Step 2 – Understand

The Business Function

-RIE-
 Preface
• A thorough understanding of the user has
been obtained, and the focus now shifts to the
business function.
• Requirements must be determined and user
activities being performed must be described
through task analysis.
• Design standards must also be created (if not
already available), usability goals established,
and training and documentation needs
determined
• These step will result a conceptual model.

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 General Step
1. Perform a business definition and
requirements analysis.
2. Determine basic business functions.
3. Describe current activities through task
analysis.
4. Develop a conceptual model of the system.
5. Establish design standards or style guides.
6. Establish system usability design goals.
7. Define training and documentation needs.

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 1. Business Definition & Req
Analysis
• The Objectives of this phase is to establish
the need for a system.
• A product description is developed and
refined, based on input from users,
marketing, or other interested parties.
• The developer should be aware of the policies
and work culture of the organization.
• Information Collection Techniques :
– Direct Methods : face-to-face meetings with, or
actual viewing of users to solicit requirements.
– Indirect methods : impose an intermediary,
someone or something, between the users and
the developers.

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 Direct Method
• Face-to-face interview
• Telephone interview
• Traditional Focus Group
• Observational Field Study
• Prototyping
• Usability Laboratory Testing
• Card Sorting

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 Face-to-face Interview
• A one-on-one visit is held with the user.
• Types of interview question :
– Structured : interviews are easier for the
interviewer
– open-ended :interviews are harder to conduct
but provide a greater opportunity to detect and
follow up on relevant issues. Data analysis is
more difficult
• The interview must have focus and topics to
be covered must be carefully planned

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 Face-to-face Interview
(cont’d)
• Useful topics to ask the user to describe in an
interview include the following:
– The activities performed in completing a task
or achieving a goal or objective.
– The methods used to perform an activity.
– What interactions exist with other people or
systems.
– Potential measures of system usability.
– Unmentioned exceptions to standard policies
or procedures.
– Relevant knowledge the user must possess to
perform the activity
– Ask users to describe the ideal version of a
product

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 Face-to-face Interview
(cont’d)
• Advantages :
– give user full attention
– can easily include follow-up questions to gain
additional information
– have more time to discuss topics in detail
– will derive a deeper understanding of your
users, their experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and
desires.
– If you conduct an interview at the work site, you
can see the user’s technology and
environment

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 Face-to-face Interview
(cont’d)
• Disadvantages :
– can be costly and time-consuming to conduct
– someone skilled in interviewing techniques
should perform them.
– The interviewer must establish a positive
relationship with the user, ask questions in a
neutral manner, be a good listener, and know
when and how to probe for more information.
– Time must also be allowed for free
conversation in interviews.

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 Telephone Interview
• Interview that is conducted using the
telephone
• It must have structure and be well planned.
Arranging the interview in advance allows the
user to prepare for it.
• Advantages : less expensive and less invasive
• Disadvantages :
– It is impossible to gather contextual
information such as a description of the
working environment
– replies may be easily influenced by the
interviewer’s comments
– body language cues are missing

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 Traditional Focus Group
• A small group of users (8 to 12) and a
moderator are brought together to discuss
the requirements.
• The discussion is loosely structured, the
range of topics must be determined
beforehand
• The purpose of a focus group is to probe
users’ experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and
desires, and to obtain their reactions to
ideas or prototypes.
• Focus groups are not usually useful for
establishing how users really work or what
kinds of usability problems they really have.

