Block 3, Blog 3 - Methods Reading

Short Summary of Harry Brignall's Dynamo Paper

• "The Dynamo system was developed to support multi-user interaction with digital media on a large surface"
• Two levels of user engagement. Anyone can interact with one, only registered users can use the other level - Carving
• 'Carven' areas are parts where registered users can create their own areas, and only people they choose can interact with this area.
• Users can also use parcels, which allow media to be posted and left on the display for 'extended periods of time in an iconified form'.
• User study - Dynamo was deployed in a common room for 6th form students, because it was a place people regularly socialized between classes
• Students, at first, mostly used Dynamo to share photo's video's and music, but in the second week it was used for a wider range of things such as parcels.

Qualative data

Page 4 Final paragraph. Lists the different types of user interactions.

Page 7 Paragraphs 3 and 4 under section 6: discussion. These wo paragraphs include comments from students about the Dyanamo system and what was good about it.

Quantative data

Page 4 Paragraph 1(after list). States the number of students that could be involved in the study

Page 5 Figure 5. Shows how many interactions were made with the Dynamo system at specific times during the day.

Qualitative Data represented Quantitatively

Page 5 Figure 6. The graph shows the amount different types of media that was displayed on the Dynamo surface throught the 2 weeks. The qualitative data is the different types of media on the surface, the quantitative data is the number of each of the different types of media that were displayed.

To do this they user a bar chart. They used one bar for each day of the two weeks. Each bar added up to the total of items displayed on the board during that day. Each bar also contained the number of different types of media that were displayed. This helped show which types of media were displayed the most, and which types the students used the least.

Block 3 Studio 2 - Applying Qualitive Usability Methods (Parts 1 and 2)

Part 1 - Coding Ethnographic Data

Research Problem: Information Overload

"Er do you have any record of this because it's hard to remember and i'd like to give a copy to my boyfriend"

Customer: Ok so we could go to Los Angeles...
Agent: Yes. And that's going to give you more flexibility
Customer: and then if we wanted we could go from Los Angeles...
Agent: Yes. As long as you're booked in
Customer: ...to anywhere else in the States

Agent: Um and that's gonna give you obviously as I say
you can just - that's going to New Zealand
so you can stop through the Pacific that uses Ansett
so you can travel around Australia Umm


Coding

REQ_INF - Request Information
.LOC Request - Information about Location
CONF_INF - Confirm Information
GIVE_INF - Give Information
.EXP - Explain Information
.LOC - Give Information about location
.FLIGHT - Give information about flight details


Customer: Ok so we could go to Los Angeles...
REQ_INF.LOC
Agent: Yes.
CONF_INF
And that's going to give you more flexibility
GIVE_INF.EXP
Customer: and then if we wanted we could go from Los Angeles...
REQ_INF.LOC
Agent: Yes.
CONF_INF
As long as you're booked in
GIVE_INF.EXP
Customer: ...to anywhere else in the States
REQ_INF.LOC

Agent: Um and that's gonna give you obviously as I say
GIVE_INF.EXP
you can just - that's going to New Zealand
GIVE_INF.LOC
so you can stop through the Pacific that uses Ansett
GIVE_INF.FLIGHT
so you can travel around Australia Umm
GIVE_INF.LOC

Other coding that should be added but is not relevant to this part of the transcript would include;

REQ_INF .FLIGHT
.COST
GIVE_INF.COST


Part 2 - Analysis

Graph 1 - Main Sections

Graph 2 - Requested Information

Graph 3 - Giving Information


The first graph shows that just under 55% of the utterances were information being given. While requesting information came just over 20% with just under 20% being confirmation. The third graph shows that half of the information given is information(which would be around 25% of the total) being explained. This suggests that customers may not understand much or all of the information or that the agent feels that customers will always need the information explaining. Which means that the information being given could be too complex or hard to easily understand.

The second graph shows that all of the utterances requesting information were related to location, which shows that customers may have trouble following what locations they are going to a different times, or where different flights were taking them.

Block 3, Blog 1 - Applying Quantative Usability Methods

The Cashless System at the Ricoh Arena


Above: Cashless card on tray. This is where the card is placed during a transaction.
Below: Video, what happens during a transaction, how long it takes and the current feedback.



Attribute: Feedback

Measuring Concept: Receive requested feedback

Measuring Method: Time taken for feedback to appear and user to read and understand feedback

Now Level: System changes colour when it is safe to remove card from tray, no other feedback such as balance is given.

Worst Case: Balance appears after transaction, but takes too long to appear and too long to read.

Planned Level: Balance appears after transaction, is easily visible and doesn't take long to appear.

Best Case: Balance appears while using card, not just after a transaction. Display shows price before use, price of product purchased, and the remaining balance. The display would update quickly, and be easy to read, and clear after card is removed.


Metrics(Measuring Method)

• Time taken for feedback to appear
• Time taken for user to read feedback
• Time taken for user to understand feedback
• Time the whole transaction takes
• Number of problems occurred*
• Time for problems to be resolved
• Number of unresolved problems
• Number of user complaints
• Average queue time**

*Some problems could include things such as the card not being accepted, the balance not displaying, taking too long to display or not displaying at the right time, and cards not displaying the correct balance.

**This isn't completely relevant to the feedback attrivute, but since the queue time ties in with the main aim of the system it would be helpful to note whether the added feedback is cutting down or adding to queues.