Interaction and Usability Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Interaction and Usability - Essay Example Implementation 10 7 Evaluation 19 7.1 Cognitive Walk-through 19 7.2 Heuristic Evaluation 19 8 References 20 Appendix 21 A.1 Interview with the Owner 21 A.2 Document Analysis 23 A.3 Observation of Brit Drive 23 A.4 Questionnaire for Receptionists, Instructors and Pupil 24 A.5 Cognitive walk-through 26 A.6 Heuristic Evaluation 27 A.7 Scenarios 28 A.8 Task Analysis 30 1. Introduction Brit Drive is a small driving school, situated in the north of London. With the help of certified and experienced instructors, the school offers driving lessons at affordable prices. The target market of Brit Drive consists of those people from the locality who want to learn how to drive. Brit Drive holds lessons for nearly 20-30 students each day. The duration of a daily lesson varies from one to four hours. The school has four cars (of which one is automatic) where each has a lease duration of two years. 2. Discovery Methods 2.1 Primary Research The initial user research was conducted through four discove ry techniques: interviews, observations, questionnaires and document analysis. Since the company has a small staff team, it was easy to conduct the primary research. Interview with the Owner An interview with the owner, Timothy Goode, made it possible to gain a basic understanding of the existing system, its primary and secondary users and its environment (See Appendix A.1 for the interview). The questions revolved around the users and their roles in the Brit Drive system. Document Analysis The company’s data is paper-based and resides with Timothy. With Timothy’s permission, it became possible to analyze the data that is stored in the existing Brit Drive system (See Appendix section A.2 for the analysis). Observation By spending a day at the school, a first hand observation of the Brit Drive’s environment and daily operations became possible (See Appendix section A.3 for the findings). Questionnaires: To analyze the computer skill level, problems and requiremen ts of the receptionists, instructors and the pupils, a questionnaire was formulated. Each questionnaire had open and closed questions. (See the questionnaire and findings summary in Appendix A.4). 2.2 Secondary Research Based on the facts collected in the primary research, the main users that will directly interact with the system are the owner and the receptionists. The instructor and the pupil are the secondary users of the system (Wang n.d.). The main users fall into the category of novice (Helander et al. 1997) as they are general computer users. And since the system is to shift from legacy to digital, the users would have no syntactic and limited semantic knowledge of the overall application. In such cases, a simply designed interface is the only option. Since, all the tasks the receptionists perform can also be performed by the owner, easily memorized shortcuts can be used as a standard for a task. Once the users become frequent users, these shortcuts will not only ease the sy stem learning process but will also help during the rush hours. 3. User Needs Analysis 3.1 Persona According to the common traits, system has four user categories which leads to four personas; the owner, receptionist, instructor and the pupil (Wang n.d.). The persona skeletons from the previous section, are then prioritized according to their importance to the system (Wang n.d.). From the four personas, the owner and the