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 Observational Field Study
• To see and learn what users actually do in
their own environment, office, or home in a
range of contexts for a period of time
• Advantages : provides good insight into tasks
being performed, the working environment
and conditions, the social environment, and
working practices
• Disadvantages :
– time consuming and expensive
– the inability of the evaluator to obtain a full
record of the user’s activities in one session
– direct observation is considered to be intrusive
and can change a user’s performance and
behavior

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 Prototyping
• Requirement Prototyping
A demonstration model, or very early
prototype, is presented to users for their
comments concerning functionality and to
clarify requirements
• User Interface Prototyping
A demonstration model, or early prototype, is
presented to users to uncover user interface
issues and problems

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 Usability Laboratory Testing
• A special laboratory is constructed and
users are brought in to perform actual newly
designed tasks.
• Problems uncovered may result in modification
of the requirements
• Expensive to create and operate

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 Card Sorting for Web
Sites
• A technique used to establish hierarchical
groupings and the information architecture
for Web sites.
• Normally used only after gathering substantial
potential site content information using other
analysis techniques.
• Potential content topics are place on individual
index cards and users are asked to sort the
cards into groupings that are meaningful to
them.
• Card sorting assists in building the site’s
structure, map, and page content.

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 Indirect Method
• MIS Intermediary
• Paper Survey or Questionnaire
• Electronic Survey or Questionnaire
• Electronic Focus Group
• Marketing and Sales
• Support Line
• E-Mail, Bulletin Boards, or Guest Book
• User Group
• Competitor Analysis
• Trade Show
• System Testing

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 MIS Intermediary
• The intermediary role fulfilled by a company
representative who defines the user’s goals
and needs to designers and developers
• This representative may come from the
Management Information Services
department, or he or she may be from the
using department

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 Paper Survey or
Questionnaire
• Administered to a sample of users to obtain
their needs
• Potential to be used for a large target
audience located almost anywhere
• Much cheaper than customer visits
• May take a long time to collect and may be
difficult to analyze
• Useful for determining users’ attitudes,
experiences and desires, but not for
determining actual tasks and behaviors
• should be composed mostly of closed
questions (yes/no, multiple choice, short
answer, and so on)

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 Electronic Survey or
Questionnaire
• Administered to a sample of users via e-mail
or the Web.
• Less expensive than mailed surveys.
• The speed of their return can also be much
faster than those distributed in a paper
format
• Also consider a follow-up, more detailed
survey, called iterative survey.
– A follow-up survey goal is to ask the participant
to prioritize their needs and to rank expected
user tasks according to their importance.
– A third follow-up survey can also be designed to
gather additional information about the most
important requirements and tasks

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 Electronic Focus Group
• The discussion is accomplished electronically
using specialized software on a workstation,
e-mail, or a Web site
• Advantages :
– the discussion is less influenced by group dynamics
– has a smaller chance of being dominated by one or a few
participants
– can be anonymous, leading to more honest comments and
less caution in proposing new ideas
– can generate more ideas in a shorter time
– can lead to longer sessions

• Disadvantages :
– depth and richness of verbal discussions does not exist
– the communication enhancement aspects of seeing
participant’s body language are missing

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 Marketing and Sales
• Company representatives who regularly
meet customers obtain suggestions or needs,
current and potential
• Business representatives do have knowledge
of the nature of customers, the business,
and the needs that have to be met
• Some dangers: The information may be
collected from the wrong people, the
representative may unintentionally bias
questions
• The developers should know the interests
and bias of the representatives collecting the
information.

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 Support Line
• Information is collected by the unit (Customer
Support, Technical Support, Help Desk, and so
on) that helps customers with day-to-day
problems
• This is fairly inexpensive and the target user
audience is correct.
• The focus of this method is usually only on
problems

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 E-Mail, Bulletin Boards, or
Guest Book – User Group
• E-Mail, Bulletin Boards, or Guest Book :
– Problems, questions, and suggestions by users
posted to a bulletin board, a guest book, or
through e-mail are gathered and evaluated.
– The responsibility is on the user to generate the
recommendations, but this population often
includes unhappy users
• User Group :
– Improvements suggested by customer groups
who convene periodically to discuss system and
software usage are evaluated
– User groups have the potential to provide a lot
of good information, if organized properly

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 Competitor Analysis – Trade
Show – System Testing
• Competitor Analysis :
– Reviews of competitor’s products, or Web sites, can be
used to gather ideas, uncover design requirements,
and identify tasks
– The designers can perform this evaluation or, even
better, users can be asked to perform the evaluation.
• Trade Show:
– Customers at a trade show can be exposed to a mock-
up or prototype and asked for comments.
– Dependent on the knowledge level of the customers
and may provide only a superficial view of most
prominent features
• System Testing
– New requirements and feedback stemming from
ongoing system testing can be accumulated,
evaluated, and implemented

