1. Requirements Gathering & Expressing

2. Agenda Project Team Formation Requirements Gathering Methods continued
Requirements Expressing
Personas
Scenarios

3. (Not All) Requirements Gathering Methods
1. Observation
2. Thinking Out Loud & Cooperative Evaluation
3. Interviews
4. Questionnaires
5. Focus groups
6. Study Documentation
7. Look at competitive products
8. Ethnography - learn by immersion/doing
Ethnography is emphasis here.
Jeff - please say somemore about 2 and 3 and more about diff with 1

4. Domain Expert Interviews
Expert describes how it should be done (not necessarily how it is done)

5. Questionnaires General criteria Make questions clear and specific
Ask some closed questions with range of answers
Sometimes also have a no opinion option, or other answer option
Do test run with one or two people

6. Questionnaires - Example
Seven-point Likert Scale (use odd #)
Could also use just words
Strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree
See ID 13.3 for more tips

7. Other Typical Questions
Rank the importance of each of these tasks (give a list of tasks)
List the four most important tasks that you perform (this is an open question)
List the pieces of information you need to have before making a decision about X, in order of importance
Are there any other points you would like to make? (open-ended opinion question; good way to end)

8. Open ended questions
Can ask questions similar to semi-structured interview
…but you can’t follow up, so take care what you ask
Keep as short and simple as possible

9. Focus Groups Group of individuals - 3 to 10
Use several different groups with different roles or perspectives
And to separate the powerful from those who are not
Careful about few people dominating discussion
Use structured set of questions
More specific at beginning, more open as progresses
Allow digressions before coming back on track
Relatively low cost, quick way to learn a lot
Audio or video record, with permission

10. Example: mall kiosk Who to interview? What questions?
Who to give questionnaire to? What questions?
What about focus group?
What are differences between methods?

11. Study Documentation Similar in some ways to the expert interview
Often describe how things should be done rather than how they are done
Try to understand why not done “by the book”

12. Look at Competitive Products
Looking for both good and bad ideas
Functionality
UI style
Do user task performance metrics to establish bounds on your system

13. Ethnography Deeply contextual study
Immerse oneself in situation you want to learn about (has anthropological and sociological roots)
Observing people in their cultural context
For UI designers: understand current methods, activities, environment, problems to aid design
Drawbacks
Time consuming
requires training and experience

14. Which Methods to Use? Depends on Resources
Current knowledge of tasks and users
Context
Can’t use talking out loud if work involves two people working together
Essential to use some methods
Not likely you will use all methods
See pg. 214 in ID

15. Which Methods to Use?
Self-service filling and payment system for a gas station
On-board ship data analysis system for geologists searching for oil
Fashion website for buying clothes at large department store

16. (Not All) Requirements Gathering Methods
1. Observation
2. Thinking Out Loud & Cooperative Evaluation
3. Interviews
4. Questionnaires
5. Focus groups
6. Study Documentation
7. Look at competitive products
8. Ethnography - learn by immersion/doing
Ethnography is emphasis here.
Jeff - please say somemore about 2 and 3 and more about diff with 1

17. Bus Location Web Page Create a requirements plan which methods
What to look for/ask/do for each?

18. Recall: Gather data Organize data Represent data
Interviews, observation, surveys/questionnaires, documentation, immersion
Organize data
Notes, cards, brainstorming, computer tools
Represent data
Lists, outlines, matrices
Narratives
Hierarchies, Networks, Flow charts

19. Making Sense Organize/categorize information Card Sorting
“coding scheme”
Card Sorting
Affinity Diagrams
Task analysis

20. Affinity Diagram - “Sorted Cards”
From Interaction Design, Preece Rogers and Sharp

21. Describing requirements activities
Narratives
Personas
Scenarios
Task Analysis & other task descriptions
…next lecture

22. Recall: User Characteristics
Attitude, morale, willingness to change, motivation, reading level, typing skill, education, frequency of use, training, color-blindness, handedness, gender,…
Novice, intermediate, expert
System experience, task experience, computer literacy
Cultural factors
Uses of icons, colors, words, metaphors - more later

23. User Motivation User Design goal Low motivation, discretionary use
Low motivation, mandatory use
High motivation, due to fear
High motivation, due to interest
Design goal
Ease of learning
Control, power
Ease of learning, robustness, control
Power, ease of use

