Assignment 2: Project Personas, Goals, and Task Analysis

I213 User Interface Design and Development
Prof. Marti Hearst

Nate Agrin
Jessica Kline
Andrew McDiarmid
Ken-ichi Ueda

Project Management Structure

Group Manager: Ken-ichi
Evaluation Manager: Jess
Documentation Manager: Andrew
Design Manager: Nate
(Ken-ichi will also recruit potential users)

Development of Personas

When considering ways to narrow the scope of our initial design, we limited our targeted naturalists to birders and mushroom foragers, two areas in which Ken-ichi has significant experience.  As a research exercise, Ken-ichi, Jess, and Andrew went birding with one potential user (Interview #2). Ken-ichi also e-mailed several acquaintances and listservs to recruit additional participants.  Interviews were conducted from February 6 through February 11, according to the outline which appears with the resulting notes as Appendix A.  Each interview was conducted by two group members, with one guiding the discussion and the other taking notes.  We interviewed two birders and two mushroom foragers, with varying levels of experience.

From these interviews and observations, we brainstormed five initial personas (a sixth, Jenny Takahashi, was conceived as a combination of two of these five).  These personas, including edge cases, are detailed below.  Our process was similar to the practice session in class.  We called out characteristics based on our impressions from the interviews, and gradually achieved consensus for each persona.  Common or extreme cases, such as Frances del Toro and Ted Sinclair, respectively, were easier to agree on; we spent more time debating the more moderate personalities to make them believable.

Once we settled on five potential personas, we combined their goals into a common list, and drew connections to associated tasks on iNaturalist (Appendix B).  This step provided a helpful transition from abstract goals to concrete tasks and priorities.  Aggregating similar goals and drawing many-to-many connections to site tasks made prioritizing much easier.  As we examined each persona, we could trace a task directly back to their goals in order to judge its importance on a three-point scale: low, med, high.

After prioritizing tasks for the initial five personas, we evaluated their worth as potential users of the system.  Frances de Toro was the first edge case eliminated.  We were somewhat surprised that a persona we understood to be so common in the birding community would be dropped, but decided that in the initial phase iNaturalist will be targeted at more serious and computer-savvy naturalists.  We then thought it would be possible to combine Mike Yee, whose non-culinary interest in mushrooms did not match our interview data, and Lauren Polansky, who would not be a contributor to the site in the initial phase, into one detail-obsessed and protective edible-mushroom hunter.  Thus our final core personas are outdoorsman Adam Thompson, "hot-birder" Ted Sinclair, and Jenny Takahashi.

Personas

Adam Thompson

Adam is an instructor and trip leader with the National Outdoor Leadership School, and also freelances for various adventure tourism trips whenever and wherever he can.  He's in his late 20s, has a BA in environmental studies from Colorado College, and has a favorite hat that is old, sweat-stained, and never leaves his head.  He likes to learn about the areas where he leads trips so he can teach his students and clients about the local natural history.  His existing knowledge is mostly restricted to the destinations he frequents.  He has a casual interest in collecting mushrooms.  He's relatively computer literate, keeps up with his friends across the country via e-mail, and has a Friendster profile.

Goals

• Be prepared with local nature knowledge for his trips
• Teach others about nature
• Expand his knowledge of nature for his own edification
• Meet like-minded people

Justification
Adam is our casual, general user.  Not everyone will have the inclination to record data consistently, but we think many users may find the data that others record quite useful, and will also be interested in the social aspects of data sharing.  Adam, therefore, has an incidental, largely utilitarian approach to the service, insofar as it helps him with his job and with his social life.  He is also not a specialist, like a birder or a mushroom gatherer.  He is interested in a more holistic view of what can be observed in an area, which is another potential use we envision for this service.

Ted Sinclair

Ted is a "hot birder."  He is among the most avid members of his local birding community, and enjoys considerable respect for his expertise.  He is 48, married without children, and works as an actuary.  His wife enjoys birding as well, but nowhere near as much as Ted does.  Ted has very nice spotting scope and a camera to go with it, maintains a large and meticulously updated life list of all the birds he's ever seen, and enjoys going on birding vacations around the world.  He also leads trips for his local Audubon Society.

Goals

• See every bird in the world
• Be well-respected in his local birding community
• Get outside

Justification
One of our interview volunteers described especially avid and popular birders in the community as "hot birders."  They are the most passionate, knowledgeable, and/or skillful birders in the area, and are often community leaders who lead trips and act as authorities on identification.  Judging from our interviews, it seems these people are the most likely to keep rigorous notes on their birding observations, so we think they have a high probability of using iNaturalist.  Ted, therefore, is our "hot birder," technically an amateur but still extremely skilled and knowledgeable about birds and birding. 

