Information & Interaction Design Fall 2005 Bill Hart-Davidson Session 6: analyzing work practices – rationale and challenges; the 5 Contextual Design work models; Exercise 2: CD interviews, flow & sequence models

Today in Class… Introduction to Contextual Design Overview of your work in phase 2 Challenges in analyzing & designing work (Bill H-D talks about the most obvious ones for each project team) CD’s 5 work models explained Exercise 2: Conducting CD interviews to build flow and sequence models

Contextual Design, what is it? An approach to system design that 1.uses qualitative research techniques to directly observe actual, ongoing work 2.ties design decisions to the results of research, using work models in 5 visual formats in order to facilitate shared understanding

What does CD do? 1.It reveals “hidden” patterns of work 2.It makes work structures visible and intelligible so that they can become the basis for system design 3.It meshes nicely with Activity Theory and Embodied Interaction, allowing designers to focus on implementation without ignoring user centered goals while still

CD: Philosophy Design processes work when they build on natural behavior go to where the work is, and watch it happen learn by paying attention to what matters to the people who do the work see the details!

CD: Methodology Seeing the work reveals structure people learn to do work and become expert by observing others…you can do the same commit to watching multiple instances and multiple users current activity recalls past instances…ask about them!

CD 4 Principles: Context Context Lessons– gather evidence of ongoing vs. summary experience; concrete vs. abstract data avoid surveys, general interview questions such as “what do you think of the current system”…this is summary data gather actual artifacts, observe and talk about real events, explore ongoing work

CD 4 Principles: Partnership Partnership Lessons – build a reciprocal relationship with participants to ensure good data avoid relationships that position you as the expert, the “guest” or the typical interviewer help users to explain work by reflecting back what you think you see, verifying, asking them to show you, etc.

CD 4 Principles: Interpretation Interpretation Lessons– build your interpretation over time, with the help of the whole team and users gather facts and make interpretations of those that you can share with your team and with users for verification consider design decisions the end of a chain of reasoning that begins with interpretation of your data

CD 4 Principles: Focus Focus Lessons– commit to challenging your assumptions about the activity, not confirming them your “focus” is a powerful tool that can help you to see detail, but also to miss important aspects of the big picture take time, as a team, to talk about the focus for each data gathering session so you can understand what you may see and what you may miss

Doing Contextual Design In phase 2, You’ll observe and interview people in the various user roles you identified in Phase 1, gathering data to build interpretations of the work that your system must support. You’ll share your interpretations using the 5 work models, and then build prototypes of the user environment for the system that allow you to test the design ideas that come from your interpretations.

3 Priorities of the Conceptual Design Phase Gather & interpret concrete data about ongoing experiences for each user role Understand the work Use visual models to achieve shared understanding and see possibilities Represent the context Design the functionality of the system with few or no specific implementation choices Model the system

How it breaks down in class… Session 6 – intro to CD, work models; teams plan CD activities and begin building flow and sequence models Session 7 – the big picture: cultural models; teams share their CD research plans Session 8 – consolidating the data w/ affinity diagrams; teams present examples of work models (flow, sequence, cultural) in class

How it breaks down in class, cont. Session 9 – modeling the user environment; OO modeling concepts (objects, views, relationships); Exercise 3: artifact and physical models Session 12 – prototyping: testing design concepts, not system features; Session 13 – conceptual design presentation guidelines

Phase 2 homework: CD Interviews Your homework for phase 2 is to conduct 1-3 contextual design interviews as described on pp You’ll use the data to create and share two sequence models (see ch. 6). Post these for sharing in class session 7.

Challenges of Work Analysis & Design 1.“Normal” 2. Intermittent 3.Uninterruptable 4.Extremely long 5.Extremely focused 6.Internal Seeing work that is:

Where do your challenges lie? 1.“Normal” 2. Intermittent 3.Uninterruptable 4.Extremely long 5.Extremely focused 6.Internal Seeing work that is: For each user role, let’s consider which of these complicating factors come into play…and how they can be dealt with

Team Student Body Politic: participants 1.“Normal” 2. Intermittent 3.Uninterruptable 4.Extremely long 5.Extremely focused 6.Internal Seeing work that is: You may need to ask participants to keep a record of activity over some period of time that can be the basis for a retrospective interview

Team mmFood: menu planners 1.“Normal” 2. Intermittent 3.Uninterruptable 4.Extremely long 5.Extremely focused 6.Internal Seeing work that is: “Normal” actions planning meals may not be enough…you may need to ask about “critical incidents;” probe to discover complicating issues

Team +9SoV: Schedulers 1.“Normal” 2. Intermittent 3.Uninterruptable 4.Extremely long 5.Extremely focused 6.Internal Seeing work that is: The scheduling portion of meeting planning is a heavily mediated activty, involving the coordination of information from potentially many sources

Team Fitting Room: Frequent Clothing Shoppers 1.“Normal” 2. Intermittent 3.Uninterruptable 4.Extremely long 5.Extremely focused 6.Internal Seeing work that is: Frequent shoppers may, in some sense, always be shopping: reconciling what they have with what’s available to buy, etc.

5 work models Flow – what patterns of communication/ coordination exist? Sequence – what are the detailed steps necessary to perform actions? Cultural – what are the influences on the work that come from organizational & social sources? Artifact – what do the resources used to perform work look like? How are they employed in real work situations? Physical – what does the workspace look like? How does it influence the work? What patterns of activity shape it?

Building a flow model Gather data about: Roles Responsibilities Groups Flow patterns Artifacts Topics Actions Places Breakdowns See coordination by noting when people interact, what they use, why and where they do it.

Simple flow model: scheduling a consultation Instructor StudentsTA schedule Request to coordinate schedule Please arrange a time… website calendar

Building a sequence model Gather data about: Goals Triggers Actions - steps Artifacts Outcomes Errors Start with a user role, and trace the work practice from that user’s point of view.

Simple sequence model: Instructor Intent: Delegate Task Trigger: upcoming presentations Request TA coordinate schedule Send to students asking them to coordinate with TA Receive s with schedule requests Post schedule on website Receive revised schedule Re-post schedule on website Forward to TA

For Next Week Be ready to share… –A sequence model based on your already collected data As before, It is best if you can post some representation of it for us to look at as well - the main purpose: to discover what you still need to learn more about Set up and conduct your initial CD interviews/observations; start working on flow and sequence models We’ll talk about the big picture: cultural models

What’s a Research Plan? The research focus - what does your team need to know? The interviews/observations you will do broken down by roles The approach you will take in each of these How you will deal with the challenges your project poses

Something to think about… “Culture is as invisible as water is to fish” “The cultural model speaks the words people think [and believe] but don’t say”