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Design Notebook Entry for D4
During the lab, your team analyzed the interview data collected so far by creating an affiniity diagram and a consolidated work model. In the design notebook, first, include a photo of the affinity diagram that you created in the studio lab, and a 1-2 paragraph description of the key themes and insights extracted from the interviews. Second, include a photo of the consolidated work model that you created during the studio lab, and a 1-2 paragraph description of the themes and breakdowns in the consolidated model. Finally, write 1 paragraph to compare the findings from the affinity diagram and the consolidated work model. What are the similarities and differences?
PO1: User Interviews - Informational Interview
In PO1,
find at least 2 users to interview;
someone who are NOT a students in CS449/649 class. It is helpful to have two people conducting each interview, one serving as the interviewer, the other serving as a note-taker. Over the course of the term, your team should interview 6-8
unique people in total who are meant to be your target user (people who are likely going to be the primary audience for your app). Each team member should serve as the interviewer at least once in this course.
For each interview, add a section to the design notebook to capture (1) a summary of your findings, (2) a description of any changes to your interview questions or procedures that you plan to introduce in future interviews based on what you learned. Based on all the findings so far, create an affinity diagram and a consolidated cultural or flow model. If the students that you mock interviewed were representing themselves (i.e., not pretending to be a persona), then you can also include those as findings. Include a screenshot of the affinity diagram and the consolidated work model in the design notebook. Leverage the affinity diagram and consolidated work model to revise your interview questions.
Summary of Ethics Rules (Read Before Conducting Interviews):
● Note that if you MUST have completed ethics training to conduct interviews or work with any interview data.
● To recruit users, you can use word of mouth (e.g., people you know, friends of friends) via a variety of channels (e.g., email, phone call, social media, chat interfaces such as Slack). When using social media / chat interfaces (e.g., Facebook group, Slack workspace), you should post only if the norm of the social media / chat group permits this type of study recruitment posts. If in doubt, first check with the social media / chat group owner before posting. You must use this
recruitment script in your email, phone call, or chat/social media post when recruiting participants.
● Make sure you obtain consent from the participants before starting an interview. You will find all the consent forms on the
Resources page of the course website. For PO1, you should be using the informational interviews consent forms for
in-person interviews or
online interviews. You will obtain verbal consent from the participants (see the last page of the consent forms) and store their verbal consent responses in a spreadsheet in a password-protected computer, data server or cloud service; the TAs and instructors might ask to see this spreadsheet at a later time. This spreadsheet should have the participant name, date of interview, and participants' responses to each of the verbal consent questions. You must keep this spreadsheet separate from your interview data and securely stored for a minimum of 1 year.
● Note that participants are allowed to withdraw from the study at any time. There are also
NO audio or video recordings allowed, so take good notes.
● Remember to
keep your raw interview data (e.g., your notes) private and viewable to your team only; DO NOT put the raw data (notes and images) in the design notebook. Only include a
summary of your findings in your writeup. Make sure that the data is anonymized (i.e., with no identifying information) and stored in a password-protected computer, data server or cloud service. In the raw data or any report summarizing the data, interviewees should be referred to by their code names (e.g., P1, P16) instead of their real names.
● Your interviewees must be adult (age 19+). Our ethics protocol does NOT allow you to interview children. Note that the definition of minor varies by
province. To be safe, interview someone who is 19+. You should also stay away from interviewing students/employees in K-12 schools and hospital staff (e.g., doctor, nurses), because doing so would involve the school board's and the hospital's ethics board. If you were to interview an employee of a company/organization about work-related things, you will also need permission from their manager (using the manager
in-person and
online interview consent forms) before conducting the interviews with the employees.
CH1: Challenge Report - Notes
The challenge report, due on Friday Oct 25, documents how your team has challenged your assumptions over several weeks. To build up to that, record some notes about how you have challenged your assumptions this week. For example, what assumptions did you make (e.g., when you created the personas)? What interview questions did you create to test these assumptions? What did you learn? What are your new assumptions? How did you refine your interview questions to test these new assumptions? Be specific, and describe the concrete actions your team took to test assumptions. Complete this writeup in the design notebook.
P4: Prepare for Next Studio
As a team, complete the following three steps to brainstorm a set of features for your app. You can do this in-person using real sticky notes, or online using Miro / FigJam.
1.
Preparation (Individual): Close your eyes and imagine a target user for your application. What goal is this user trying to achieve? What are the obstacles that are in his/her way? (1 minute)
2.
Provocation (Individual): Come up with ideas of app features that you think will help this particular user overcome his/her obstacles. Put one sticky note per feature. Include your name on the sticky notes. Write down as many features as possible. Do not judge the ideas that are popping up in your mind. (4 minutes)
3.
Vote (Team): After everyone has contributed feature ideas, hold a team meeting to vote on the features. Without consulting with each other, each team member should put a star symbol next to 2 ideas that he/she likes the most. The number of stars on each sticky note indicates how much that feature is liked by the team as a whole. As a team, choose 4-5 features you all like best, and discuss why you like them the best. (5 minutes)
In the design notebook, include (1) a screenshot of the sticky notes from different team members, and star symbols indicating which features are most liked, (2) a writeup describing the list of 4-5 chosen features, why your team likes them the best, and the design argument for each feature.