CS124: Investigation 2

Investigating Users and Discovering Tasks

Due: Friday, Sept 21, 5pm on Sakai

This is an individual investigation (i.e. everyone should complete their own writeup), but you may discuss it with others. We will discuss this investigation in class, so you may want to bring your writeup to class on Monday, Sept 24.

Goals

The goals of this Investigation are:

To develop observational skills
To learn to identify and describe users
To identify tasks performed by users in the real world

Before you Begin

Before you begin Part 2 of this assignment you should have completed the reading assignments through Monday, Sept 17. You can do Part 1 after doing the reading for Wednesday, Sept 12.

Assignment

In this investigation you are a UI designer tasked with designing a new user interface for one of two populations: either professors, or coffee shop patrons. To get started you must understand your users and observe them carrying out these tasks to know how best to support them.

First, choose which population you will study. Then you can proceed with your investigation. However, please read this whole assignment before settling on a population.

Part 1: Pre-Observation

Choose a user population, and characterize your users. Identify user classes and characteristics as we discussed in class (on 9/12). This section should be combination of text and bulleted lists, about a page long.

Be sure you first list the different categories of users within your population, as we did with the train ticket buyers (e.g., tourists, commuters, etc). Then list specific characteristics of your entire user population. You may choose to break these up by categories, if you like. For example, when analyzing the train ticket buyers, one characteristic might be "carrying luggage (tourists only)".

Part 2: Field Study

Next go observe your users in their "natural" setting. How you observe will depend on which population you have chosen.

Professors: Observe a single class in which you are not participating (i.e. you can't just use one of your own classes). Ignore the material and focus on how the professor presents his or her material. Make sure you get permission to sit in on the class from the professor.
Coffee Shop patrons/employess: Go to a local coffee shop during a time when business is high. Order a coffee (or steamed milk or tea or whatever) and sit an observe the other patrons for one hour. Focus on what activities people carry out in the coffee shop, as well the characteristics of the patrons you observe. Unlike in the classroom setting, you will have the opportunity to observe many different patrons; however, you will probably not be able observe meaningful difference between groups of users, so focus on the similarities.
Importnat note: Because you do not have the patrons' permission to treat them as users, be respectful. Keep your distance, try not to stare, etc. You are perfectly within your right to sit and drink your coffee, look around and take notes, but be aware of others' feelings.

For either population, you should keep the following questions in mind during your observation:

What tasks is your user performing?
How does the user use materals (e.g., the blackboard, a wallet) to support these tasks
Are there any tasks that are not well supported?
Which tasks are most common?
What are the characteristics of the users?

When performing your observations, you should take notes in a notebook using a pen or pencil. You should not rely on any kind of recording device.

Part 3: Post-Observation

(3a) First, dentify three high-level tasks performed by the users in your study. Using a bulleted list, describe each task using the hierarchical method we discussed in class (on 9/17). For each task you should:

Identify the user's goal
State the preconditions (what had to be true before the task could be performed)
List the subgoals of this task (what are the pieces the user must perform to achieve the goal)
Note any problems that can occur when performing this task
Comment on how the task was supported by by tools or aids, and how well these tools supported the task.
Note how frequent the task was

Some things to keep in mind:

Choose an appropriate task level--a non-trivial tasks that does not encompass the entire global goal. For example, in the train ticket-buying example, the task "Buy Ticket" would be too large. But the task "insert credit card into ticket machine" is too specific (and too focused on current technologies). An appropriate level task would be "pay for ticket", which is just one step in buying a ticket.
Be sure you are focusing on tasks in the pure sense, rather than focusing on artifacts of the current interface (e.g., "push the button on the ticket machine preassumes that there is a ticket machine with a button, but this is not inherently necessary).

(3b) Update your user analysis based on your observation. You may simply copy your list from Part 1 and annotate it.

(3c) In a paragraph, comment on a few things that surprised you from your observations. What did you observe that you had not expected?

What to Turn in

Your writeup should include your Pre- and Post-Observation analysis. You do not need to submit your field notes. You should submit this assignment through Sakai, and be prepared to discuss it in class on Monday, Sept 24.

Back to CS124 Investigations Page