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 Requirement Collection
Guidelines & Problems
• Guidelines :
– Establish four to six different developer-user links
– Provide most reliance on direct links
• Possible Problems :
– Not enough user, customer, and other interested party
involvement in the process.
– Lack of requirements management or coordination.
– Communication problems among all participants.
– Capturing the relevant information may be difficult
– People who do understand the problem may be
constrained
– Organizational and political factors and agendas may
influence the process
– Disparities in knowledge may exist
– Changing economic and business environments and
personnel roles

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 2. Basic Business Function
• A detailed description of what the product will
do is prepared
• Major system functions are listed and
described, including critical system inputs and
outputs
• The process :
– Gain a complete understanding of the user’s
mental model based upon
• The user’s needs and the user’s profile
• A user task analysis.
– Develop a conceptual model of the system
based upon the user’s mental model, including :
• Defining objects
• Developing metaphors.

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 Mental Model
• Is an internal representation of a person’s
current conceptualization and
understanding of something
• Mental models are gradually developed
through experience, training, and
instruction
• Enable a person to understand, explain,
and do something
• Mental models enable a person to predict the
actions necessary to do things if the actions
have been forgotten or have not yet been
encountered.

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 3. Performing a Task
Analysis
• Analysis to the user activities, the way in
which people perform tasks
• Task analysis involves breaking down the
user’s activities to the individual task level
• The goal : obtain an understanding of why
and how people currently do the things that
will be automated
• The output : a complete description of all user
tasks and interactions, including scenario
and list of objects

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 Scenario
• A narative description of the user’s current tasks
• Detailed enough so that designers can infer, and
reason about, the implications the activities and
their flow have on interface design
• Straub (2004a) : Scenarios play a critical unifying
role at several levels :
– They bring a level of coherence to requirements
by providing a “real world” task level description
– They provide a design-neutral bridge between
developers working on different modules
– They provide a meaningful and accessible
common ground for communicating and
conveying the minds and needs of the users to
the system models that the developers create.

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 List of Objects
• Object: Something that the users see as
important to what they do
• The objects can be sorted into the following
categories:
– Concrete objects — things that can be touched
– People who are the object of sentences —
normally organization employees (customers,
for example)
– Forms or journals — things that keep track of
information
– People who are the subject of sentences —
normally the users of a system
– Abstract objects — anything not included
above.

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 4. Developing Conceptual
Model
• Is the general conceptual framework
through which the system’s functions are
presented
• Describes how the interface will present
objects, the relationships between objects,
the properties of objects, and the actions
that will be performed
• A conceptual model is based on the user’s
mental model
• The goal : to facilitate for the user the
development of a useful mental model of the
system

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 Guidelines Designing
Conceptual Models
• Reflect the user’s mental model, not the
designer’s
• Draw physical analogies or present metaphors
• Comply with expectancies, habits, routines, and
stereotypes
• Provide action-response compatibility
• Make invisible parts and processes of a system
visible
• Provide proper and correct feedback
• Avoid anything unnecessary or irrelevant
• Provide design consistency
• Provide documentation and a help system that
will reinforce the conceptual model
• Promote the development of both novice and expert
mental models
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 Defining Objects
• Determine all objects that have to be
manipulated to get work done. Describe
– The objects used in tasks.
– Object behavior and characteristics
– The relationship of objects
– The actions performed
– The objects to which actions apply
– Information or attributes that each object in the
task must preserve, display, or allow to be
edited
• Identify the objects and actions that appear
most often in the workflow
• Make the several most important objects very
obvious and easy to manipulate

