1 Team Skill 2 - Understanding User and Stakeholder Needs (Chapters 8-13 of the requirements text) Sriram Mohan

2 Outline  Background Barriers to Elicitation Features  Techniques Interviewing Requirements Workshops and Brainstorming Storyboarding

3 Barriers to Elicitation

4 Three Common Barriers  “Yes, But…” Syndrome Develop techniques to get rid of the “But” early.  Undiscovered Ruins Syndrome “the more you find, the more you know” --> find the right balance  User and Developer Syndrome Communication gap between the users.

5 Features

6 Needs  Each stakeholder will have needs that will hopefully be addressed by the new system Example: “I want to be able to advise my students more effectively.”  Needs are often ambiguous  Users may neither describe their need (Why this product is necessary) nor do they describe the requirement (What this product needs to do) “They are more abstract”

7 Feature  A feature is a service that the system provides to fulfill one or more stakeholder needs. Example: “This tool will allow the advisor to see the critical path in an advisee’s coursework.”  Look for needs that suggest features  When users talk about features or in other high level abstracts, make sure you understand the real need behind the requested feature.

8 Feature  Attributes to describe a feature Status Priority Effort Risk Stability Target release Assigned to Reason

9 Interviewing

10 Where Should You Hold an Interview?  Non-threatening environment Customer's turf Room large enough for group  Free from distractions

11 Interview Preparation  Do some research  Prepare questions  Prepare agenda  Select roles: Leader Note taker Questioners

12 Interview Phases 1.Establish user profile 2.Assess the problem 3.Understand the environment 4.Recap for understanding 5.Analyst's inputs 6.Assess solution 7.Assess opportunity 8.Assess reliability, performance 9.Other requirements 10.Wrap-up

13 1. Establish User Profile  Do some research first  Determine background of interviewee  Find out what will constitute success or failure

Personas  Personas or personae are fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product.  Used in HCI, Will they be useful for us? 14

Scenarios  scenario is a narrative describing foreseeable interactions of types of users (characters) and the system or between two software component  Famous example As we may think? Vannevar Bush  Used in usability research? What are the tradeoffs when compared to use cases and storyboards 15

16 2. Assess the Problem  Find out what the problems are  How are problems addressed now?

17 3. Understand the Environment  Find out about the users  Find out about the computing environment  How much help will users need?

18 4. Recap for Understanding  Paraphrase what you have heard so far  Is anything missing?

19 5. Analyst's Inputs  Ask about problems that you would expect to be present  Rank these problems relative to others

20 6. Assess Solution  What if...  How important would it be?

21 7. Assess Opportunity  Determine the market for the solution  Determine the value of the solution

22 8. Assess Reliability and Performance  Determine nonfunctional needs: reliability performance support

23 9. Other Requirements  Any external requirements?  Any other requirements not already mentioned?

Wrap-up  What should we have asked?  How can we follow up?

25 Why Not A Questionnaire Instead?...  …After all, they can be done so much more efficiently! But  Difficult to follow-up on responses  Relevant questions cannot always be designed in advance.  Advantages of interviews: Personal Contact Interaction/Follow-ups  Let’s Plan on an interview session with me as the client.

26 Requirements Workshops and Brainstorming

27 Benefits of Requirements Workshop  All stakeholders get their say  May expose political issues  Helps form effective team (developers and stakeholders)

28 Workshop Facilitator  Establish proper tone  Introduce goals and agenda  Keep team on track  Facilitate decision making  Make sure all voices are heard

29 Sample One-Day Agenda  Introduction 0.5 hours  Context1.5 hours  Brainstorming2.0 hours  Lunch1.0 hours  Brainstorming1.0 hours  Feature definition1.0 hours  Idea reduction1.0 hours  Wrap-up 1.0 hours

30 Brainstorming  Benefits Encourages participation by all Allows participants to build on one another's ideas High bandwidth: many ideas in short period of time Encourages out-of-the-box thinking

31 One Brainstorming Method  Write down ideas on post-it notes, put on wall  Read ideas out loud  Generate as many ideas as possible  No criticizing!  Take turns being the facilitator  Capture ideas in person’s own words

32 A Similar Method  Use an easel or whiteboard  Ask for ideas and write them down as they are said aloud  Once again - no criticizing!

33 Idea Reduction  Prune ideas…, After the crazy and wild ones disappear  Give one-line description for each remaining idea  Classify the ideas into groups  Vote on the ideas (i.e. rank them)  Choose what ideas will go forward post-workshop  Prioritize the ideas

34 Storyboarding

35 Get the idea from some Storyboard Examples  More movies --This one’s from Blade Runner  In the movie industry, storyboarders don’t think they get enough credit – See omba.htm omba.htm

36 Another Storyboard Example  More movies – Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls Storyboard from Storyboarding 101, by James O. Fraioli. Michael Weise Productions, 2000, ISBN

37 Another Storyboard Example  From software & web development. This one’s “Understanding your automobile,” at a.edu/authoring/studio/guid ebook/storyboard_example. html a.edu/authoring/studio/guid ebook/storyboard_example. html  You can check out their website for more about their methodology…

38 Ideas on how to do these  From a book on visual language –  Storyboards are an example of using the visual for multiple purposes: Audience focus Designer focus And breadth in both From Designing Visual Language, by Charles Bostelnick and David D. Roberts. Allyn and Bacon, 1998, ISBN , p. 42.

39 Advantages of Storyboard  Inexpensive  User friendly, informal, interactive  Provides an early review of user interfaces of the system  Easy to create and easy to modify

40 Storyboard Types  Passive Rough Sketches, screen shots  Active Flash movie, linked PowerPoint presentation.  Interactive Realistic, and a live prototype

41 Story  Who are the players?  What do they do?  How do they do it?

42 Key Points  Purpose – Elicit “Yes, But” reactions  Storyboards should be sketchy  A place to add innovative content Above, right – “At the forefront of innovative content, interactivity is valuable only if it is user-friendly.” From mediadigest/md0001/04.htmlwww.rthk.org.hk/ mediadigest/md0001/04.html

Scenarios  scenario is a narrative describing foreseeable interactions of types of users (characters) and the system or between two software component  Famous example As we may think? Vannevar Bush  Used in usability research? What are the tradeoffs when compared to use cases and storyboards 43