[DG: Teaching & Learning] User Goals

[Robin Hill]

I agree completely.  Articulating the pedagogical goals rather than the 
mechanics is a worthy exercise; in fact, it's the whole point.  And more 
difficult than it seems, so I invite others to point out the hidden 
assumptions in my stated objectives, as well.


Clay Fenlason wrote:
>  I was looking at the "Learning Capabilities" spreadsheet [1] again
>  this morning, and was glad to see it being fleshed out. I did however
>  note a tendency for the "user goals" to creep into feature requests
>  and implementation assumptions as the list grows longer, which starts
>  to dilute its effectiveness. Since I warned on the T&L call a few
>  weeks ago that I would be pushing back on this kind of thing, I now
>  feel free ;) I know it's hard to avoid the sort of language that
>  assumes common web tools, since we all live and breathe in this
>  space, but let me urge the effort once again, and offer a few
>  examples to illustrate the point.
>
>  Near the top of the sheet the user goals take the form of "I need to
>  see who's in my class" and "I want to learn the names of all my
>  students/peers." Simple and universal needs with no technological or
>  functional assumptions.
>
>  Near the bottom there are now user goals like "Allow me to use common
>  keyboard shortcuts" and "Allow me to listen to class readings with a
>  screen reader." For such things it would be better to place them
>  among the "capabilities" columns and try to trace them back to the
>  essential, non-technical need. Maybe that's going to be the right
>  exercise for most of us who take these technical tools as second
>  nature: first lay out what seem to us the capabilities in the middle
>  of the sheet, and then try to work back to the left what the
>  underlying, non-technical user goal is. If that can't be done that
>  may be a sign of something.
>
>  ~Clay
>
>  [1]
> 
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlfbHxo2qpHEdHRuSnowVGMwWE9HY1MtVjFpY1dtS0E&hl=en
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-- 
  Robin Hill, Ph.D.       hill at uwyo.edu       307-766-5499
  Instructional Computing Services            http://www.uwyo.edu/ctl
  Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning   University of Wyoming