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 Developing Metaphors
• A metaphor is a concept where one’s body of
knowledge about one thing is used to
understand something else
• Guidelines :
– Choose the analogy that works best for each
object and its actions
– Use real-world metaphors
– Use simple metaphors
– Use common metaphors
– Multiple metaphors may coexist
– Use major metaphors, even if you can’t exactly
replicate them visually
– Test the selected metaphors

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 The User’s New Mental Model
• When the system is implemented, a person
interacts with the new system and its
interface.
– If the designer has correctly reflected the user’s
mental model in design: the user’s mental
model is reinforced and a feeling that the
interface is intuitive will likely develop
– if the new system does not accurately reflect the
user’s existing mental model : the results
include breakdowns in understanding, confusion,
errors, loss of trust, and frustration  an
inability to perform the task or job
• If there was a gap between conceptual model
and mental model, then tried to bridge this
gap through extensive documentation and
training.
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 5. Design Standards or
Style Guides
• In interface design it describes the
appearance and behavior of the interface
and provides some guidance on the proper
use of system components.
• It also defines the interface principles, rules,
guidelines, and conventions that must be
followed in detailed design
• It will be based on the characteristics of the
system’s hardware and software, the
principles of good interface and screen design

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 Value of Standards and
Guidelines
• To Users :
– Allow faster performance
– Reduce errors
– Reduce training time
– Foster better system utilization
– Improve satisfaction
– Improve system acceptance
– Reduce development and support costs
• To System Developers :
– Increase visibility of the human-computer interface
– Simplify design
– Provide more programming and design aids, reducing
programming time
– Reduce redundant effort
– Reduce training time
– Provide a benchmark for quality control testing

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 Business System Interface Standards,
Guidelines, and Style Guides

• 1981 : The first text to present a compilation of

interface and screen design guidelines was that of
Galitz (1981).
• 1986 : The United States Air Force released a set of
design guidelines for its user interface designers

Commercial Style Guides

Apple Human Interface Guidelines for the Macintosh
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/
Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines
IBM Ease of Use Web site
www-03.ibm.com/easy/page/558
Microsoft Windows XP User Interface Guidelines
http://www.microsoft .com
Sun Microsystems Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines
http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/HIGTitle.html

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 UI Standards
• A user interface standard is an official set of
internationally agreed-upon design
approaches and principles for interface design.
– ISO 9241: Ergonomic requirements for office work
with visual display terminals
– ISO 14915: Software ergonomics for multimedia
user interfaces
– ISO 13407: Human-centered design processes for
interactive systems
– ISO/CD 20282: Ease of operation of everyday
products

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 Web Guidelines and Style
Guides
• There has not been an opportunity for
conventions and style guides to be properly
developed and then accepted by the
development community
• De facto standards are being established when
an overwhelming majority of big sites focus on
one way to do something
• Worldwide standards are also being looked at
by organizations such as the World Wide Web
Consortium (2001)

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 Customized Style Guides
• Include checklists to present principles and
guidelines.
• Provide a rationale for why the particular
guidelines should be used.
• Provide a rationale describing the conditions
under which various design alternatives are
appropriate.
• Include concrete examples of correct design.
• Design the guideline document following
recognized principles for good documen
design.
• Provide good access mechanisms such as a
thorough index, a table of contents,
glossaries, and checklists.
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 6. Design Support and
Implementation
• Use all available reference sources in
creating the guidelines.
• Use development and implementation tools
that support the guidelines.
• Begin applying the guidelines immediately

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 7. System Training and
Documentation Needs
• Training
– System training will be based on user needs,
system conceptual design, system learning
goals, and system performance goals.
– Training may include such tools as formal or
video training, manuals, online tutorials,
reference manuals, quick reference guides, and
online help.
• Documentation
– System documentation is a reference point, a
form of communication, and a more concrete
design — words that can be seen and
understood.
– It will also be based on user needs, system
conceptual design, and system performance
goals
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 7. System Training and
Documentation Needs (Cont’d)
– Creating documentation during development
progress will uncover issues and reveal
omissions that might not otherwise be
detected until later in the design process.
– Any potential problems can be identified and
addressed earlier in the design process, again
reducing later problems and modification costs.

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