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Archive for TEST

Experience Analysis

March 18, 2008 at 3:45 pm · Filed under TEST, experience analysis

Experience (or gap) analysis is a tool which can be used to identify the differences between a users expectations of a service and their actual experience. People’s experience of a product or service will certainly be influenced by their expectations and prior knowledge.

Experience analysis will uncover areas for improvement in the service itself or the way it is perceived. It can be a useful way to identify new opportunities for innovation or to test prototypes.

Example
In the BBC stories at Kew project we administered two surveys, one before people tried and tested the mobile guide on location and one after the experience.

The first helped uncover people’s previous experience of mobile guides, their expectations of what this guide might do, how it would function and what type of experience they desired.

The second survey uncovered people’s actual experience of using the guide in situ.

The outputs of the survey were both quantitative and qualitative. Through careful selection and segmentation of 100 + users we were able to compare the expectations and actual experiences across a range of demographics – age, individuals and family groups, familiarity with technology.

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Movement maps

January 14, 2008 at 3:17 pm · Filed under TEST, movement maps

Movement maps track the locations and movements of several people over a period of time within a specific environment.

Since media is now present all around us and increasingly consumed outside the home context awareness is key to creating the right kind of services.

Because many people live localised lives with set routines, it is important to understand the place sand journeys that are important in their lives.

Example: This map shows an the area within a thirty minute walk of a teenage characters home - we highlighted the most significant places, people and journeys in her daily life

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Mocumentary

January 14, 2008 at 3:05 pm · Filed under TEST, mocumentary

A Mocumentary is a fictional but documentary style video interview with an imagined user persona. Using script writers and actors can really help bring a persona to life and enable clients or designers to understand users lives or the impact of news services on a very personal level.

Why? It is a useful tool to use when it is not possible to interview or film the real lives of actual users. This could be because of access issues, you want to imagine an extreme-use case scenario or a user in a future setting.

For our ‘Digital Britain’ scenario planning project in the BBC, we created documentary style video interviews and fictional reports written by key characters living in the future, who reflected on life in 2014 and key events of the decade.

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Relationship maps

January 11, 2008 at 11:47 am · Filed under TEST, relationship maps

Relationship maps: visualise the social networks that exist within a group. This can help articulate how new services could support or be integrated into these connections.

How: Relationship maps are best based on evidence coming from interviews within a community of users or a family/friend network.

For our future scenarios project we created a social networks map for our teenage character. This illustrated both face-to face and virtual interactions of out teenage character, including the interactions of her various on-line personae.

For Participate we created global friendship maps of the participants in our focus groups. These illustrated cross generational differences and geographical trends.

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User-Personas

January 11, 2008 at 11:28 am · Filed under TEST, user-personas

Personas are fictitious characters created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a website or product. They are created so that these characteristics can be taken into account when creating scenarios for designing a site or product.

How: The use of ethnographic research will help create more realistic archetypes. By feeding in real data, from observation, diary studies, probes, interviews or focus groups design teams to avoid generating stereotypical users that may bear no relation to the actual user’s reality.

User personas should consider many aspects of person’s daily life beyond demographics - lifestyle, media habits, attitudes, desires, fears…

The emphasis will depend on the nature of the product or services being designed and it’s context of use. Below are a number of design tools that can be used for bringing the findings of ethnographic research to life and creating rich personas.

Daily media use - clock: understanding the circumstances in which people consume media can reveal unanticipated issues or new opportunities.

This illustration shows patterns the patterns of media consumption, by a 9 year old over a 24 hour period. A series of cards were produced with annotations on the back describing what media was being consumed, when, where and with whom.

Home media - floor plan: audiences will have different needs and attention levels depending on whether they are alone or with family and friends, and what other activities they may be engaged in.

This floor plan of a personas home shows what devices each family member owned and where different types of content are likely to be consumed.

Bag contents: personal objects and their stories mat reveal differences in attitudes - unusual perceptions or interests.

Asking people to show and describe the things they carry with them - and to explain why they are important can provide valuable insight. Evidence can be documented through video interviews or by annotating photos.

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