This document provides an overview of methods for identifying and modeling user needs and goals for interactive systems. It discusses contextual design as a starting approach and outlines observation techniques and contextual interviews for identifying user needs. It also discusses focus groups. For modeling user needs, it covers scenarios and personas. Scenarios describe typical tasks by outlining the goal and initial conditions, while personas are archetypes of users defined by their goals and attributes to represent different user types.

1. Web Usability: Session 4
Methods for Identifying and Modeling Users Needs and
Goals of Interactive Systems
Dr. Victor Manuel González y González
Centro de Innovación, Investigación y Desarrollo en Ingeniería y Tecnología (CIIDIT)
Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León
victor.gonzalezgz@uanl.edu.mx
http://it.ciidit.uanl.mx/~victor/

2. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Acerca del instructor
Dr. Víctor Manuel González y González
Profesor Investigador (Titular A) – FIME - UANL
Doctorado - PhD. - University of California at Irvine, EEUU.
Maestría - M.C. - University of California at Irvine, EEUU.
Maestría – M.C. - University of Essex, Reino Unido.
Perfil
• Investigador en Computación en el área de Interacción Humano-Computadora y Tecnologías de
Información. Afiliado a CIIDIT (UANL), CRITO (UC Irvine), CDI (U Manchester). Su área de
especialización es el diseño, desarrollo y evaluación de sistemas interactivos. Es miembro del SNI
(Nivel 1) y miembro de la red de investigación en Tecnologías de Información de CONACYT.
Áreas de Investigación
• Interacción Humano-Computadora
• Ingeniería de Usabilidad
• Cómputo Ubicuo y Colaborativo

3. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Agenda
Methods for identifying users needs and goals of interactive
systems
Contextual Design as departing approach
Observation Techniques
Contextual Interviews
Focus Groups
Methods for modeling users needs and goals of interactive
systems
Scenarios
Personas

4. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Methods for identifying users needs and goals
of interactive systems
Contextual Design as departing approach
Observation Techniques
Contextual Interviews
Focus Groups

5. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
The challenges
How do we create elegant solutions to complex interaction
problems?
How do interaction designers succeed at creating great designs
that are powerful and aesthetically appealing?

6. Functionality vs. Beauty

7. Dyson: Making everyday products work better

8. Google’s simplicity
1-8

9. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
The answer…
UCD - User Centered Design

10. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Traditional Software Development Cycle
Requirement Analysis
Software Design
Coding
Testing
Implementation

11. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Contextual Design & the Software Development Cycle
Software Engineering
Hardware Engineering
Gathering Work model Redesigned work
user Visioning
model
knowledge consolidation
Work redesign
Discovering user needs
Process Engineering
Parallel Development
Goal: Define a new work model supported by technology

12. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Contextual Design

13. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Defining a work model
e.g. creating labels
Any system imposes a work model
System Model vs User Model

14. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Contextual Design Techniques
• Contextual Inquiry
• Interpretation Sessions
• Work modelling
• Affinity diagram
• Redesign of the Model of Work
• Vision
• Storyboards
• User environment design – prototype evaluation

15. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Observation Techniques
Learning from travelers at Manchester Piccadilly Train Station

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Observation Techniques
Background
• Cultural anthropology and social anthropology
• Bronislaw Malinowski (Trobriand Islands 1914)
• Previous anthropologists based their work on
interviews and did not mix with their research
subjects in day-to-day life.
• Importance of detailed participant observation
and observation everyday life.

17. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Observation Techniques
The time famine: toward a sociology of work
time
An ethnographer’s experience
A study of software engineers and time management
“I spent much of each day wandering around, talking to
people and observing their daily activities. I had my
office in the same corridor, where I would type my field
notes on a laptop computer… I shadowed engineers to
get a sense of how they accomplished their work… I sat HBS Associate Professor
Leslie Perlow
for hours observing and talking, listening to the natural
interactions”.

18. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Observation Techniques
Goals
- Experience the real context
- Observe the action in situ
- Understand the phenomenon from an insider’s point of view.
- Reveal culture (ethno – cultures – graphy – writing)
- Capture multiple perspectives

19. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Observation Techniques
Different levels of participation
Complete participant
A fully functioning member of the social setting and his or her true identity
is not known to members
Participant-as-observer
Members of the social setting are aware of the researcher’s status as a
researcher: unpaid or paid employment
Observer-as-participant
Researcher is mainly an interviewer. There is some observation but very
little of it involves some participation
Complete observer
Researcher does not interact with people. Unobtrusive observation

20. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Observation Techniques
General process of an observational-based study
- Meeting and observing the key informant , main contact
- Participation in meetings and preliminary observations
- Document analysis
- Informal interviews (each participant)
- Periods of observation
- Debriefing session
- Note transcription and Data Analysis
- (Post- analysis interview)
- Report writing

21. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Observation Techniques
Field Notes
•Write down notes, however brief, as quickly as possible after seeing or
hearing something interesting.
•Write up full field notes at the very latest at the end of the day and include
such details as location, who is involved, what prompted the exchange or
whatever, date and time of the day, etc.
•Whenever possible, use a tape recorder to record initial notes, but this may
create a problem of needing to transcribe a lot of speech.
•Notes must be vivid and clear
•You need to take copious notes, so, if in doubt, write it down.

22. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Observation Techniques
Field Notes

23. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Contextual Interviews
Contextual Inquiry is based on four principles:
context: go to the customers’ workplace and watch them
do their own work.
partnership: talk to them about their work and engage
them in uncovering unarticulated aspects of
work.
interpretation: develop a shared understanding with the
customer about the aspects of work that
matter.
focus: direct the inquiry from a clear understanding of your
own purpose.

24. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Contextual Interviews
In a Nutshell
•The designer introduces herself, presents the project focus, and asks
authorization from the user to record the interview. (15 minutes)
• The designer explains the methods of Contextual Inquiry. (3 minutes)
• The user works, the designer observes, and as apprenticeship, makes
annotations, diagrams, launches questions and analyzes effects. (one or two
hours)
• The designer confirms her notes with the user, giving him the chance to
expand points or conclusions. (10 minutes)

25. 2008/09 BMAN20890 – Systems Investigation Methods 25
2007/08 INFO21010 – Systems Investigation Methods 25

26. 2008/09 BMAN20890 – Systems Investigation Methods 26
2007/08 INFO21010 – Systems Investigation Methods 26

27. 2008/09 BMAN20890 – Systems Investigation Methods 27
2007/08 INFO21010 – Systems Investigation Methods 27

28. 2008/09 BMAN20890 – Systems Investigation Methods 28
2007/08 INFO21010 – Systems Investigation Methods 28

29. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Case: Interview based Study
Fridge’s Doors and Information
Management at Home
•We aimed at understanding how people
use their fridges to manage paper-based
information at home.
•Focus on a situation where minimal
technological support was likely to exist.
•Inform the design of new technologies

30. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Case: Interview based Study
Research Questions
1. How do people manage and organize
paper-based information in their
homes?
2. What are the main roles of the fridge
to support information management
at home?
3. What are the main limitations and
challenges to manage paper-based
information at home?

31. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Case: Interview based Study
Interview Topics
•Money and finance management
•Personal graphic artifact management
(pictures, postcards)
•Places and holders – information
management (focus on fridges)
•Routines
•Calendaring practices
•Life of paper documents

32. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Case: Interview based Study
Interview Questions
For how long have you been living in this house?
Please describe a typical week to us, starting on
Monday…
How do you process your bills, how often, how do
you remember to pay them?
Grand tour of the fridge: Can you describe what
you have on your refrigerator and why is
there?
When was the last time you left a note on the
fridge for your husband? Can you describe that
to us?

33. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Interview Technique
Types of Questions
1. Introducing questions: `Please tell me about when your interest in X first
began?'; `Have you ever . . .?'; `Why did you go to . . .?' .
2. Follow-up questions: getting the interviewee to elaborate his/her answer, such
as `Could you say some more about that?'; `What do you mean by that . . .?';
‘Can you give me an example…?’
3. Probing questions: following up what has been said through direct questioning.
4. Specifying questions: `What did you do then?'; `How did X react to what you
said?‘
5. Direct questions: `Do you find it easy to keep smiling when serving customers?';
`Are you happy with the amount of on-the-job training you have received?’

34. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Interview Technique
Types of Questions
6. Indirect questions: `What do most people round here think of the ways that
management treats its staff?', perhaps followed up by `Is that the way you feel
too?', in order to get at the individual's own view.
7. Structuring questions: `I would now like to move on to a different topic'.
8. Silence: allow pauses to signal that you want to give the interviewee the
opportunity to reflect and amplify an answer.
9. Interpreting questions: `Do you mean that your leadership role has had to
change from one of encouraging others to a more directive one?'; `Is it fair to say
that what you are suggesting is that you don't mind being friendly towards
customers most of the time, but when they are unpleasant or demanding you
find it more difficult?’

35. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Interview Technique
A good interviewer is
1. Knowledgeable: thoroughly familiar with the focus of the interview (use
pilot interviews)
2. Structuring: gives purpose for interview; rounds it off; asks whether
interviewee has questions.
3. Clear: asks simple, easy, short questions; no jargon.
4. Gentle: lets people finish; gives them time to think; tolerates pauses.
5. Sensitive: listens attentively to what is said and how it is said; is
empathetic in dealing with the interviewee.
6. Open: responds to what is important to interviewee and is flexible.

36. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Interview Technique
A good interviewer is
7. Remembering: relates what is said to what has previously been said.
8. Interpreting: clarifies and extends meanings of interviewees'
statements, but without imposing meaning on them.
9. Balanced: does not talk too much, which may make the interviewee
passive, and does not talk too little, which may result in the interviewee
feeling he or she is not talking along the right lines.
10. Ethically sensitive: is sensitive to the ethical dimension of interviewing,
ensuring the interviewee appreciates what the research is about, its
purposes, and that his or her answers will be treated confidentially.

37. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Focus Groups

38. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Focus Group
A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group
of people are asked about their attitude towards a product,
service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging.
Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where
participants are free to talk with other group members.
Focus groups allow companies wishing to develop, package,
name, or test market a new product, to discuss, view, and/or test
the new product before it is made available to the public.

39. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Focus Group vs. Group Interview
Focus groups typically emphasize a specific theme or topic that is
explored in depth, whereas group interviews often span very
widely
Group interviews, unlike focus groups, are often carried out to
save time and money by carrying out interviews with a number
of individuals simultaneously
Focus group practitioners are interested in the ways individuals
discuss issues as members of a group, rather than as individuals.
Focus group researchers are interested in how people respond to
each other's views and build up a view out of interactions taking
place within the group

40. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Focus Group Technique
The focus group method is a form of group interview where:
• there are several participants (in addition to the moderator/
facilitator)
• there is an emphasis on questioning on a particular, fairly
tightly defined topic
• the accent is upon interaction within the group and the joint
construction of meaning

41. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Issues in Conducting Focus Groups
• Need for tape recording and transcription
• How many groups?
• Size of groups
• Level of moderator involvement
• Selecting participants
• Asking specific questions

42. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Methods for modeling users needs and goals
of interactive systems
Personas
Scenarios

43. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Personas
Personas are archetypes of actual users,
defined by the user’s goals and attributes. –
Alan Cooper
“Personas are derived from patterns
observed during interviews with and
observations of users and potential user (and
sometimes customers) of a product”
(Cooper & Reimann, 2003, 67)

44. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Personas
A persona is created by identifying the primary
stakeholder and creating an identity based on the
stakeholder profiles and other collection activities such as
interviews and surveys.
A persona is a detailed description complete with as many
personally identifying attributes as necessary to make it
come to life.

45. 1-45
Source: Molly Stevens http://www.mollystevens.com/

46. 1-46
Source: Patrizia Nanni http://www.vhml.org/theses/nannip/HCI_final.htm

47. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Personas
Advantages of personas:
They are quick and easy to create.
They provide a consistent model for all team members.
They are easy to use with other design methods.
They make the user real in the mind of the designer.
Disadvantages of personas:
They can be difficult to create if the target audience is international.
Having too many personas will make the work difficult.
There is a risk of incorporating unsupported designer assumptions.

48. Cisco Personas
by
The Cisco User Experience
Design (UXD) Group
1-48

49. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Scenarios
A description of a typical task
It describes
The basic goal
The conditions that exist at the beginning of the
task
The activities in which the persona will engage
The outcomes of those activities
Scenarios afford a rich picture of the user’s tasks

50. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Scenarios
Example of Scenario
A four member family lives in a 3 bedroom semi detached house in North
Manchester, UK. They enjoy doing activities as a family and like to be
organised within the household. The children enjoy watching TV after they
have finished their homework, which is a rule set by their parents Sharon
and Alan. They are allowed to watch a set amount of TV each evening, with
a maximum of two hours. After the 2 hours is over the children, Ben and
Lucy go to their bedrooms to get ready for bed. They leave the lounge
where they were watching TV without switching the TV off and leaving the
lights on in this room also. Sharon goes to the lounge the next morning and
realises that both the TV and lights have been left on in the lounge all night,
she is a annoyed with this and tells both Lucy and Ben that they should
switch all appliances off once they have finished with them.

51. 1-51

52. 1-52

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55. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Open Discussion

56. Web Usability / / User Needs and Goals
Contact Information
Digital Addresses
E-mail: vmgonz (at) acm (dot) org
Skype ID: vmgonz
IM: vmgyg (at) hotmail (dot) com
Web sites:
http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/vmgonz
http://it.ciidit.uanl.mx/~victor/