CPSC 481

Week 1Fateme Rajabiyazdi

Fateme Rajabiyazdi

• Second year PhD student • Working on designing and developing

Physicians-Patient Communication Technologies

• Work on my Apps on my free time

How to Contact me

• My email address– frajabiy@ucalgary.ca

• My room– Math Science, 6th floor, 681

• Tutorial website– www.rajabiyazdi.com

What are we doing today

• You introduce yourself• Talk about assignment • Go through a TCSD example• Group• Fun exercise - Prototype• Answer your questions

Assignment #1

• TCSD and Prototyping (20%)• Due Feb 13, 10am in class• Deliverables– Two presentations in tutorial – Design portfolio

Assignment #2

• Iterative design project (30%)• Deliverables– Prototype redesigns– System implementation – Summaries of evaluation and design critiques– System demo

Project selection

• Check Appendix 3 of your assignment • Come up with your own but check with me

first

Assignment #1 Presentation

• Week 2– Background information– Expected users and their work contexts– Concrete task examples– List of requirements

• Week 3– Prototypes (sketches…)– Team discussion and walkthrough evaluation

Cont.

• What the system will be used for?• Why is the system needed?• How the system will be used?– System constrains: Financial, technical, legal– Identify potential users groups– Work context: Setting and typical situations

• Describe one example task, most Imp or Freq • Tentative list of requirements: Must, should,

not include

Task Centered System DesignLibrary System

Situation

Users

Tasks

Situation

A small library has contacted you to build a computer system that will let librarians and their assistants deal with routine requests by the library clients. The computers will be situated on check in/out counter.

To consider

• Small library serves a town of 10,000 people• Approx 500 people use the library each day• Library has books, CD, cassette tapes• All holdings has a barcode that is stored in a

computer system database • The library has a good system that allow

clients to peruse library holdings and does not need to be replaced

• You need to replace the system that librarians and their assistances use

• Users?• Users experience?

• Think about what are librarians tasks?• Quiet time– Staff do routine chores and only go to counter when a

client approaches• Busy time– One staff member is always at the counter, and calls other

staffs when line-up starts growing– Line-up grows routinely about 3-5 people with longer line-

up begins rare– Customers rarely have to wait more than 5 minutes before

being served

What system should do?

• Helping staff answer customer requests• Telling clients their status: out, pending, etc.• Check library holdings in and out• Check for late fines and informing clients• Collect fines• Providing new library cards• Checking for expires cards• Renewing expire cards• Phoning people who have overdue

System constraints

• The library has a well-maintained system that contains holdings database. The library does not expect to change this system and requires the new system to links to it.

• The library has several ancient Pentium powered PCs running Windows XP which are already located at the counter. They expect that your system will be built on that.

• Budget for additional equipment is $2000

Task Examples

• Interview staff and end users• Observe people doing real tasks, take notes• Or imagine in your mind but be realistic

Task #1

Joan’s client is River Tam. He is a regular library patron and is somewhat notorious for exceeding book check out limits, returning books late, never having her card and accumulating library fines. He is returning 5 books, 2 are overdue <The Miko, Science for Everyone>. When Joan starts checking them in she notices that one of the books is missing its bar code number. She looks up the titles, checks it in, and sets it aside for repair…

… while she is doing this, River brings 3 more books <Cooking for dummies, The last light of the sun, Grey’s Anatomy> and 4 CDs <Big Shiny Tunes, Abbey Road, The soundtrack from Top> to the counter. Joan starts checking out River’s holdings. She notices that he has reached the maximum level of a $10 fines in overdue books. She tells River about the fine, and she reluctantly pays it. After checking out two of River’s books, Joan noticed that he has already reached the maximum number of allowable books to be checked out and asks River if she can check the rest out on his son account and he says yes. He continue using his son account until all books are checked out. River asks if he can renew any books that are overdue: 3 of them are, Joan does this for him.

• Complex task• Less routine• Important• Library policy• Some less routine situations like damaged

book

• Must include– Rapid check in and out – Look up customers– Status of customers holdings– Clear fines

• Should• Could• Exclude

Start sketching a few prototypes for the library system that we just talked about….