CS 376 Fieldwork and Prototyping

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CS 376Fieldwork and Prototyping

• Shailendra RaoAbhay Sukumaran

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Fieldwork / Prototyping

• Fieldwork Contextual Design
• Prototyping Prototyping for Tiny Fingers
• Case Study Informing the Design of an
  Information Management Systems with Iterative
  Fieldwork

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Fieldwork Contextual Design

• Ch2 Gathering Customer Data
• Ch3 Principles of Contextual Inquiry

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Gathering Customer Data

• Marketing vs. design
• Market money, barriers to entry, niches
• Design work structure, attitudes, affordances
• Quantitative vs. Qualitative
• Eliciting customer needs is difficult
• IT people tend to focus on technology dont
  share the users perspective

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Good Designers Can

• Delve into intuitive processes and make the
  knowledge shareable
• Using Contextual Inquiry
• In the field
• Co-discovery of needs with user
• Shared interpretation
• Directed by design purpose
• Marketing tells you what will sell design tells
  you how best to build it.

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Principles of Contextual Inquiry 1 of 5

• The Master/ Apprentice Relationship Model
• Design team learns about users work like an
  apprentice learning from a master
• Observation Discussion
• Go to workplace to see work as it unfolds
• No generalizations, but actual instances of work
• Current events trigger past events
• Environments and artifacts matter

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Principles of Contextual Inquiry 2 of 5

• Four Principles of Contextual Inquiry
• Context
• Partnership
• Interpretation
• Focus

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Principles of Contextual Inquiry 3 of 5

• 1. Context
• Go to the customers workplace and see the work
  as it unfolds (Whiteside and Wixon 1988)
• Summary vs Ongoing Experience
• Details are hard to talk about, but easy to see
• Abstract vs. Concrete Data
• Real artifacts and specific events make essential
  details salient

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Principles of Contextual Inquiry 4 of 5

• 2. Partnership
• Make you and the customer collaborators in
  understanding his work
• Withdrawal and return watching work
  discussing how work in structured
• Design is truly user centered when you start by
  investigating work structure, not by bringing a
  prototype
• Other Relationship Models to avoid
• Interviewer/ interviewee
• Expert/ novice

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Principles of Contextual Inquiry 5 of 5

• 3. Interpretation What do these observations
  reveal about underlying structure?
• Correct interpretations lead to effective design
• Check the interpretation by walking the user
  through it
• Be open-ended and pay close attention to
  nonverbal cues
• 4. Focus steer, but dont blindfold
• Follow up to probe for detail on relevant things
• Use intrapersonal triggers to expand focus

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CSI Contextual Inquiry

• Crime Scene Investigation the Contextual Inquiry
  season
• How does Kumar manage his music collection? The
  Crime Scene Investigator commits a crime!
• Roles
• Shailo Kumar the customer
• Abhay Harold the interviewer

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Crime 1

• S Hey Im Kumar and Im here for the study. Aw
  man, it was really tough finding the place! I
  took 101 and then the Dumbarton bridge and then
  880 North and then got stuck in traff-
• Not in users context

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Crime 2

• S feeling awkward So, Harold how about them
  Warriors this upcoming season? They look good
  man!
• A Um, Im not really interested in basketball.
  Im more of a baseball fan.
• No sensitivity to culture and not making the user
  feel comfortable.

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Crime 3

• A Okay moving on. Have you ever converted a CD
  to mp3 format with your computer?
• S Yup.
• A What program do you use to do this?
• S Well I use iTunes.
• Leading question

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Crime 4

• A So today Id like you to tell me about how you
  manage your music collection. Do you listen to
  mp3s on your computer?
• S Yes.
• A What program do you use to manage your music?
• S Hmmm, I think its called iTunes. That Apple
  one.
• A Have you ever created an Audio CD from your
  MP3s?
• S You mean to listen in my car?
• A Yes, whatever.
• S Oh yeah Ive done that plenty of times.
• A How many songs do you have?
• S You mean mp3s or cds?
• A In iTunes.
• S Probably 20GB
• A So how many songs is that?
• S Hmmm, a lot?
• A Okay moving on. Have you ever converted a CD
  to mp3 format with your computer?
• S Yup.
• A What program do you use to do this?
• S Well I use iTunes.
• Interviewer/ interviewee relationship model

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Crime 5

• A Well actually you know Nero does a better job
  of converting CDs to mp3 format. Its much
  faster. You should use it.
• S Oh yeah? You know Im probably not as
  well-versed as you in this computer music thing.
• A Well lets just say Ive been doing this for
  years. Ive been converting CDs to mp3s since
  1996.
• S Wow, Harold! I didnt even know mp3s existed
  back then!
• A You have so much to learn, Kumar.
• Expert/ Novice relationship instead of Master/
  Apprentice

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Crime 6

• A OK. So now its exactly as if you were setting
  at your desktop computer with your normal program
  and settings right?
• S I guess so. This is actually my friends
  laptop that I borrowed just for this study.
• A Well okay, but its exactly the same right?
• S Sure. Its a computer with music right?
• No Context- studying an artificial situation and
  setup

