Documentation for Prototype – Prepared by Tracy Boyer,  2010

I. Conceptual Model

I am building an interactive interface to be embedded within a pre-existing site

with a pre-defined color palette, font family, screen size, and technical
capabilities/limitations. The site is a hyper-local journalism site titled, Powering a Nation,
that is produced by UNC students who report on energy issues in and around America.
According to Google Analytics, the site received more than 16,000 visits and
37,000 pageviews over the last six months. There were visitors from 116 countries, but
the majority (over 12,000 of the visits) came from those within the United States, shown
below. The states that brought the most traffic were North Carolina, California, New
York, Texas and Missouri. On average, a user viewed 2.29 pages per visit, spending
approximately two and a half minutes on the site.

Therefore, I have determined that my interface will be largely used by Americans

who are only interested in spending 1-2 minutes to obtain the relevant information before
moving on. Furthermore, while I do not need to worry about providing translation
options, I do need to enable users to obtain localized data regarding their specific state.
 II. User Analysis
Target Audience:

I intend to build an interactive interface to explain the intrinsic connection

between water usage and energy production, including a visualization of water usage data
used in alternative energy sources across the United States. This interface will consist of
a variety of text, video, photo, and graphic elements. Thus, there are a number of user
groups (each including both males and females) for this multimedia presentation, three of
which are detailed below:

1) U.S. Energy Bloggers and Environmental Journalists (Persona: Bob Jones)

The first major group that would be interested in this package would be U.S.
energy bloggers and environmental journalists. The topic of water usage in alternative
energy production is an under-reported issue, and one that many news professionals
would be interested in learning more about. This demographic will range from 20-60
years of age.
The group will have a wide range of background knowledge and experience, but
all will be interested in news surrounding energy consumption trends and environmental
issues. They will be using my interface primarily for professional motives to enhance
their knowledge surrounding the issue for their work. They will also be interested in
learning how to localize the information to their region so they can take the relevant
information and then repurpose it for their audiences. Therefore, it is important that I can
provide both the newsworthy and hyper-local information within my presentation. As
media professionals, they will all have significant computer knowledge and prior usage
with graphics depicting energy data, so I will not have to worry whether my presentation
method will confuse this user group.

2) American Educators and Students (Persona: Sally Williamson)

The second major group that would use this package would be U.S. professors
and upper-level students. Within this group are two subgroups: U.S. high school teachers
and students, and U.S. college professors and students. Both groups will be interested in
utilizing this interface for education purposes within a lesson plan for environmental
science. Similar to the bloggers and journalists, this group will also be interested in
localizing the information depending on their surroundings. Background information
surrounding the issue would also be of great importance since they will not have prior
knowledge of the topic like that of the first group.
U.S. high school teachers and students
High school students will require an interface that is very colorful, interactive and
“fun” in order to retain their attention. High school teachers will require an interface that
is easy to explain and decompose in order to quickly pick out the important concepts to
relay to their students. The majority of students will have had extensive prior usage with
digital technology, so the interactive features will seem second nature to them. While
they may not all own a personal computer, they will all have access to one in the home,
local library, or school. The majority of teachers may be more hesitant about the
interface, so it needs to be self-explanatory and inviting. While the students will range in
age between 14-18, the teachers can fall anywhere from 25-60+ years of age.
 U.S. college professors and students
College students may not be as interested in a “fun” interface, but rather
something customizable where they can quickly pick out relevant information for their
particular task. They range in age from 18-25+ and will all own a personal computer.
While professors will range in age from 30-60+, they will also have the same
motivational factors of obtaining relevant and customizable information regarding this
issue. They will both have a more advanced reading level than those in high school, but
still require content that is user-friendlier than the scientific reports and charts that circle
within the research sector.

3) U.S. Local, State and National Politicians (Persona: Jerry Baldwell)

A third group that might be interested in this package is politicians who are
required to focus on topics such as water shortages and renewable energy within their
districts. These can be local towns board members, sate governors and representatives, or
national politicians in the White House. Similar to the other groups, it is vital that these
politicians can filter the data down to county and/or state. Also, comparison data to put
their data in perspective would be helpful for them. It is possible that their aides and
assistants actually use this interface on behalf of the politician, so printouts or other
downloadable features would be helpful to communicate the message from one person to
the other. The age demographic for this group will range from 25-70+ and their computer
literacy level will vary greatly. For the older politicians with less computer experience, it
is important that the instructions are clear, concise, and legible.

