Learning about users and tasks
- Covered as user research in HCI 445 (HCI 440 provides an overview)
- General understanding of users is covered in HCI 450 (mostly as applied psychology)
- Patterns and methods are summarized in Tidwell chapter 1
Common methods
- User interviews
- Onsite observation
- Contextual inquiry
- Site documentation and artifacts
Additional methods include stakeholder interviews, focus groups, surveys, user diaries and usage logs.
User research is outside of the scope of this course, but we will learn what we wish we had from user research. Key information includes:
- Scenarios indicating order of events
- Frequency of use
- Domain knowledge of users
- User experience with similar applications
- General user experience with apps and technology
Discussion questions
- What methods might we employ to learn about final exam scheduling?
- What would you have liked to know about users for final exam scheduling (but didn't)?