The first presentation of our groupwork for our HCI module

1. Home-Mess System Presentation I: User Research Arundhati, Ihab, Ibrahim, Fareed, Zain

3. It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur.

4. Use of this process is transferrable to all areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyondThis project aims to develop a solution for communication within a home environment, viz, The Home Mess system

6. Capturing user requirement and constraint

7. Involving users – Participatory design

8. Aggregation of individual requirements into Personas and ScenariosKnow the users - understand their needs Identifying user needs and Establishing requirements before the designing phase.

9. Our Approach

10. triangulation Questionnaire Focus Groupinterview Participantobservation By combining multiple observers, theories, methods, and empirical materials, we hoped to overcome the weakness or intrinsic biases and the problems that come from single method, single-observer and single-theory studies

11. Collecting Data Interviews, Observations, Questionnaires

12. Questionnaire The structure of the Questionnaire:Factual-type question Opinion-type question Attitude question (1) What is your current occupation? Student Employed Retired Un-employed (2) What kind of accommodation do you hold? Dormitory Shared space Family home Alone (3) Number of people in your residence? 1 >4 >2 Others: Specify _____

13. (4) How do you communicate in-house? Verbally Passing information Notes Electronic means (Specify:_______ ) (5) How are tasks organized in your household? Verbally Electronic means Notes Others (Specify:_______ ) (6) How efficiently does it work? Least Most e effective * * * * * effective

14. (7) Which of the communication problems do you face in your household-i. Leaving messages (in absence) private or generalii. Organizing task lists (shopping/ chores etc)iii. Remembering dates and eventsiv. Maintenance schedule/ repairsv. Receiving messages/ answering machinevi. Managing bill and paymentsOthers? Please specify ________________________(8) Would you prefer an automated solution? Yes No

15. Observation & Interview- Approach In this section we took a different approach from the usual observation and interviews. Two of the group members stayed over night at a relatives place to observe their actions in terms of this project. Observation went from the morning time till the evening during a week day , when they were at home only. Notes have been made during the day in regard with communication, organization, delegation and requests that occurred. After the observation period, family members in that household were interviewed to get feedback on our questions Interviews were conducted in “Group Interview Method”, Focus Groups.

16. Observation The Observation part of our research was probably the most close we have got to our end users. The observation was done with close relatives, hence their reactions were normal not uncomfortable if we were strangers The observers took down notes regarding their communication with each other and any other delegation, requesting, ordering, and information transfer. The detailed results from observation have been put together with the other research methods and the results of all these have been processed into graphs and diagrams to be shown later in this presentation

18. Both parents work and the child goes to school.

19. The live in a two bedroom spacious apartment.

20. In the morning, either parent wake the child up.

21. At breakfast, the wife makes sure (verbally) the father is taking and dropping the child.

22. The child asks his mother to tell his father for pocket money.

23. At lunch time, The child is reminded that they are going to a family friend’s house.

24. In the evening, the father added a food product to the shopping list on the counter beside the fridge.

26. The live in a big two story villa.

27. The husband works only.

28. In the afternoon the husband is back from work and the wife tells him they need to go shopping at night, to free himself

29. The husband asks if there are any phone messages and wife was not sure

30. The mother tells the wife her blood pressure medicines are almost over

31. The wife plans her week on her diary

32. In the evening, the husband forgets what they are doing and asks the wife

33. The husband needs the wife to make a few calls back home the next day, she remembers it mentally

36. Good for topics that relate with social interaction and opinions

37. Inexpensive as its one session and saves time

38. Discussion is free, so people can go through opinions as they generate them from questions being asked.

39. Group discussion, freedom of speech, gathering opinions and thoughts might result in more opinions being generated as one member might say something to spark another person’s opinion

40. Converting data to statistics takes longer and is harder to do

41. With more complex topics, this type of interview is harder to organize and people may be there with no influence on the topic

43. Household members we asked regarding their modes of communication

44. They claimed to mostly use verbal means for direct communication

45. They claimed to use written methods for forgettable tasks which they keep at a common spot

46. They assumed this method is effective (Clear shortcomings were visible during observation)

47. When messages was in question, they claimed they pass messages to each other or wait till they meet the person they want to talk to

48. The interviewees were told that we are in the user research stage of a project to create a home messaging system that would tackle all of these simple issues

49. They seemed the idea would be promising to solve issues of misunderstanding and forgetting

50. They agreed that the system should be simple to use by all and given access to all

52. Household members we asked regarding their modes of communication

53. They said most of their communication were verbal

54. Tasks were handled mentally (Husband turned out to forget quite a lot)

55. Wife had a diary kept, but only for her own memory of tasks & events

56. They had a lot of responsibility with an elderly person’s needs and when either one of them were not around she would need to wait for them, and if its late, it has to wait till the morning

57. Bills management seems a little bit of an issue as they either forget to collect the bills or forget to pay them in the middle of the husband’s busy work life.

