Exploring Users' Values, Motivations and Emotions

Exploring Users’ Values, Motivations and Emotions Sarah Thew University of Manchester [email_address]

Why worry about users’ values, motivations and emotions?

The introduction of new technology often changes peoples’ jobs, e.g.
Communication patterns
Division of work
Control
Understanding values, motivations and emotions can help:
Developing an understanding of users’ long term goals, working practice and concerns
Making design & process decisions
Anticipating wants and needs

What are values, motivations and emotions?

Personal Values
A long-term, widely applicable attitude
One value label – means different things to different people
Political Charitable Preservation of landscape Ecology Low carbon energy Wind farms Nuclear power

Motivations
Long-lasting goals, high-level drives which shape our behavior and attitudes.
Individual and group motivations
Understanding how committed people may be to a particular solution or project (i.e. how can it help them)

Emotions
Reactive
A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes
Emotions generated by experiences with technology generally not extreme
Experiences with software development – potentially more emotional

What do analysts currently do? Interviews with 10 analysts:
Lots of examples of values, motivations and emotions in action:
“ Social workers I worked with had perceptions around doing secretarial work – they were going to have to start using computer based forms, they felt threatened because they might not do it right, and because secretarial work is perceived by them as less important – “it’s not part of my day job”
But not comfortable directly questioning users:
“ You can't directly ask someone how they feel, the secretaries were very anxious about their jobs, but it was apparent from their body language and our conversations. I think they would have been very defensive if I'd asked them directly. “

Analyst Interviews
More experienced analysts have developed their own techniques - tacit expertise
Less experienced analysts complained of a gap in their training
“ I have one colleague who is particularly good at this kind of thing, picking up on what's going on. I don't know exactly what she does; she just knows the right thing to do”
“ The training courses I've been on have always been about tools and management, change control and so on, which is important, but there isn't enough emphasis on understanding your users.”

How can we help novice analysts develop these expert skills?
Questionnaires – often used to investigate values, motivations and emotions
Too intrusive?
Require expert interpretation
Restrictive
Alternative approach – qualitative analysis

VBRE Method
Structured reflection about interviews, meetings, observations, etc
Influenced by the ways experienced analysts naturally work
Supported by a website
Lists of values, motivations and emotions
Advice
Stories
Interview ideas

The VBRE Website

Overview of the VBRE process Interviews, observations, meetings etc. Project kick off: - Creation of your hunch list Website – values, motivations and emotions Refined understanding of values, emotions, motivations Review interviews Revised hunches, new questions Non functional and functional requirements Process Implications

VBRE – An Example My Hunch List Logical, ordered working Security and control – but also want freedom to share when appropriate Being methodical and precise Creativity Accomplishment and Achievement -External profile raising of the group? Collaborations – external vs. internal?
Modifying requirements to account for different users’ values
Finding non-functional requirements
User 1 User 2 Initiates discussion about MRI for neonatal research (shows a magazine article). Research group in Hammersmith – interesting as not aware of another group doing neonatal imaging research (not sure if this is a good or a bad thing?), who else is doing MRI in babies? Interesting as in a good position to do this kind of work – and I’d like to develop links with Experimental Medicine given the upcoming rearrangement of schools. What data is routinely collected in babies? [X] next door does intensive care monitor research, [K] does normal neonates, gestation and diabetes, early CV disease signs and metabolic disease in babies. If anyone knows how to get measurements it will be [K].

Website evaluation RE Practioners (n=7) Computer Science Students (n=12_ Content of the website 6.44 5.5 Did you find the content used within the site clear? 5.66 6.45 Did you find the system easy to understand? 4.5 6.08 Did you find the scenarios useful? 6.17 6.17 How useful did you find the design and process advice associated with each term? 4.83 5.75 Do you think the system would be useful to requirements analysts? 6 6.33

Next steps
Real World Evaluation
Method and Website
I’m looking for volunteers!
Review the website, and tell me about your projects and experiences
Make use of the website during your own work

Thanks for listening
Thanks to my supervisors, Alistair Sutcliffe and Rob Procter
Thank you to all the analysts who volunteered to be interviewed
Thanks to Rich Higgins for lots of help with the website
[email_address]

Exploring Users' Values, Motivations and Emotions

by Northern User Experience on Jul 06, 2010

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Exploring Users’ Values, Motivations and Emotions — Presentation Transcript