Checklist of Important User Characteristics:

1) Physical characteristics
• Age (14 – 70+)

2) Knowledge and experience

• Level of education, reading level (high-school – graduate)
• Knowledge of domain-specific terminology (none – expert)

3) Computer/IT experience
• Computer literacy (novice – expert)
• Level of experience with similar systems (none – expert)

4) Psychological characteristics
• Motivation to use the system (personal – professional; educational – political)
 III. User Personas

Bob Jones, energy blogger for The New York Times

Mr. Jones is a 48 year-old white male who has worked with The New York Times for the
past eight years. He is well versed in energy issues, and continuously scours press
releases, energy community, and other news reports for new and engaging content for his
readers. While he is energy conscious in his personal life, he is mainly interested in
expanding his knowledge surround this topic for his profession. Thus, he will not
appreciate extraneous “fun factor” content, and in fact may get annoyed if a package does
not present him relevant information quickly. Furthermore, since he needs to write for his
target demographic, which is mostly educated, middle-class New Yorkers, he needs a
filter tool that allows him to retrieve and repurpose localized data. He has had extensive
experience analyzing scientific data and graphics surrounding energy topics, so he does
not need a simplified version with extensive directions.

Mr. Jones is happily married with three children in grade school. During his free time, he
likes to read The Wall Street Journal and take his children bike riding in Central Park.
Personally, he hopes that his children will all go to private colleges in the SE.
Professionally, he wants to become an editor at The Times.

“Although scientists don’t know how to present energy data efficiently, journalists tend
to dumb down the topic, which is just as ineffective. Why isn’t there a middle-ground
where we present the facts intelligently and thoroughly while still getting our point
across?” – Bob Jones while reporting at The Copenhagen Summit, 2009
Sally Williamson, sophomore at Whiteside High School

Ms. Williamson is a 16 year-old white American attending public high school in

Wilmington, NC. She has a 3.0 GPA and is active in many extracurricular activities, such
as cheerleading and soccer. While she maintains good grades, she is more interested in
boys than in her class work. She is currently taking Environmental Science, and her
teacher is spending the month of March covering renewable energy and other related
topics. For her project, her assignment is to research water conservation issues and a
potential connection between water and renewable energy. Reading bores her, and she is
unfamiliar with the sector and where she can obtain valuable information. Therefore, the
package needs to be engaging, interactive, and fun to retain Ms. Williamson’s attention.
She also needs the interface type to define complex terms and explain concepts in a clear
and concise manner.

Ms. Williamson is completely plugged in digitally; she texts hourly, spends two to four
hours each day on social networks, and loves checking her email. She has Internet access
both at home and at school, but does not have a personal computer. Her family’s
computer may be outdated and is probably running IE. She is a sassy teenager and gets
easily bored. She is frustrated by the “trivial” assignment, and wants to get it done
quickly to maintain her 3.0 GPA while still keeping her “cool” image.

She wants to go to college and cheerlead, but beyond that she has no clue what she wants
to do with her life. She has subscriptions to both Cosmopolitan and Seventeen, and never
reads the news (neither the print nor online version).

“I don’t understand why teachers give us these stupid assignments. I’ll just google the
answer…” – Sally Williamson’s text to her bff Suzy after receiving the energy project.
Jerry Baldwell, Minnesota Governor

Mr. Baldwell, 38, has been governor of Minnesota for the past three years after a long
stint as the Mayor of Minneapolis. He is on track to be the Democratic candidate for the
2012 presidential election, so he has to keep up on his research regarding hot button
national topics, such as renewable energy. He asks his assistant, Betsy Moore, to print out
relevant articles and put them on his desk each morning when he arrives to the office. He
has little patience with things that waste his time, and he only cares about energy-related
information so he sounds good during news interviews. Thus, he doesn’t need dense data,
but rather a couple of numbers that he can memorize to regurgitate in his answers to
sound educated on the topic.

He hardly uses his computer for tasks other than email, and he has little familiarity with
digital technology and interactive features. He gets annoyed when he doesn’t understand
technology, so he asks his staff to maintain his social networking sites, web site, and
blog. However, he does like googling himself to see what people are saying about him.
He receives print subscriptions of TIME and The Wall Street Journal, but asks his
assistants to highlight relevant articles for him.

Mr. Baldwell has been married for 30 years, but has been cheating on her for the last five
years with his secretary. He has two sons, 9 and 6, whom he hopes also become elected
officials one day. His personal goals consist of keeping his affair a secret and being a
good father. His professional goals consist of becoming the President in 2012, with a
fallback option of becoming Secretary of State.

“Damn this technology. They’re always inventing something new that takes forever to
learn. What happened to the good ol’ days when I could just read an encyclopedia or
book to learn what I needed to know?” – Jerry Baldwell arguing to his staff about the
need to become technologically savvy.