Project Analysis
Your analysis report is to be word processed and submitted at the beginning of class October 2nd. This assignment is worth 10% of your grade. The accompanying text material for this assignment comes from Chapters 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 of your text, Interaction Design.
You are expected to move forward with the next assignment immediately. When you get your feedback from the instructor, then, if necessary, you can make any necessary corrections/modifications based on the instructor's feedback.
This assignment will be a composite of a plan for Requirements Gathering
and the analysis based on the results of having gathered the requirements.
You will begin by identifying what it is your are going to be creating.
In order to do this, you need a topic and a rationale for development.
Title: Provide the title of your site as it will appear on the introductory/splash page.
Mission Statement: From the perspective of the Client, the person requesting the development of this site, write two to three paragraphs describing the site's mission, purpose and goals. State why it is needed and why should be developed (you may elaborate on comments made by your interviewees). State the objectives to be accomplished by your site.
Target Audience: No matter how much your site is of "general interest", there is always a "target audience", and this audience has characteristics. It is important to know who your target audience is in order to be able to know from whom to request information and for whom to design the site! Having in mind a general audience, state where you intend to find at least three potential users in order to interview them.
Requirements Gathering Questionaire: You will actually develop a questionaire for use in interviewing your potential users. A "blank" copy of this questionaire will be submitted as part of this assignment. Begin your questionaire with a "Thank you" to your interviewee for his/her participation and an introductory statement containing the intent/purpose of the proposed site. At the end of the questionaire, ask the interviewee if he/she would be willing to participate in the final evaluations of your site later in the semester.
Develop a questionnaire of open-ended, leading, questions that will
elicit the necessary information, as requested herein, from your target
population. Include, as a minimum, the following number of questions:
-- At least three questions regarding system/technical aspects
- what kind of technical environment will the users be working in when
viewing the site?
-- At least five questions regarding user demographics (gender, age,
education, whatever you feel is important about the population to help
you design the best site for them).
-- At least two questions that will ascertain how important or needed
your users believe the proposed site will be.
-- At least three questions to determine, specifically, what it is
that your prospective users want or expect to gain from using your site
(knowledge, insight, entertainment, ....).
-- At least three questions that will elicit what design and content
fetures will make your site the "site of choice" for your subject area.
-- At least four questions that will help determine what features would
cause the user to return to your site and recommend it to their friends
(i.e., aspects of layout, graphics, navigation, ... that will make your
site appealing).
-- At least five questions asking your users how they believe that
the success of the completed site can be evaluated (i.e., attempt to get
from these users examples of actual questions you might include on your
final evaluation questionaires).***
Provide a list of the possible content you might include within this site. Ask the interviewees to rank the content in order of importance. Further ask each one for additional content that might be included.
Interview Users: As soon as you have developed your questionaire, make copies and begin the interviews. The completed, filled in, interviews should be brought to class October 2nd, for viewing by the instructor.
Target Audience: Based on your interviews, you became further aware of the characteristics of this population. Being as thorough and explicit as possible, answer the following questions and add other aspects as you feel they are significant: What are the characteristics of the audience for whom you are developing this system? (Include, age, gender, spoken/written language, education, experience, familiarity with the content of the proposed site, etc.) What is the expected level of computer literacy? Are there any task/domain knowledge requirements? Will your system assume any physical capabilities for input or output interactions? Are you expecting any specific cognitive abilities? What type of computer, browser, connection speed, and other technical specifications are you expecting from your target users?
User Requirements: You have attained responses from at least three potential users, summarize their responses to your quetionaire as to their wants, needs and expectations from your proposed site. Having ascertained their wants, needs and expectations: (1) How will your site fulfill the needs of the intended audience? (2) How/why will your site be the "site of choice" for users interested in this particular subject/content? (3) What will you do to attract your target audience to your site?
Limiting Factors: Specify the criticality of your site and the requirements for speed and accuracy that must be attained. Identify any potential errors that may be made by the user that must be specifically analyzed and avoided. In what physical environment will your system operate? Will there be any potential changes of the environment that may affect system performance? In what way(s) might the environment impact the overall interaction? Describe any design considerations that you will take into account and identify any constraints or limiting factors. Describe how you will promote universal usability in your site design.
Functional Hierarchy: All systems have boundaries and a scope. All systems devolve down to the functional level. Develop a functional hierarchy (using Word, Excel, or any tool that will allow the creation of a hierarchy chart) of the entire system you will be working with and show the successive breakdown of functions to sub-functions to the component level. Develop your hierarchy to include much more than you will be able to develop this semester. Note that this is a functional hierarchy and does not show all cross-relationships or all interactivity; these will be taken into account in the navigational flowchart as part of the system design.
Benchmarking: Identify, by providing the title and url, at least two sites that you will use for initial benchmarking; explain why you chose these and why they are appropriate choices.
***Subsequent Evaluative Instruments: Later in the semester (this is NOT part of this assignment, but a "heads up" of significant future assignments) you will be engaging in a series of evaluations of your site. The questions in these evaluative instruments (e.g., questionaires) should reflect the responses you receive from your initial requirements gathering questionaires. Specifically, does your site satisfy your users' statements regarding the importance of the site and their expressions of its meeting their anticipated requirements and expectations? Also included in these end-of-semester instruments/questionaires will be numerous ways of evaluating the success of the site according to user criteria, as expressed by them in these initial interviews.