User Requirements Ing. Valeria Mirabella Web:

2 How to Collect User Requirements 1. Before starting learn about your product and users 2. Define methods, protocols and prepare all the activities 3. Perform the activities 4. Analyze the data

3 Before Starting  Learn about your product  Learn about your users

4 Learn About Your Product  Use your product  Networking  Customer support comments  Log files  Your marketing department  Early adopter or partner feedback  Competitors

5 Focus on Competitors Once you have identified your competitors, you should ascertain their: Strengths Weaknesses Customer base (profile of users, size of customer base, loyalty, etc.) Availability Functionality and unique features Reputation Requirements (hardware, software, etc.)

6 Competitors (an example) Grid comparing TravelSmart.com against three competitors

7 Learn About Your Users  User profile  Personas  Scenarios A scenario can be be augmented by sketches and pictures. The sketches and pictures are called storyboards It is an iterative process

8 Learn About Your Users

9 User Profile Is a detailed description of your users’ attributes Describes: Demographic data Skills Education Occupation

10 Sample User Profile for a Travel Agent

11 A Persona Is a fictional individual created to describe the typical user based on the user profile

12 A Persona Persona for a website redesign Jane Smith is a 36 year-old hurried single stay-at-home mother from Rome. She has two children aged 5 and 2. She has an ADSL-based Internet access in her house. She sometimes browses the Web for information about raising children when she finds time in her hectic schedule

13 A Scenario Is a story that describes how a particular persona completes a task or behaves in a given situation

14 A Scenario Example It is Friday afternoon and Peter is flying out of Rome to Milan. He does not have enough money for a taxi to the airport, and he is running late. He goes to the local ATM and identifies himself. He specifies that he wants 150 Euro from his savings account. He would prefer to have the money in 20 Euro notes so that he can give the taxi driver the correct change. He does not want a printed receipt because he does not bother keeping track of transactions in his savings account.

15 Define Methods, Protocol and Prepare all the Activities  Define methods  Create a proposal  How many participants do I need?  Create recruiting advertise  Create a protocol …focus on methods and on creating a proposal

Methods Focus on methods

17 Methods  Interviews  Surveys  Group card sort  Group task analysis  Focus group  Field visits

18 Methods Interview In a broad sense an interview is a guided conversation in which one person seeks information form another Survey A survey is a collection of quantitative information about members of a population. It typically involves the construction of questionnaires and scales

19 Card sorting The method involves written objects that is supposed to be in your product that users will sort into meaningful groups Group task analysis Participants work in small groups and discuss the steps involved in completing a particular task in order to create a task flow Methods

20 Methods Focus Group Six/ ten individuals are brought together to discuss their experiences or opinions around topics introduced by a moderator. It is used for having a quick understanding of user perception about a particular topic or concept Fiel d studies “Field studies” refers to a broad range of data gathering techniques at the user’s location – including observation and interviewing

21 Comparison - Interview MethodPurposeAdvantagesLevel of effortRelative time InterviewsCollecting in- depth information from each of several users A skilled interviewer can collect a lot of information from each user Flexible; you can ask follow- up questions & delve into more detail than with surveys or focus groups If you are not a skilled interviewer, training is required It takes time to interview enough users Medium (phone interviews) to high (on-site interviews)

22 Comparison - Survey MethodPurposeAdvantagesLevel of effortRelative time SurveysQuickly collecting quantitative data from a large number of users Collect information from a large number of users simultaneously If designed correctly, it can be quick & easy to analyze the data Relatively cheap The evaluator must be skilled in creating unbiased surveys (this requires training) If it is posted to the web, little effort is required to distribute it Medium

23 Comparison – Card Sorting MethodPurposeAdvantagesLevel of effortRelative time Card sortIdentifying how users group information or objects to inform product information architecture Relatively simple technique to conduct If run as group, can collect data from several users at once Encourages the product team to better understand their own product by breaking the product down & defining each component It can be intense to come up with list of information or objects & definitions Effort to conduct the activity is low Effort required to analyze data varies depending on tool, number of cards, & number of participants Low (group card sort)

24 Comparison – Group Task Analysis MethodPurposeAdvantagesLevel of effortRelative time Group task analysis Understanding how users complete a specific task & issues surrounding that task Develop a task flow that works for multiple users/ companies Quick to conduct Relatively cheap Group moderation is high effort Fast turnaround on results Analyzing the data is low effort Low

25 Comparison – Focus Group MethodPurposeAdvantagesLevel of effortRelative time Focus groupsAssessing user attitudes, opinions, & impressions Recruiting enough users can be resource intensive Collect data from several users simultaneously Group discussion often sparks new ideas Group moderation takes moderate effort Summarizing the data is relatively low effort Low

26 Comparison – Field studies MethodPurposeAdvantagesLevel of effortRelative time Field studiesLearning about the users, their environment, & tasks in context Not dependent on what someone says they do Can collect a plethora of rich data Ecological Validity Arranging the visits, conducting them, & then analyzing the data requires a higher level of effort than any of the previous methods Medium to high