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

[John Norman]

I think this is a promising line of thought in organising our  
thinking. It would be important however, to confirm that such an  
organisation of information resonates with Faculty (as I imagine it  
would).

John

On 4 Nov 2009, at 23:44, Clay Fenlason wrote:

> I was having another thought about the themes that are emerging.
> Again, they seem to be mainly functional clumpings along traditional
> lines, but what if instead they wrapped around activity flows that
> tend to have related patterns, pressures and frames of mind, e.g.
> here's one that's (partially) temporal:
>
> - Start of term: all the setup, syllabussy, "need to learn my
> student's names" kind of things you deal with in the first few weeks
> of term.
> - Assigning and completing work, providing feedback: the activity
> workflows that form the main body of coursework, whether as projects
> in teams, or papers and assignments submitted individually
> - Assessment, exams, grading and other administrivia
>
> I can think of other functionally-oriented sets which are however less
> tool-centric, e.g.
>
> - Tracking learning and engagement
> - Content authoring and publishing
> - Mentoring, peer review and feedback
> - Researching a topic, finding references and resources
>
> Are there other thematic structures that might help relate goals
> better? I think notions like 'content management' don't really wind
> themselves organically around course activities in ways that are
> especially instructive for designing for users in our settings.
>
> ~Clay
>
> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 6:11 PM, David Goodrum
> <davidgoodrum at rocketmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Robin,
>>
>> I think that is a really fine example and I appreciate you sharing  
>> and can relate to the struggle it can take to evolve to the right  
>> level and kind of description.
>>
>> Of course, a goal doesn't have to be that perfect to get a row  
>> started on the document; and others can then help by putting  
>> suggested wording or alternate wording in the same cell in the  
>> matrix.
>>
>> This early on in trying to build this document up, it's most  
>> important to get the ideas out. A structured brainstorming  
>> exercise, one might say.
>>
>> We can revise and refine, sift and sort, clump and cluster, and  
>> summarize and synthesize in the next phase.
>>
>> Best Regards - David
>>
>> On Nov 4, 2009, at 2:47 PM, Robin Hill <hill at uwyo.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Since I take this seriously, having spent years teaching computer
>> science students to separate design from implementaion, maybe I can
>> illustrate the process and the difficulty with a spreadsheet entry  
>> of my
>> own.
>>
>> ========
>> From the point of view of an instructor (of a logic course):
>>
>> 1.  I want an Example Bank.
>> Bad-- no functional description.
>>
>> 2.  I want a set of tagged text records in an associative array.
>> Bad-- assumes a particular mechanism.
>>
>> 3.  I want to maintain my examples in a personal blog that allows  
>> labels
>> on postings.
>> Bad-- assumes a particular tool.
>>
>> 4.  I want examples that I can look up and use.
>> Bad-- too general and vague.
>>
>> 5.  I want to save example of statements and reasoning when  
>> encountered
>> in daily life, and I want to retrieve them based on their properties
>> when composing course materials.
>> Good!
>> ========
>>
>> Clay is welcome to comment, especially if this is NOT what he has  
>> in mind.
>>
>>
>> Clay Fenlason wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 1:15 PM, Luke Fernandez
>> <luke.fernandez at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I guess the question is whether there is a point where we should
>> take the technological needs which our faculty articulate at face
>> value.
>>
>> My experience is that this is most often counterproductive. I think
>> this is why UCD starts with user *research* as opposed to simply
>> asking the users what they want. The important considerations are
>> very often the ones we are not conscious of, let alone those we're
>> able to articulate well, not to mention articulate a solution that
>> will also work for other people and fit well with other technical
>> solutions in the same space, and so forth. It takes talent to
>> synthesize sets of needs and come up with good answers, and that
>> talent is not aided by leaping into implementation details too
>> quickly.
>>
>> My underlying aim is to see us build something helpful and useful,
>> not do a product comparison (and maybe that's why you are coming at
>> this from a different angle). We've got designers ready to do work,
>> and they're the ones with the sort of talent I indicated above. We
>> need to help them cut through to what's essential, not get distracted
>> by incidental detail.
>>
>> I think we're all familiar with conversations where someone confronts
>> us with their issue, we start to raise possibilities or workarounds
>> and press on details of what they're asking for, until they finally
>> throw up their hands and say, "Look, I just want something that will
>> <insert simple thing here> and not be a PITA, and if you can give me
>> that I'll be happy." When they get to the point of putting it that
>> way, then I think we're getting somewhere.
>>
>> ~Clay _______________________________________________ pedagogy
>> mailing list pedagogy at collab.sakaiproject.org
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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
>>
>>
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