24. Implications of Experience
Task System
low low
high high
low high
high low
Design goals
Many syntactic and semantic prompts
Efficient commands, concise syntax
Semantic help facilities
Lots of syntactic prompting

25. Persona Description of user and what user wishes to do
Be specific/detailed, even give names and picture
Three personas for ATM usage follow
Adapted from User Interface Design and Evaluation, The Open University
Developed by Cooper (1999)

26. Felix (representing teenage ATM users)
Felix is 13 and gets pocket money each week. He spends it with his friends, so doesn’t make regular deposits. He does receive gifts for his birthday, Christmas, etc. and saves that money for special purchases, such as a computer games console or trendy clothes. He has an ATM card allowing him to make withdrawals when needed for his purchases.

27. Sandra (representing young adults thru middle age)
Sandra is 30, is married to Jason, has two children Todd(6) and Carly (18 months). They live in a subdivision that is about three miles from the town center, where the bank and stores are located. Jason uses the car for work, and works long hours, leaving at 6:45 am and returning at 8:00 pm. Sandra does not drive, so has to use public transportation. She tries to run errands and shop while Todd is in school, so she only has to take Carly to town with her. She typically needs to make two trips to town each week to get everything done. She uses a stroller with Carly, and the bank is one flight up via escalator, so she prefers to use the ATM outside the first floor, even though there is no canopy to protect customers from bad weather.

28. Grandpa Marvin (representing middle age to senior citizens)
Marvin is 68 years old, and his social security is deposited into his bank account at the start of each month. He goes to the bank every week, withdrawing enough cash for the week - for miscellaneous expenditures. Regular bills are paid by check. He stands in line for a live teller, as he prefers the social interaction to using an ATM, even though his new artificial hip makes standing in line uncomfortable. He does not have an ATM card.

29. Task Implications Frequency of use Task implications System use
High - Ease of use
Low - Ease of learning & remembering
Task implications
Low - Ease of learning
System use
Mandatory - Ease of use
Discretionary - Ease of learning

30. Job Characteristics Mission critical Life and safety
High stress environment
High mental workload
Low mental workload
Implications of these types of jobs?

31. Scenario Describe tasks and context in sentences
Natural way of describing general idea
Not effective for
details
branching tasks
parallel tasks
GREAT as introduction to diagrams or outlines

32. Scenario: Example 1
Its Friday afternoon and John just got paid. He wants to deposit his check immediately so he can pay his rent. He stops at one branch of his bank on the way home from work. He waits in his car while another person finishes using the ATM in front of the bank since it is drizzling outside. He walks up to the ATM to deposit his check. Only, as he is about to put the check into the envelope at the ATM, he realizes that he has not signed the back of it, and he has no pen and can not find one on or near the ATM machine. He cancels the transaction on the ATM, and enters the bank, which luckily is still open for 5 more minutes. He goes to the counter, finds a pen, and signs his check. He also fills out a deposit slip. He then waits to see a teller in person to deposit his check, and get money for the weekend.

33. Scenario: Example 2
Annie walks up to the ATM to deposit her weekly pay check. She puts her ATM card into the slot in the machine. She then enters her PIN number quickly, trying to block the person waiting behind her from viewing the keypad, and knows that she does not have to press “Enter” at this particular machine. She then chooses “Deposit” and “Check.” She enters the amount of the check using the keypad, then takes an envelope from the ATM machine, puts her check inside, seals the envelope and writes the amount of the check on the outside. She feeds the envelope into the slot into the ATM machine. She then selects “No other transactions” to finish, and waits to receive her receipt and ATM card.

34. Example Register for classes
What kinds of activities could we write a scenario about?
Let’s write one together

35. Exercise: Movie Ticket Kiosk
What data gathering techniques would you use? Who would you interact with?
Who are the stakeholders?
What are typical user characteristics?
What is physical/social/technical environment?
What is a typical scenario of use?
What is an atypical or problem scenario?

36. Next Assignments Create a persona: Due in one week
Create a scenario: Due 1 ½ weeks
Think about your project topic
Confer with teammates

37. Last Assignment What did you learn about transportation?
What did you learn about interviewing?
How would you do it differently next time?