Running head: ED7814 Audience and Environmental Analysis

Audience and Environmental Analysis

Elaine M. Mello
Capella University
ED7814 January 17, 2016

ED7814 Audience and Environmental Analysis

XYZ University uses video conferencing to collaborate with partner universities and
corporations for research, teaching and consulting by departments, labs and centers. Many
departments have built their own video conferencing systems within their own conference room
spaces for the convenience of their faculty and management. Video conferencing saves time and
money, avoiding travel to remote locations and local systems are installed for the convenience of
the department personnel. Each system is customized to the needs of the department and are
controlled by a touch panel interface for ease of use. These systems are then expected to be selfservice for the users. The spaces are usually reserved via a department based calendaring system
and administrative staff often bear the brunt of scheduling and setup of these systems for
departmental management and faculty.
Once construction has been completed, support groups on campus provide one to two
training sessions for staff who can make the training sessions, after which they provide a paper
document for users to follow for self-service video conferencing. The design and support groups
have created a universal design for installation which will allow for easier training and a central
online e-learning portal for users to train. It is important to know who the users are on any
particular project in order to create an effective design that will work well and suit their needs
(Stone, Jarrett, Woodroffe and Minocha, 2005). Understanding the environment that they work
in is necessary for an accurate analysis (Dirksen, 2012). The more detailed the analysis, the more
focused the design. The working environment will be examined for distractions which may
impact the learning or day to day work. Users will be interviewed and observed to gather
information for the design.
Proposed course project: A self-directed and self-paced e-learning website to train learners on
the use of a video conferencing room for collaboration.

ED7814 Audience and Environmental Analysis

Context: Higher Education - private university

Audience analysis: Learners are primarily department administrative assistants who are tasked
with supporting department facilities and conference rooms. Additional learners will be faculty
teaching assistants and research post-doctoral students who work with faculty. All of these
individuals work with computers on a daily basis and should be familiar with website training
through university professional development training opportunities such as Lynda.com and
internal training on applications that are used on a daily basis.
Learners will access the e-learning through a central website and will be able to progress
through the learning modules sequentially or individually for later review, if needed. The elearning modules will have interactive quizzes that will allow learners to recall skills that they
have that are similar to those they will employ for setting up a video conference. They will have
the ability to refer to information through downloadable job aids that will assist them in recall of
information. The design of the interface and training will be impacted by user knowledge and
experience (Sundar, Bellur, Oh, Xu and Jia, 2014).
The work culture at XYZ University is very much a hands' on experience, and everyone
is expected to take control of their area. Administrative assistants support department heads,
deans and faculty by arranging meetings and scheduling collaborative conferences. The
expectation is that they will also schedule and set up the video conferencing rooms that have
been recently installed, either on their own or with the assistance of others within the department
and with support departments such as the Office of Digital Learning (ODL) and Information
Systems & Technology (IS&T) as needed. Teaching and research assistants will also be
expected by faculty to run video conferences for collaborative research groups and meetings.
Conference rooms are booked through an internal department calendar that is maintained by the

ED7814 Audience and Environmental Analysis

administrative assistants and booked on a first come, first served basis. Users will need to follow
procedures outlined in the training to insure trouble-free conferencing for their faculty and
department heads.
The physical environment is a busy university department headquarters with multiple
assistants. It also includes faculty administrative assistants who may be located elsewhere in the
building or campus with their primary faculty member that they support. They have access to
their own computers for training purposes as well as their daily work and will coordinate access
to the video conferencing rooms for their department and students. A full audience and
environmental analysis can be found in Appendix A.
Conclusion
Once analysis has been completed, the designer can create personas of user types
incorporating characteristics for an effective design. This will allow the design team to create an
appropriate design that incorporates the range of learner profiles from novice to expert in regard
to their knowledge of the video conferencing domain. The e-learning module will then enable
learners to feel more comfortable when using the actual video conferencing room systems within
their departments as they perceive the interface as being more affordable and familiar for better
interaction in their work (Park and Song, 2014). This will lead to increased self-efficacy in their
day to day work and decrease the need for outside support for their work.

ED7814 Audience and Environmental Analysis

References
Dirksen, J. (2012) Design for how people learn. Berkeley, CA: New Riders
Park, H., & Song, H. (2015). Make e-learning effortless! Impact of a redesigned user interface
on usability through the application of an affordance design approach. Journal of
Educational Technology & Society, 18(3), 185-196. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.library.capella.edu/docview/1707773435?accountid=27965
Stone, D., Jarrett, C., Woodroffe, M., & Minocha, S. (2005). User interface design and
evaluation. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
Sundar, S. s., Bellur, S. s., Oh, J. o., Xu, Q. q., & Jia, H. h. (2014). User experience of on- Screen
interaction techniques: An experimental investigation of clicking, sliding, zooming,
hovering, dragging, and flipping. Human-Computer Interaction, 29(2), 109-152

ED7814 Audience and Environmental Analysis

Appendix A

ED7814 Audience and Environmental Analysis