Assignments
Assignment 3
Group Assignment
Due Thursday, March 6, 2008
This assignment is another project checkpoint. You should now be working with your group on redesign of the work practice for the area you aim to support. By Thursday, Mar. 6, 4pm, email to the TAs and professor a vision statement for your new system and UED sketches for the system you are proposing.
Assignment 2
Group Assignment
Due: Thursday, January 31, 2008
This assignment is designed as a project checkpoint. By January 31st, you should have interviewed all of your subjects at least once. You should also have begun the analysis of your data. As a result, this assignment is essentially a freebie. In other words, there is no additional work needed to complete this assignment.As a component of your data analysis, you are building models of the work done by your interviewee. For January 31st, for one of your subjects, post one model of each of the five different types of model on the course Wiki. So, for one subject, do a flow, sequence, artifact, cultural, and physical model.
Please ensure that all detail is anonymized for your subjects. As well, recall that these models are to be done without the use of computer. Therefore, I expect you to produce pen and paper models, and then to capture these models using a digital photograph. The photograph (and any necessary explanatory text) should be posted on a page for your group. You may also add some initial narrative describing, in general terms, your target subjects. Ensure that you do not mention a specific location (e.g. no "campus newspaper"; instead "local newspaper", even if it is the on campus newspaper).
Grading will be done on the S-/S/S+ scale.
Assignment 1
Group Assignment
Due: January 15, 2008
In this assignment, you must leave campus with your group and go to a grocery or home improvement store. Try to go during the week,
during a period when queues are not too long. You will need to bring with you pen, paper, and a digital camera.All major grocery stores, some home improvement stores, and many other large box merchants are introducing self-checkout lanes. In this assignment, go to one of these large retail stores and watch (from a reasonable distance) as people navigate these lanes. Focus, specifically, on the process for paying once all groceries have been scanned and weighed correctly.
Note whether people have any problems, and identify the frequency of problems. Observe two or three people.
Each group member should go through the self-serve lane and buy something. If you need groceries, buy them. If not, buy a chocolate bar, soda, or your lunch from the deli. Have one group member pay with a credit card, one with a debit card (with cash back), and one using cash. Another group members should take pictures during the process, capturing the screens that the purchaser needs to traverse and the devices that the purchaser needs to use. Feel free to tell the employee in the area and/or the people behind you in line that you are taking these pictures for a class project to try to learn to design the devices better.
Back on campus, put together a one page document (with pictures) describing the process for paying with each system, any problems that you had, and any problems that you saw others experience. Identify, in particular, problems with the interface for selecting payment type, the device for doing debit or credit transactions, and with the process for paying by cash.
Post this document to the course Wiki. Reserve some space at the bottom of page 2 to snap a picture of your group, and introduce yourselves (name is enough) to the class.