Saturday, November 17, 2007

Guide to Digital Media Interaction and Design Part 3

Generic User Characterization

Learning Style
Do-then-read (an active user believes only wimps read manuals)
Read-then-do (what manual writers seem to assume)

Tool Preference
Different user has different preference of mode of inputting data

Physical Differences
- Age (use larger fonts for older people)
- Gender (consider your target group)
- Vision limitation, such as color blindness
- Etc

Cultural Differences
Education (reading level)
Profession (specialized vocabularies)
Corporate style (what are you trying to convey to whom)


Specific User Characterization

Knowledge of Job
Application Familiarity
- Novice (Faces a frightening unknown; timid, nervous, in no mood to explore your goodies)
- Advance Beginner (Less fear: knows basics; still impatient at having to learn how to do tasks)
- Competent Performance (Can diagnose simple problems and can perform a complex series of tasks)
- Expert (Small group. Can diagnose complex problems. Has a mental model of the application. Not typical users)

Primary User: The person who actively uses the system
Secondary User: The person being served by a primary user

Task Analysis
Technique for gathering task info
- Workflow analysis (how work gets done when several people are involved)
- Job analysis (what a single person does in a day, a week or a month?)
- Task List (Task is one of the components of a job)
- Task Sequence (the order in which the tasks take place)
- Task Hierarchies (main task -> subtasks)
- Procedural Analysis (most detailed. Show individual steps and decisions that a user goes through in carry out a task)

Technique for observing and listening to users
- Thinking Aloud
- Talk Right After
- Role Playing
- Cueing recall with videotape
- Focus Groups
- Mailed Surveys


Environmental analysis (Where do the user use the System)
- Location
- Indoor / outdoor (weather)
- Noise level

Usability Specification
- Performance Measure
- Preference Measure

Posted by Zack at 1:54 PM