Week 2: User Centric Design - Requirement Analysis

In our first Lecture and Tutorial, we looked at the User Centric Design Method.

This can be achieved by performing an Iterative Design, as shown below:

Figure 1: Iterative Design Process

However, as explained by our tutor Ragu, this process can be expensive and demanding, and to save money and time, a better method that can be used is a Spiral Method.

Figure 2: Spiral Model

This method is a process model generator for software designs and projects, this particularly model helps assist and guide a team of designers to adopt elements of other process models. (Boehm, 2000)

While looking at these models, I was very confused and unsure how to properly implement these methods within my own design process, hopefully once the semester continues, I will properly grasp the idea.

With this process its important to know where to start, the first being Requirement Gathering. These involve 3 major requirements:

1. User Observation
2. Interviewing
3. Task Analysis 

User Observation is the second point in these process, this requires the design to identify there target users and will assist them in creating a prototype of the users' domain, main tasks and priorities (Ragu). 

Interviews are also major element when collecting data, this provides crucial information to properly identify goals that the user are trying to achieve.

Task Analysis helps give the designer more in-depth detail on how to properly perform their task and achieve their intended outcomes. This helps with identifying what your gaols are and what you want to achieve, what needs to be undertaken to properly achieve these goals, and what experiences users bring to the tasks (Ragu).

This week we were given our first assignment task brief, which was to Survey 1st year students and find out how they juggle University with other responsibilities and suggest a way to address these issue using technology.

I have come up with a brief outline of questions in which I would like to ask the first year students, these are:

1. How did you find your first year of Uni?
2. What was the most difficult thing you found about adjusting to uni life?
3. Do you live on res?
4. Do you have a part time job?
5. How do you find juggling uni and work?
6. Do you have a set study plan?
7. Do you have any financial commitments? e.g. rent, bills etc. 

Of course I will adjust these questions to better suit how I want to achieve my final product.

References:

Figure 1: Harris, A. (2015). Perfect Your Website with Iterative Website Design. Retrieved, from http://alexdesigns.com/perfect-website-iterative-website-design.html

Figure 2: Boehm, B. (2000). Spiral Development: Experience, Principles, and Refinements. Retrieved, from http://www.sei.cmu.edu/reports/00sr008.pdf