[DG: Teaching & Learning] [DG: User Experience] User Goals

[John Norman]

Well, don't I just love the academic discourse :-)

Go gently with me because I am not a professional - but can't we apply  
the same thinking to your reading and writing example Luke? We may  
talk in terms of "the goal is to read this article", but that is  
vaguely absurd as a goal. The goal is to discover, absorb (and perhaps  
later critique) the _work of the author_, most conveniently done by  
reading the paper. A secondary goal might be to familiarise yourself  
with the craft of writing an academic paper so that you can become  
proficient as an academic (or potential academic), but that is rarely  
the primary goal.

Similarly with writing. The task is to express yourself, demonstrate  
mastery of something, communicate ideas. Imaginative instructors may  
accept all sorts of channels/media for such expression/communication,  
but currently writing is one of the most common. Again a secondary  
goal _may_ be proficiency in an important academic skill, but a choice  
of medium does not make use of the medium the goal.

Can't wait to see where we go with that one :-)

John

On 4 Nov 2009, at 17:29, Luke Fernandez wrote:

> An interesting exercise....which begs the question (which I think Clay
> alludes to at the end of his post) as to whether pedagogical goals
> can, in all instances, be articulated in ways that are abstracted from
> the technologies we use for teaching and learning.
>
> A case in point is that many instructors (especially in the
> humanities) view reading and writing as fundamental skills that they
> seek to impart to their students.  But reading and writing are
> themselves techniques and presume the use of the written word which is
> itself a technology.  In the first monday article that Michael
> circulated Lane seems to be lamenting as Thoreau did that we are
> becoming tools of our tools.  But technology is so embedded in the
> teaching of some disciplines that it would be difficult to get away
> from this circularity.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Luke
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Robin Hill <hill at uwyo.edu> wrote:
>> 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
>>>  _______________________________________________ pedagogy mailing
>>>  list pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org
>>>  http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/pedagogy
>>>
>>>  TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to
>>>  pedagogy-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org with a subject of
>>>  "unsubscribe"
>>
>> --
>>  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
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> pedagogy mailing list
>> pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org
>> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/pedagogy
>>
>> TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to pedagogy-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org 
>>  with a subject of "unsubscribe"
>>
> _______________________________________________
> sakai-ux mailing list
> sakai-ux at collab.sakaiproject.org
> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai-ux
>
> TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send email to sakai-ux-unsubscribe at collab.sakaiproject.org 
>  with a subject of "unsubscribe"