Identifying User Needs and Establishing Requirements . Outline What are we trying to achieve?

Identifying needs and establishing requirements Categories of requirements Data gathering techniques Choosing between data gathering techniques Data gathering guidelines Data interpretation and analysis Task description and analysis analysis Scenarios, use cases, essential use cases and task Summary Additional References3 In the beginning... What are we trying to achieve? Identifying needs: well as their work and the context of their work. chieving their goals. System under development should support users in a Identifying needs is crucial to our next step. Establishing requirements: of requirements. Building upon the needs identified, produce a set A user-centered approached to development: ailure found that requirements definition was Study that investigated the causes of IT project f Understand as much as possible about the users, as

failure. the most frequently cited project stage that caused g sure it meets the stakeholders needs are Understanding what the product should do and makin

absolutely critical to the success of the product.4 What are requirements? n intended product should do, or how it should perform. Traditionally, two types of requirements: ould do. Functional requirements specify what the system sh ts there are on the system or its development. the functionality required and the both Interaction design requires us to understand duct. constraints for development or operation of the pro tegories. Let s refine these two broad types into further ca5 Categories of requirements Description Category , ch. 7 Interaction Design Source: Functional requirements Environmental requirements User requirements Usability requirements Data requirements What the product should do. Or context of use circumstances in which the Non-Functional requirements specify what constrain A requirement is a statement that specifies what a

interactive product must operate. Characteristics of the intended user group. The usability goals and associated measures. The type, volatility, size/amount, persistence,

accuracy and value of the amounts of the required data.6 Data gathering equirements activity Overview of data gathering techniques used in the r No time commitment from users required Observing actual work gives insights that other techniques can t give Highlights areas of consensus and conflict. Encourages contact between developers and users. Interviewer can guide interviewee if necessary. Encourages contact between developers and users. Can reach many people with low resource Advantages Possibility of dominant characters Some quantitative

but mostly qualitative data Collecting multiple viewpoints Focus groups and workshops Very time consuming. Huge amounts of data. Qualitative Understanding context of user activity Naturalistic observation Day-to-day working will differ from documented procedures Quantitative Learning about procedures, regulations and standards Studying

documentation Design is crucial and response rate may be low. Responses may not be useful. Quantitative and qualitative data Answering specific questions Questionnaires Some quantitative but mostly qualitative data Kind of data Exploring issues Good for Time consuming. Artificial environment may intimidate interviewee. Disadvantages Interviews Technique , ch. 7 Interaction Design Source: 7 Choosing between data gathering techniques

Your choice is influenced by a number of factors. The kind of information you want. ect. May also change depending on the stage of the proj The resources available to you. personnel to send out a nationwide survey. E.g., your project may not have the time, money or The location and accessibility of stakeholders. f stakeholders, but could be prohibited by geography.8 ed Choosing between data gathering techniques, continu : Two main issues to consider when making your choice The nature of the data gathering technique itself. The task which is to be studied. Data gathering techniques differ in the following: risk associated with the findings. The amount of time they take, level of detail and gnitive processes. The knowledge the analyst must have about basic co Tasks can be classified along three scales: apidly overlapping series of subtasks? Is the task a set of sequential steps or is it a r h complex visual displays, or low information Does the task involve high information content wit You may want to run a workshop for a large group o

he user? content, where simple signals are enough to alert t ith minimal training, or a practitioner highly skilled in the task domain? ystem to support back-room Example: the design of an ATM vs. the design of a s Is the task intended to be performed by a laymen w

egister with the customers workers at a bank who are reconciling the machine r deposit slip.9 Basic data gathering guidelines

Focus on identifying the stakeholders needs. Involve all the stakeholder groups. keholder group. Involve more than one representative from each sta Use a combination of data gathering techniques. props. Support the data-gathering sessions with suitable inks. Run a pilot session if possible, to work out any k compromise may be needed). Understand what you are really looking for (though ta during a face-to-face data gathering session.10 Data interpretation and analysis interpret and analyze it. Once you have gathered your data, you will need to e gathering session as possible. Start interpretation and analysis as soon after th Interpreting data: quirements. Begin structuring and recording descriptions of re Capture information in documents and diagrams. rmation during the rest of the process. This helps to keep track of context and usage info Analyzing data: , etc. Data-flow diagrams, state charts, work-flow charts rams, sequence diagrams, etc. For object-oriented approaches, can use class diag re stable requirements evolve. Requirements activity iterates numerous times befo he process will result in a deeper Continued interpretation and analysis throughout t Carefully consider the means used to record the da

rements. understanding as well as clarification of the requi centered focus and are intended to users goals and tasks.11 Task description and analysis rstand users goals and tasks. User-centered task descriptions are created to unde We will focus on four techniques that have a userunderstand the

