from the experience and to reflect on its
  implications for design.
• Getting to understand the user is a personal
  experience
• However what you find out often has to be
  communicated to and shared with other people who
  will not be users but some sort of computing
  specialist.
• Some practices and tools to help with the above
  are discussed next
• They come from professional practice
• And have been selected because they are also
  useful for your assignment.

4
Telling Stories

• Stories should be
• about one activity that users do
• based on research data
• have the right amount of detail for their
  purpose, they should be as concrete as necessary.
  (see radio alarm clock example in supplementary
  notes).
• describe things from the users point of view
• have one or more characters who seem plausible
  (and who may be composites of real user data).
• They can be represented as text, pictures or
  combinations of the two
• They model the users work either as an
  interpretation of research data representing
  current work or as scenarios for some future work
  activity.

5
Example Recipe Notes

• Context
• A project is underway to provide mobile
  information resources for people who want to eat
  more healthily, cheaply and with less
  environmental impact.
• Some user research has been done and this is
  research is being modelled so that the research
  can be communicated to others and the research
  data interpreted with a view to developing a
  concept for a pda application.

6
Recipe notes example Model of an existing
artefact observed in research
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Recipe notes example Personas

• A persona is a one-page textual description of
  a typical user. This typical user is an amalgam
  of elements drawn from several users who share
  common job roles, demographics and user need
  characteristics.
• The persona is given a realistic( name), a
  headshot photo expressive of the nature of
  these users, and a textual description. The
  description covers who they are, a little bit of
  their background, and key goals.
• It summarizes their tasks and the primary roles
  they play (in the context of the design
  possibilities being investigated).

• (Holtzblatt, BurnsWendell and Wood, 2005, p.182)

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Recipe notes example persona Gail Forrester
Gail Forrester is in her late 30s and is a
display design consultant for a large
departmental store in Newcastle. She blends her
professional work with bringing up her two
children, Amy (aged 3, in photo) and Liam (aged
7), with her husband Jeff (in photo). Since the
birth of Amy, she has worked part-time.
  Gail and Jeff share a concern for healthy
eating. They are well enough off to eat well all
the time and see the evening meal as an important
family occasion. Gail is quite a good cook and
prides herself on being able to create something
out of nothing when she has to. Gail has
experiemented with lots of different food styles
Mexican, Indian, Chinese, Italian, French,
traditional English, etc. However, she has become
increasingly concerned about the implications of
UK supermarket practices for the environment and
the sustainability of the planet. She does not
like to have to buy her fresh vegetables and
fruit in pre-packed plastic packages and
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Recipe notes example personas can help you to
imagine the activity from the users perspective
Scenario You are shopping in the supermarket
for ingredients for meals over the weekend. You
have in mind to make moussaka for one meal and
pasta with grilled tomatoes and onions for
another. You have with you your little blue book
and a separate list of things you just need
anyway. You are looking on the meat counter for
minced lamb, which is a key ingredient of
moussaka. You see that they do not have any
minced lamb but they do have some very good
quality stewing lamb on a special offer.You think
you might buy the stewing lamb instead of the
minced lamb.
Scenario Gail is shopping in the supermarket
for ingredients for meals over the weekend. She
has in mind to make moussaka for one meal and
pasta with grilled tomatoes and onions for
another. She has with her her little blue book
and a separate list of things she just needs
anyway. She is looking on the meat counter for
minced lamb, which is a key ingredient of
moussaka. She sees that they do not have any
minced lamb but they do have some very good
quality stewing lamb on a special offer.She
thinks she might buy the stewing lamb instead of
the minced lamb.
end