IUE2009: Field research class
Today at the Internet User Experience conference I attended a field research class led by Danielle Gobert Cooley.
The morning session was lecture and discussion on differences between lab-based research and field research, and some guidelines and tips on doing field research. Then we paired up and went out to observe some employees at Washtenaw Community College, which is where the conference is hosted. In the afternoon, after doing a couple of research sessions, we came back together as a group and did a little group processing where we tried to analyze our findings.
The sessions themselves were fun, but were missing the benefit of us having done prep and having a clear purpose or inquiry focus. So the analysis was a little tough. Plus, we didn't do enough observations of people doing similar work to get a rich set of observations. This is no critique on the instructor; it is just that we had to work with fairly random volunteers who volunteered on short notice (and we are grateful they did). Despite this, actually going out to do the observations was great.
Let me point out a couple highlights that I really appreciate.
- Book recommendation: "Rapid Contextual Design: A How-to Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design" by Karen Holtzblatt, Jessamyn Burns Wendell, and Shelley Wood.
- I really, really like doing field research.
Okay, so that second point won't really help any of you that much.
We did two different field research excursions today, and I now I recall that I really enjoy that part of UX work. I want to do more.
For the first half-dozen or so years of doing UX, all user research I did was in the field, mostly because I needed to operate fast or I was doing it for purely qualitative reasons and sometimes without full awareness from management or project managers. Basically, I needed real design research that I could use right away, so I went out and got it.
But, in the last few years most of the user research I've done has been with a little more formality. While I can't honestly call any of it "Formal," it did happen in labs where we brought people out of their own environments.
So, here's a story with a little subtlety about why it's important to go out into the field for this kind of work. (The design research field is thick with more obvious stories, like, oh the users kept spilling their coffee on the controls, so we built the next version with cup-holders. This isn't quite that obvious.)
About 8 years ago I was working on a website that people could use to browse photos and purchase high resolution TIFFS or JPEGs to download for their own use. We were envisioning primary use by graphic designers. At this particular institution, it was quite possible that graphic designers couldn't actually purchase something, but might have a secretary in their unit do the actual purchase. So, one user test we did involved a secretary as the participant.
The secretary proceeded through the tasks (and yes we observed a number or areas we could improve in), and in the wrap-up discussion she asked "So, when will the prints be delivered?"
Funny how we never thought that people might think they had just ordered prints. It became clear that she hadn't realized that she had downloaded a picture file to her computer. That's a really important observation. Usability tests rock.
Had we been in a lab instead of at her desk in her office, she might not have mentally processed through what she was going to do with the photos after-the-fact. She was picturing a nice framed print of the beautiful landscape photo she had just ordered on the wall in the office. If she was in a sterile lab—away from her normal surroundings—that might not have occurred to her, because she would have been focused on the study itself. Or, maybe not. We don't know. I, however, suspect that her normal surrounding played a big role in her thoughts and normal reactions in the study.
Of course, lab research has its benefits. They just don't generally appeal to me as much.
So, thank you Danielle for a fun day of practicing field research! I hope to be able to do more field research in the near future.
IUE2009: Use Cases and Scenario-Based Design
Today at IUE2009, I attended an excellent workshop led by Jan Moorman on scenario-based design and use cases.
My experience with use cases has been limited to what I've read from websites like AListApart.com, some select pages returned from Google searches, and snippets from books like Martin Fowler's UML book and "Designing the Obvious" by Robert Hoekman, Jr. Based on what I've read, I have created UML diagrams for use cases and written out a few.
This limited knowledge may have been ideal for today's workshop, because it gave me experience with which to make sense of the topic, while acknowledging that I have much to learn.
Jan led us through a number of different topics, but in general I remember focusing on these areas:
- Using scenarios, drawn from observations of users, perhaps through contextual inquiry, to put context to a user's experience.
- Thinking of use cases as storytelling. (Possibly use storyboards in addition to textual stories.)
- Use cases can exist at many different levels, as needed for the project
- Big picture of what is happening from a business goal perspective
- Use cases with brief details in simplified steps
- More detailed use cases which may include flow diagrams
- Use cases that include sections on data definitions and other functional requirements
- Different examples of creating use cases that represent multiple systems and/or users, and use cases that map actors/goals to business logic to systems.
And what of use cases and Agile?
In addition, we spent some time discussing how use cases may fit into Agile methodologies, specifically Scrum, which we use at Covenant Eyes.
I thought Scrum and use cases would fit together well, but when we actually tried to speak to the similarities, it became tough. Seems strange, right? I mean, user stories are kind of like abbreviated use cases. Well, they are, sort of.
In spite of the user stories from Scrum, the tough part is that the language we use in Scrum is angled very differently than the language we use in UX, and specifically with use cases.