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Crime 7

• S Pretty good.
• A What do you mean? Tell me three of the biggest
  problems you have had.
• Leading, assuming that there have been problems

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Crime 8

• Uh, I guess sometimes a few of my files dont
  transfer over.
• A Because the Bluetooth broke down?
• Leading the interviewee

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Crimes 9 10

• S Um, no, I dont think so. Is Bluetooth the
  wire that connects the Ipod to the computer?
• A lthahagt, are you kidding? No, its a
  short-range radio frequency standard for mobile
  device communication.
• Expert / novice relationship model
• Probe for concrete data vs. abstract

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Crime 11

• S ok. Here goes. ltcreates two playlistsgt
• A ltwatches gt Ok. Did you have any problems doing
  that?
• S No, I dont think so.
• Interviewer did not alternate between watching
  and probing.

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Crime 12

• A I think you were trying to replicate a saved
  query there.
• S uh.. yeah, the thing is, I dont know how to
  browse my music through iTunes. I just know how
  to search.
• Interviewer should share interpretation with
  user, and let them finetune it.

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Crime 13

• S come to think of it, I have a tough time
  browsing the stuff Ive TIvoed. I think the
  problem is that I collect so many shows in such
  small periods of time. Ill TiVo 5 shows a day.
  Actually I.. Do you ever have that problem,
  Harold?
• A um, no
• S Well, thats pretty cool
• Focus was not handled properly

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Crime 14

• A Yeah, next time Ill show you how to manage
  your music much more effectively.
• Reinforcing the wrong relationship model
  (expert/novice)

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Prototyping for Tiny Fingers

• Fudds first law of creativity To get a good
  idea, get lots of ideas.
• Lo-fi (Paper) vs Hi-fi Prototyping
• Know your user, you arent your user

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Not so Tiny Tradeoffs

• What are the Tradeoffs to Lo-Fi Prototyping?

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Advantages to Lo-Fi Prototyping

• Quick to build (especially multiple)
• Get user feedback fast
• Keeps focus on conceptual elements rather Fit
  and Finish

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Advantages to Lo-Fi Prototyping

• No false impressions of how much backend work has
  been completed
• Avoid debugging
• Great for choosing between different several
  different mockups

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Disadvantages to Paper Prototyping

• Cant sell it
• Bad for testing look and feel
• Cant show a detailed proof of concept
• Cant test changes to an existing system
• Could encourage excessive focus on micro-elements

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Lo-Fi Quickies

• Think back to preschool-- Get your hands dirty
• Expect the unexpected from users-- Practice for
  various actions
• Stick to your roles (Observer, Wizard of Oz,
  Facilitator, and User)
• Only Facilitator should be audible and visible
• Use realistic scenarios
• Use domain relevant sample data

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Case Study

• Informing the Design of an Information Management
  Systems with Iterative Fieldwork

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PIM design

• Key question Why does paper-based PIM persist
  even in the face of advantages of online formats
• Searchable
• Shareable
• Easily archivable
• Auto-generated reminders
• How to integrate paper into the new PIM
• Or how to simulate affordances of paper

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Paper affordances

• Permanent
• Lightweight
• Form factor can fold, tear, etc.
• Universally available
• Supports grouping (piles on desk), association
  (paper clips), copying.
• Anything else?

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Pilot Interviews (Phase 1)

• Reality check
• proposing a radical idea (paper PIM)
• fish around and get a sense of the domain
• Ask
• How do you do it now?
• Whats wrong with it?
• Could our design make things better?
• Outcomes
• Tangible, context-embedded reminders
• Temporary clumps of documents (e.g., all
  emailsdocs for a meeting)

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In-depth interviews (Phase 2)

• Explore evolving ideas
• Ask
• How and why do people organize on paper and
  offline?
• Physical artifacts their organization
• Could we print and scan?
• Outcome
• Filing is difficult
• Scanning isnt going to work
• Sticky note reminders are great
• Documents of different types need to be grouped
• All sorts of different tool combinations used

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In-breadth interviews (Phase 3)

• Back up and distil findings
• Ask
• Email usage
• Organizing meetings
• Taking notes
• Outcome
• Design to embed in everyday apps
• Simple, flexible
• Something like sticky notes to label / group

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What they did right

• Didnt just look for confirming evidence of their
  initial hypothesis
• Paper prototype no software to get attached to
• In context, iterative user research
• Understood importance of email for coordination
  and collaboration

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What they did wrong

• No observation of users
• Diary study might have been effective
• Scanner oriented gadget bubble
• Ask them to project whether it would work
• Slicky does not equal sticky
• Making a customizable UI does not mean that
  people will actually take the trouble to
  customize it
• Problems with groups people dont file because
  they have to think hard about categorization.
• They do needs finding in the user domain, but the
  solution is still from an engineering perspective
• Raton Laveur

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Advice for the field

• Go forth and prototype!