Section 3 - IDEO Flashcards
Why not just ask people what they want?
People aren’t always up front with real-life solutions.
What are the IDEO activities for 1) Look: get into people’s spaces?
Fly on the wall: Observe and record behavior within its context, without interferring with peoples activities.
Rapid Ethnography: Spen as much time as you can with people relevant to the design topic. Establish their trust in order to visit and/or participate in their natural habitat and witness specific activities.
Time-Lapse Video: Set up a time-lapse camera to record movements in a space over an extended period of time.
What are the IDEO methods for 2) Look: how do people use their spaces / artifacts?
Behavioral Archaeology: Look for the evidence of people’s activities inherent to the placement, wear pattersn, and organization of places and things.
Examples:
- (microwave button example)
- Tapped up remote example
- Clustered desktop icon examples
What are the data collection methods for Look?
- Pictures (with permission)
- Audio / Video (with permission)
- Sketches
- Notes
What is the weakness of looking?
Looking gives you great insight into the state of the world but it doesn’t type you WHY people are acting the way they do, or what their goals, needs, or feelings are
Why isn’t asking people easy?
People are influenced by what they think you expect them to say (Jimmy Kimmel and iphone 5 example)
What is a questionnaire?
What are the checklist items for questionnaires?
- Conciseness: questions should be clear and spsecific
- Closed Questions: when possible, ask closed questions and offer a range of answers
- Alternate option: - Consider including a “no-opinion” option for questions that seek opinions
- Order: think about the ordering of questions. General questions should precede specific ones
- Instructions: Provide very clear instructions on how to complete the questionnaire
What are the IDEO methods for Ask 2) logging?
Camera Journal: Ask potential users to keep a written and visual diary of their impressions, circumstances, and activities related to the product.
Diary Studies: Paper logs - fit in a pocket
Experience Sample: Have users carry around a device that has them answer questions at given intervals
What are the methods for Ask 3) ask them indirectly (get them to do stuff, construct a mental model)
Mental Model: Thought process or understanding of how something works
Collage: Ask participants to build a collage from a provided collection of images, and to explain the significance of the images and arrangements they choose.
Card Sort: On sperate cards, name possible features, functions, or design attributes, ask people to organize the cards spatially, in ways that make sense to them.
Draw the experience: Ask participants to visualize an experience through drawings and diagrams
Narration: As they perform a process or execute a specific taks, ask participants to describe aloud what they are thinking
In general what are Interviews
Conversation with a purpose
Primarily for collecting qualitative data
Can be:
- structured,
- semi-structured,
- open-ended
- group interviews
- aka focus groups
- Interviewer acts as a facilitator
What are the details for unstructured/open-ended interviews
Resembles a conversation on a particular topic
Very exploratory in nature
“Can you tell me about the last time you purchased music on-line?”
Useful when little is known about the target domain or end users
Open-ended interviews should always have an objective
Interviewer has to balance between
- getting the information s/he wants, staying on topic
- allowing the interviewee to take the conversations in unaticipated but useful directions
What are the details for structured interviews?
- Interviewer asks a set of pre-planned question in the same order for every participant
- Best when enough is known about the users and domain that a list of relevant questions can be identified
- You have an idea of what users want/need and you want to verify assumptions
- You want to collect specific usage or demographic data
- Allows for direct comparison between participants
- Often questions are closed or user selects an answer from a pre-determined set of alternatives
- Example:
- “Where do you use your smartphone most frequently: at home, at work, in the car?”
- “Where do you use your smartphone most frequently”
- Example:
What are the details for Semi-Structured Interviews?
What are the tips for Interviewing Technique?
- Have a clear objective
- Keep body language and acknowledgements neutral
- Avoid leading questions
- “Do you like this smartphone?” “Why/why not?”
- “Why do you like this smartphone”
- Avoid jargon
- Use participants terminology
- Avoid compoound questions
- Don’t interrupt
What are the interviews data collection methods?
What are the summary of look/ask techniques.
Approaches
Benefits
Drawbacks
What are the differences between Work Practices vs Processes?
Work processes: formal articulation of how to get something done
Work practices: informal ways in which people get something done in the context
Expect to get practices by looking or probing deeper when asking
How would you understand more about work processes?
What is the diagram of how the web works?
What are ways you can make sense of your data “Learn”?
Character Profiles: Based on observations of real people, develop character profiles to represent archetypes and the details of their behavior or lifestyles.
Cognitive Task Analysis: List and summarize all of a user’s sensory inputs, decision points, and actions
Flow Analysis: Represent the flow of information opr activity through all phases of a system or process.
Error Analysis: List all the things that can go wrong when using a product and determine the various possible causes.
Secondary Research: Review published articles, papers, and other pertinent documents to develop an informed point of view on the design issues.
Take Aways: Apply “learn” techniques as a way to process the data you gather from “Ask” and “Look”. Some help you figure out who to talk to for ask and look.
What are ways you can try it yourself “Try”?
Try it yourself: Use the product or prototype you are designing
Role-Playing: Identify the stakeholders involved in the design problem and assign those roles to members of the team
Empathy Tools: Use tools like clouded glasses and weighted gloves to experience processes as though you yourself have the abilities of different users.
What are the take aways for Design Methods?
What is task-centred design?
Task-Centred Design
- Another common form of Try and Learn
- Uses insights from user-centered design process to generate task descriptions that can guide design
- Use structures and organized descriptions of existing or envisioned tasks of a system.
What are scenarios and how are they used?
Why are scenarios and tasks awesome?
Provide scenarios for a shared travel organizer and for a potential user of a library catalog service.
A scenario for a shared travel organizer:
“The Thomson family enjoy outdoor activity holidays and want to try their hand at sailing this year. There are four members of the family: Sky who is 10 years old, Ryder who is 15 years old, Claire who is 35, and Will who is 40. While out on a shopping trip they call by at the travel agents in their local town to start exploring the possibilities … The travel organizer is located in a quiet corner of the agents’ office, where there are comfortable seats and play things for young children. They all gather around the organizer and enter their initial set of requirements—a sailing holiday for four novices. The organizer’s screen is designed so that all members of the family can interact easily and comfortably with it. The system’s initial suggestion is that they should consider a flotilla holiday, where several novice crews go sailing together and provide mutual support for first-time sailors…”
Important details described:
- used by a diverse group
- describes context of use
- indicates sequence of task steps
DOES NOT TALK ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
A scenario generated by potential user of a library catalog service
“Say I want to find a book by George Jeffries. I don’t remember the title but I know it was published before 1995. I go to the catalog and enter my user password. I don’t understand why I have to do this, since I can’t get into the library using the catalog without passing through the security gates. However, once my password has been confirmed, I am given a choice of searching by author or by date, but not the combination of author and date. I tend to choose the author option because the date search usually identifies too many entries. After about 30 seconds the catalog returns saying that there are no entries for George Jeffries and showing me the list of entries closest to the one I’ve sought. When I see the list, I realize that in fact I got the author’s first name wrong and it’s Gregory, not George. I choose the entry I want and the system displays the location to tell me where to find the book.”
Note:
- importance of getting author’s name right
- annoyance of having to put in password
- limited search options
- importance of showing list of similar entries when an exact match isn’t clear
How should a scenario be created?
It should encompass the range of activities that follow the line of thought and should include the following:
Provide a hierarchical task example of: Cleaning a house decomposed into subtasks
How do you add plans to a Hierarchical task example?
Provide a Hierarchical task analysis with the Hierarchical Task Graph (HTG) for “Locate DVD”
How do you validate the tasks and scenarios?
How do you use task analysis to work through systems of ideas?