For instance, in Scrum we have a user story of "As a customer, I want to purchase the items I have in my shopping cart." That user story could then become a product backlog item. We would then create a series of tasks needed to complete that backlog item. These tasks might range from finding information, like "Find out from accounting exactly what information we need to gather from customers" to coding tasks such as "Write Javascript to validate billing detail form" or "Write unit test to confirm that the shipping costs are applied to the bill."
Note the language in the tasks. These tasks are worded for use by the developers in the Scrum. The presence of the user in these Scrum tasks is gone. It may be there if you read between the lines, but consciously, the work is at the nuts and bolts level now.
Use cases are worded on behalf of the actors, which are often our customers or users. They tend to be user-goal oriented, or exist a level-down from the goal nearer to the nuts-and-bolts level. The terminology is still geared closer to a user, though. For instance, "The customer sees shipping options with prices and selects an option." You can see, as in that case, the user's goals are still near at hand.
Benefit of use cases for Agile development
Based on observations from today's seminar, it seems like one of the key reasons why we should do use cases in Agile development is that the process of hammering out use cases feeds the user stories and thereby the product backlog items. Without use cases, it is very easy to miss a big area of development, simply because we hadn't considered it. Use cases forces some discipline into the process, and keeps the user's goals front and center, along with the motivations of the business and developers.
Use cases can also be turned about to use as input into the planning of usability tests during design and development and acceptance tests during QA.
If we have a good batch of use cases, those can feed into development. Meanwhile, QA can receive those same use cases and begin writing acceptance tests. When development is ready, QA can step right in and run acceptance tests (which are based on use cases).
Now, what remains to be seen for us is how well we can integrate this valuable process of writing and using use cases into our Scrum process.
It's been a long day! I hope to post more tomorrow about the session on field research.
Next week: IUE2009
I'll be at the Internet User Experience 2009 conference in Ann Arbor, MI this week with a crew of coworkers.
In addition to the conference itself on Wednesday and Thursday, I'll attend 2 full-day tutorials:
- Use Cases in an Agile World
- Field Research for User Experience Design
I'm looking forward to the events, and intend to blog about the highlights. Stay tuned!
Fatten me up?
I was captured. Eva had my right arm and Lila had my left. They were walking me back to my house in St Charles, and they were pretending to be evil witches.
"Let's put him in the dungeon so we can eat him!" schemed Eva.
"You're going to fatten me up before you eat me?" I asked.
"No, you're already fat!" said Eva the witch. "That's why we chose you!"
Lila the witch cackled sinisterly.
Lila’s whiteboard art: EVA
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- Lila’s whiteboard art: Eva
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- Lila pointing out the “a” in her whiteboard art
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- Lila pointing out the “E” in her whiteboard art
DSS.MIL is not to be trusted
Unsigned cert warning at dss.mil website
It's funny that the Defense Security Service (Provides security services to the Department of Defense and defense contractors. Mostly counter-espionage and physical security tasks.) homepage triggers an SSL certificate error. Is that some sort of first lesson: TRUST NO ONE! Heh.
First pistol practice of the season!
I made it to the range today! The afternoon was sunny and seemed like it was in the high 30s. My fingers were stiff on the cold pistol, but the lighting was beautiful and the wind was light. This was the first time I've shot at the Saginaw Field & Stream club. It has an excellent 50 yard pistol range.
I had a small mixture of .22 ammo, which I shot in this order: 50 rounds of Remington Target (standard velocity lead), 5 rounds of Federal Lightning (high-velocity jacketed hollow-point), and the remaining 35 rounds were Remington Thunderbolt (high-velocity jacketed).
Thoughts on the ammo
This was the first time I've shot Remington Target rounds, and, frankly, they were great. They felt very consistent and they functioned reliably in my old Ruger Mk II.
The Federal ammo was cheap stuff, and, oh man, was it bad. Of the 5 rounds, 3 stovepiped. And, they felt very inconsistent. The Remington Thunderbolts are also cheap stuff, but they were consistent and functioned fine.
I ran through a practice 900 match (conventional bullseye pistol).
So, here's how I shot.
| Slow Fire | National Match Course | Timed Fire | Rapid Fire | Total | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SF1 | SF2 | SF | TF | RF | TF1 | TF2 | RF1 | RF2 | |
| 88-2X | 88-1X | 81-0X | 93-2X | 97-3X | 94-3X | 93-3X | 97-1X | 91-1X | 822-15X |
That adds up to 822-15X (out of 900 possible). Average score of 91.3.
Really, I had no right to shoot that well, since I haven't practiced at all for over a year. So, this is a good benchmark to start the season with.
I hope to get out to the range every week, starting in mid-April, and I would like to compete in at least a couple matches by the end of the outdoor season.
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