Jaffor Bhuiya

I was assigned the task of imagining myself in the role of a consultant that specialises in the design and evaluation of digital tools that help users find and make use of information. I have been asked to design and conduct a user-focused evaluation of a new Web or mobile-based digital tool. This tool is intended to help holidaymakers of age range 20 to 30 plan cheap activity-based holidays in desired destinations. I ended up asking 10 questions that tried to get at a range of functionality and behaviour. I wanted to ask questions that at least covered each facet of information behaviour and I did so with half of the questions or the first 5. With the last 5 questions, I wanted to address more specifically what functionalities were useful a!nd not, difficulties encountered, things lacking, and if they could provide any further suggestions.

For this coursework, I have chosen to analyse the digital bracelet scenario. There is a need for families and couples to connect with each other when in different locations and during the course of a day. While the market for digital watches and other digital jewellery is growing as we speak, there appears to be a lack of research and practice on the utlity of digital objects to enhance social connections, or to understand what the main needs or goals are in this domain. A digital bracelet should enhance ‘social touch’ between people when they are in different places. I will be investigating this scenario by undertaking research to enable me to analyse the tasks and requirements for it. I will be conducting online research as well as performing my own research on actual potential users through interviews. I will then analyse the data gathered from my research where I will examine the interaction between people using two methods from the course material. This will then be followed by design work where I will be drawing on my analysis and producing draft specification documents for my design. And finally, to conclude this coursework, I will be critiquing the analysis methods used and assess how I would adjust the process if I were to use it again in the future.

When browsing for information on the web, people often come across information serendipitously (i.e. to unexpectedly encounter useful information when in search for something or when not looking for anything specifically). However, the unexpected element makes serendipity difficult to observe. People have tried to observe serendipity in controlled (lab-based) environments, but have had limited success. We wanted to see if it was possible to observe people coming across information serendipitously when browsing for news online, and we were aiming to have more success with it than other researchers have had. We conducted a combined think-aloud observation and follow-up interview, where participants were briefed to conduct self-chosen information tasks, in controlled environments where naturalistic behaviour was difficult to observe (as much as we had informed them to be as natural as possible). Although we found that it was not very often that they had come across online news serendipitously, there were some examples of people unexpectedly encountering useful information when aimlessly browsing for news. This suggests that, with a suitable approach, serendipity can be observed in a controlled environment.

Twitter is a social networking service that allows users to connect with each other and receive updates (through tweets) about the current news and affairs, events and activities. It has become a common trend for numerous celebrities and athletes to keep their fans updated on what they are engaged in day in and day out. The fact that you can post a tweet within seconds and receive a bombardment of constant updates is what makes Twitter so engaging. For this coursework, I have been asked to be involved in the re-design of the website interface for Twitter.com. The client has asked that I first find out about why people use Twitter and their common problems in using the website interface. On the basis of what I find out, I have also been requested to produce a Persona.

Based on my work in coursework 1, I am now required to finish off the re-design of the website interface for Twitter. According to my notes on the interviews and observations, I am able to establish both the functional and non-functional requirements for the re-design of the site. I am going to use my frequency list that outlines the main concerns across all the participants to help me cover the most important functional and non-functional requirements. For this task, I will list and prioritise the requirements that are to be addressed in my re-design. From these interviews and observations, I have learnt that the tasks remain the same for these users and there are some similarities in their goals and the problems they experience. As I started to interview and observe more and more users, the information about their tasks/activities was more or less the same and I would see slight differences in their goals. There would be variations in the problems they encountered because not all the users would have experienced the same difficulties due to the different ways they use the site (e.g. some users may use all the features of the site whilst some do not). I found that I learnt less and was not really gaining much information as I continued with the number of interviews and observations that I had to fulfil. I felt that I already knew the information when I had asked these investigation subjects to answer my questions or implement my commands/tasks in the interviews and observations. I would say that definitely the first interview and observation allowed me to learn a considerable amount about why users use Twitter and how they do.