Scenarios Use cases Essential use cases Task analysis Methodology for each: Description Advantages Limitations How to develop Example: The shared calendar application e precise information with developers.12 Task description and analysis, continued allows Describes human activities or tasks in a story that exploration and discussion of contexts, needs, and requirements. ain what Telling a story is a natural way for people to expl allows they are doing or how to achieve something. It also volved in us to identify the stakeholders and the products in the activity. l of More focused on task characteristics than the detai interface design and layout. [2] Focus on what users are trying to achieve. Description System-centered descriptions are used to communicat

Advantages Limitations To Develop Scenarios13 Task description and analysis, continued Scenarios: the shared calendar example , ch. 7 Interaction Design Source: 14 Task description and analysis, continued t also The main emphasis is on user-system interaction, bu user goals. It is easy to grasp key features in the user-system interaction activities. including Traditional use cases contain certain assumptions, h, and the that there is a piece of technology to interact wit kind of interaction to be designed. identify Identify the actors, then examine these actors and their goal or goals in using the system. Description Advantages Limitations To Develop Use Cases15 Task description and analysis, continued Use cases: the shared calendar example 1. The user chooses the option to arrange a meeting

2. The system prompts user for the names of attendees 3. The user types in a list of names 4. The system checks that the list is valid 5. The system prompts the user for meeting constraints 6. The user types in meeting constraints ies the constraints 7. The system searches the calendars for a date that satisf 8. The system displays a list of potential dates 9. The user chooses one of the dates 10. The system writes the meeting into the calendar hem for the appointment 11. The system emails all the meeting participants informing t Alternative courses: 5. If the list of people is invalid 5.1 The system displays an error message 5.2 The system returns to step 2 8. If no potential dates are found 8.1 The system displays a suitable message 8.2 The system returns to step 5 , ch. 7 Interaction Design Source: 16 Task description and analysis, continued name A structured narrative consisting of three parts: a d that expresses the overall user intention, a steppe ion of description of user actions, and a stepped descript system responsibilities. dies, Represents a more general case than a scenario embo use case. and tries to avoid the assumptions of a traditional

es while Difficult to capture concrete and specific activiti maintaining the generality required. dentify Identify user roles, then examine these roles and i the users goal or goals in using the system. Description Advantages Limitations To Develop Essential Use Cases17 Task description and analysis, continued Essential use cases: the shared calendar example , ch. 7 Interaction Design Source: 18 Task description and analysis, continued e of Used to analyze the underlying rationale and purpos eve, what people are doing: what are they trying to achi going why are they trying to achieve it, and how are they OMS. about it, e.g. Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) & G practices Task analysis establishes a foundation of existing tasks. on which to build new requirements or to design new ch level In the hands of inexperienced practitioners, too mu fuse of detail may be entered into; for systems with dif ly task objectives, time may be wasted by attempting to app analysis to intractable material. [2] ubtasks Break a task down into subtasks and then into sub-s and so on.

Description Advantages Limitations To Develop Task Analysis19 Task description and analysis, continued form) Task analysis: the shared calendar example (1 text , ch. 7 Interaction Design Source: 20 Task description and analysis, continued ram form) Task analysis: the shared calendar example (2 diag , ch. 7 Interaction Design Source: 21 Task description and analysis, continued specialized [4] Developers-centered descriptions: more formal, more Entity-Relationship diagrams Class diagrams Ontologies Goals Finite State Machines22 Summary success of the interactive product. Getting the requirements right is crucial to the

There are different types of requirements: y. Functional, data, environmental, user and usabilit these headings. Every system will have requirements under each of stablishing requirements include: Most commonly used data-gathering techniques for e ups, naturalistic observation, and studying Questionnaires, interviews, workshops or focus gro

documentation. and essential use cases can help to Describing user tasks such as scenarios, use cases

articulate existing user work practices. evices. They also help to express envisioned use for new d sting situation, i.e. existing systems and current practices.23 Additional References Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA Software Engineering, Sixth Edition; 1. Sommerville, Ian; (2000). /scenario.htm , http://www.ucc.ie/hfrg/projects/respect/urmethods 2. Scenario Building Designing the User Interface, Fourth 3. Schneiderman, Ben and Plaisant, Catherine; Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA (2005). Edition; ; John t Edition Software Engineering: Principles and Practice, Firs 4. van Vliet, Hans; Wiley & Sons, Ltd (2000).24 Task analysis techniques help to investigate an exi