The Information School of the University of Washington Information System Design Info-440 Autumn 2002 Session #4

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Information System Design

Info-440Autumn 2002

Session #4

Copyright David Hendry (INFO-440 session 4 - 10/09/2002) 2

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Agenda• Admin/review• Getting workplace data: Key principles• Case study: Bringing field data to the

product team• Exercise: Outline a conceptual model• Break• Card sorting• Representing trade-offs


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Admin/Review

• Admin– Writing center – A tremendous resource– Assignment #2: Team names and

membership– Questions/comments

• Last time– Focus groups vs. contextual inquiry – Listening skills– Question-asking skills


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Design methods (so far)

• Requirements analysis– Inspecting objects (Norman’s

vocabulary)– Conceptual models (intro only)– Affinity diagramming– Focus groups– Contextual inquiry


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Process: Where we are now?

• Week 1: Introduction • Week 2: Requirements Analysis, Part I

– How to discover requirements & organize facts?

• Next week: Requirements Analysis, Part II– How to represent users and envision new work?

• Conceptual design • Interaction design Prototyping • Evaluation • Information design• Process, project management• The literature, personalities, and history


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Principles for getting workplace data*

• Context• Partnership• Interpretation• Focus

• * Beyer & Holtzblatt (1998). Chapter 3:


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Key principles for getting workplace

data*• Context

– Seek to observe real work and artifacts

– Focus on concrete data (not user generalizations)

– A day is full of ‘exceptions’ rather than ‘regularities’

• Partnership– Seek to develop rapport– Be yourself or ‘act’


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Continued

• Interpretation– Seek to understand what’s behind the

surface– E.g., “I think you do X because Y… Is my

understanding correct?”

• Focus – Seek to direct the interview towards

things you believe are important– E.g., Show me X, Talk more about Z, etc.


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Further reading • Nielsen (2002, January). Field Studies Done

Right: Fast and Observational. AlertBox. Retrieved, October 7, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020120.html

• Lawrence Osborne (2002, January). Consuming Rituals of the Suburban Tribe. New York Times Magazine. Retrieved, October 7, from http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/13/magazine/13ANTHRO.html

Underhill, P. (1999). Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping. New York: Touchstone.

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Case study: Bringing field data to the

product team


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Problem: Getting the team to look outward

BrokerMortgage

Books

Magazines

Online brokerage account

Accountant

Fool.com

My Lycos

Mobile

Portfolio

Financial plan

Banks

Bills


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A day trader


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Hi. I’m a day trader. I work out my home office.I try to keep life SIMPLE…

I LOVE QCharts… I follow ONE stock everyday…

I record transactions in my notebook… I retype them into a spreadsheet for my tax accountant

If I need news, which is rare, I select this bookmark…http://finance.yahoo.com/q?

s=ge&d=v1

When something BIG happens I watch…

During slow times, I’ll tinker with websites on computer TWO

Surprise! He follows ONE stock…


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I’m retired. I trade 3 or 4 times a month. I used to be a designer… I have an OLD Mac…

Surpise! Its so old he has to scroll horizontally as much vertically…

Surprise! He spends 1hr/day copying… He doesn’t know about the online portfolio…

(1) I type symbols in here…

(2) I extract prices & data here…

(3) …Then, I transfer the prices and other info to this PAPER spreadsheet… This is my watch list… I’ve memorized 100 or so symbols

Horz. Scroll… Scroll… Scroll…

Tape


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Using comics• Promising method for summarizing

workplace data– Abstracts complexity– Tells a story– Can be used to emphasis important things– ‘Non formal’– You don’t need to be an artist

• See – Eisner, W. (1996). Graphic storytelling & visual

narrative. Cincinnati, OH: North Light books.– McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics.

New York: HarperCollins. – Other books by these two writers

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Exercise


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Jack is a 4th year student, studying environmental science. For the last 2 years he has been collecting data on the health

of a local stream. His data includes, graphs of temperature readings, pictures of fauna and flora, essays and scientific

reports, visual simulations, and so on. He would like to create an online portfolio that showcases all these materials. Jack will be looking for a graduate school this

fall.

Your objectiveUsing a diagram, outline a conceptual model

for an online portfolio. Your model should show the central entities and

relationships of a portfolio tool.

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How should a set of entities be organized?

Voice mail

Chat

E-cards

Email

CalendarFax

Free ISP

Homepage building

Personalized content

Photo album

Video email

Video Center

Translate languages


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Clustering algorithms combine the groupings


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The cardsProcedure

Product names and descriptions written on cards

Fifteen participants were asked to sort the cards into natural group

Participants asked to assign names to the groups


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The clusters suggest a general task space

Build

Talk

Private Public


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Summary• Technique

– Card-sorting led to a task space and product space

– Product-spaces represent underlying dimensions that are meaningful to users

– Users can inform their construction– A very simple document

• Roles– Discovering holes for seeking acquisitions– Discovering relationships between products– Thinking about user needs


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EZsort

• Application from IBM for doing card sorting

http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/410

– Free beta software– Nice paper on role of card sorting– A very nice tool…

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Good decision-making: How to represent

trade-offs


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In this restaurant, you need a key to use the

restroom


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Situation/feature/

Issue1. Key required

2. Put sign on restroom door

Possible Pros(+) or Cons(-) of feature

+ Non-customers will be blocked

- Customers will be blocked

- Customers have to find key

+ Customers will have better chance of finding key

- Non-customers might seek out key in restaurant


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Good decision-making

• Understanding trade-offs is extraordinarily important

• Discussing trade-offs without a chart or diagram is extremely hard

• Representing trade-offs with pros/cons is one simple, but very effective approach


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Next week• Representing users, situations, goals &

tasks • Two readings

– Cooper, A. (1999). Chapter 11: Designing for people (pp. 179-201).

– Lewis, C. and Rieman, J. (1994). Chapter 2: Getting to Know Users and Their Tasks.

• Reminder:– Quiz #1 (Wednesday, 16 Oct)– Interactive Prototyping Project – think about it– If you want feedback on assignment #2, please

task to David or Lydia

Documents

The Information School of the University of Washington Information System Design Info-440 Autumn 2002 Session #4