58. The interviewees were told that we are in the user research stage of a project to create a home messaging system that would tackle all of these simple issues

59. The idea was highly acceptable by the wife and husband, the elderly lady still did not understand what a system would be since she is not computer literate (Maximum electronics was a TV)

60. Husband had extra support if the system would organize messages (Phone and otherwise) and due dates of bills and lists of tasks.

65. User Personas & Scenarios

66. Persona #1

67. Scenario (A) One afternoon, Edward Philips, a 63 year old British man, came to his house where he lives with his children. He was out having an afternoon walk after lunch as he usually does. He knows that exercise is vital for a man at his age. He came home and everyone was at work or school. He sat down and relaxed in front of the television and remembered he needed to take his medication. Once in his room he took out his box of medication and realized his joint pain medicine was near the end of the container. He was going to sleep and didn’t know how to tell his son to bring some more for him. He wrote it down on a piece of paper and left it by the study area beside the living room. A few days later he had finished the medication and he walked over to his son asking if he had brought the medication, and the son had said he didn’t know he had to get any medication. After searching around the study, they had realized that the maid threw out the piece of paper thinking it was some trash. They later on had told the maid to watch out and not throw any documents or notes she may find around the house as they may be important, but this isn’t a solution to such a problem in communication.

68. Scenario (B) One evening, Edward Philips went out for his evening meeting with his retired friends. He is a 63 year old man who lives with his children and their family as he is alone. Before leaving he remembered he needed to tell his son, Tom, that his grand-son went out to his friends place and would need to be picked up by 9. Edward looked around the house and didn’t see anywhere they write important information and so he had taken a piece of paper, written down the note and stuck it on the fridge with a magnet. Unfortunately, Tom came from work at 7 and having a good lunch and coffee break didn’t pass by the kitchen and went straight to the shower, an hour later he was checking his mail and clearing a few documents. Edward came home at 9 PM and asked Tom, why he didn’t go to pick his son up. Tom was surprised and he claimed no one had told him. Edward showed him the note on the fridge and Tom said he didn’t pass by the kitchen. They both thought, this method might have worked for Tom’s wife being that she always passes through there, but there has to be an effective communication method between the whole family that can run and deliver effectively.

69. Persona #2

70. Scenario (A) One morning, Martha Dellvaio wakes up half an hour late realizing that the alarm had malfunctioned. This delay caused her son to miss the school bus. She decides to drive him to school when he reminds her that he had an important test that day. On her way out, she leaves the breakfast on the kitchen counter and informs her husband (who is in the shower). On her way back to the house she thinks of stopping by the supermarket. After parking she realizes however that she did not carry the shopping list with her. Reaching home she finds the food still sitting on the counter. Surprised, she rings her husband who in turn says that he hadn’t heard anything about the breakfast.

71. Scenario (B) One afternoon, while Martha is preparing to go out for her weekly community meeting, the electricity supply is cut off. After calling up the source company she finds out that the bill had not been paid for the previous month. With her father-in-law still at home, she leaves a message as a reminder so that when her husband gets back home, he can pay the bill. In the middle of the meeting she calls home to check if everyone had returned yet but no one picked the phone, so she left a message as another reminder for the bill payment. On her return she finds the house still plunged in darkness. She discovers that no one had realized that she had left reminders and by the time her in law had remembered, it had been past office hours, so they would have to wait for the next morning to pay the bill.

72. Persona #3

73. Scenario (A) Mathew Maranello is a brilliant 15 year old basket ball player at school and he is about to qualify for his schools lead basketball team that will go out to play all the schools in the country. Mathew got a letter from the head of sports activities telling him that in 2 weeks time he shall have his basketball qualifications match which would decide his entry. Mathew got home all excited but as usual, his parents were both at work. He had studies to do and then go for his training. He wrote on a post-it with a big smile and stuck it on his door from the outside. He was hoping his mom or dad would pass by and see the note. Mathew came back home and saw the note wasn’t there and his parents were asleep, the next morning their busy routines continued and no one had congratulated or supported Mathew. On the day of the match, Mathew asked his parents if they were coming, they had no clue about the match but fortunately they were free and they made it. Mathew was then thinking of the post-it, where did it go? What happened to it? And if there is any way he can keep communication going with everyone at home without having such mishaps.

75. Identify and engage with the individual ‘capability users’ Record and communicate the user requirements Review the URD for adherence to guidance and clarity of purpose. Attain requirements and constraints USER Analyze the exercising processes and constraints in order to define the set of activities that the capability must enable. Engineer the aggregation of individual requirements into one cohesive data-base User Requirements Definition Process

76. Any Questions