Another interesting component of this group that came out of our interviews was the the consideration of reputation.  Birders compete in general over who can spot rare birds first, or who can take the best photograph.  They also specifically compete in events called "Big Days" or "Big Years" in which they choose a location and try to beat the record of how many species have been observed in that area in the past.  Ted embodies this aspect of the community by valuing his position as an expert.  We do not see him as egotistic, but rather as unconsciously proud.

Jenny Takahashi

Jenny is an active member of the Mycological Society of San Francisco (MSSF). Every other weekend she hikes with friends she's met through the MSSF. While she enjoys the outdoors, she especially loves finding edible mushrooms, which she later cooks at home. Jenny is a foodie. As a nutritionist, she eats well, attends the gym daily, and plays soccer every Tuesday. Jenny is 30 and enjoys living alone (her San Francisco condo is well kept.) She also keeps good records of her mushroom findings.

Goals

• Eat well
  
• Gain a greater understanding of mushrooms, especially edibles
• Remain social with established friends

Justification
Jenny was created after we decided that Mike Yee and Lauren Polansky represented edge-case mushroom hunters (see Rejected Personas below). The mushroom foragers we interviewed had respect and appreciation for nature as well as an interest in cooking and eating edible mushrooms. Therefore, Jenny represents a typical mushroom user. She also represents the many mushroom hunters that have privacy concerns; while she would like to share observations with her friends, she is opposed to granting such access to the general public. Furthermore, Jenny is an ideal user for this system because she consistently documents her findings.

Rejected Personas

Frances del Toro

Frances is a retired school teacher who enjoys birding a few times a week while she goes for walks on the beach.  Ever since her husband died, she's found that birding helps her stay active and social.  She enjoys birding with a group of friends or with her local Audubon Society a few times a month.  She has a big family, and is always amazed with how much her grandchildren use computers.  She is just starting to use e-mail herself, but feels she has a lot to learn.

Goals

• Stay social
• Stay physically and mentally active
• Teach her grandchildren about birds
• Know her natural environment

Justification
We originally developed Frances to represent the predominantly retired community of birders.  She also represented a non-expert, both in the realm of birding and of computer use, so we thought she might be a useful edge case.  After our task analysis, however, it became apparent that none of the tasks we had found important for most of our personas were very important to her, so we decided not to consider her in further development.  We still think she represents a set of real potential users, though, so she may yet play a role if we decide to broaden our target audience.

Mike Yee

Mike is 19 and a computer science major. He feels a lot of pressure from his family to succeed; he lives in the footsteps of two older siblings: one is a recent business school graduate and the other will attend medical school in the fall. As a freshman Mike took a mycology class (to fulfill a general education requirement) and loved his experience. He is especially interested in learning more about the complex spores that mushrooms reproduce. Mike is quiet, neat and organized, and lives in the dorms.

 

Goals

• Learn more about mushrooms
• Distinguish himself from his siblings
• Be successful (in school and in life)

Justification
We originally developed Mike to represent the heavily technical user that is enthusiastic about utilizing our system. However, Mike is not interested in many of the tasks important to many mushroom foragers, such as: hiking, eating and cooking mushrooms, identifying mushroom specimens, as well as distinguishing between edibles and non edibles. Because Mike does not represent a typical mushroom gatherer, we decided to no longer consider him for future development.

Lauren Polansky

Lauren is a line cook at a semi-fancy restaurant. She's in her early thirties and working her way through culinary school. She has some tattoos and some debt. Lauren and her dog, Tank, enjoy exploring urban parks and private property. She enjoys the money she saves by finding edible mushrooms and keeps a mental record of her discoveries. Recently, she found a patch of chanterelles in a spot that she hopes to keep hidden. Lauren uses a second generation iBook and has a MySpace account, but doesn't enjoy spending time on her computer.

Goals

• Finish culinary school
  
• Walk the dog and explore new areas
• Find edible and psychedelic mushrooms
  

Justification
We originally developed Lauren to represent a mushroom hunter that is not interested in sharing her discoveries, but more than willing to utilize the data shared by others. However, Lauren is not an ideal user of our system because she is unwilling to share information with anyone (including friends) and she only keeps a mental record of her discoveries. While it is important that we are aware of mushroom users such as Lauren, she is a non-contributing member of our system so we decided to no longer consider her for initial development.

Tasks

• Record species
• In order to effectively record observations, a user must be able to record the species of the organism they observed.  Users need to be able to select species from a list, or search for species by common or scientific name.
  
• Record time
• Users should be able to record the date and time that they observed an animal.  This includes obvious information such as day, year, hour, etc., but should also offer the option to specify AM or PM, distinguish between a 24 hour clock and a 12 hour clock, and if location is not provided allow users to define a specific time zone in which the observation occurred.
  
• Record place
• Recording the physical location on a map or through a named location is important information that users should be able to include in their observations, either through typing it out, providing geo-coordinates or by selecting it on a map.

• Correlate other data
  
• Some users may wish to correlate additional environmental aspects of the location of their sightings.  This information may be specific to a day and time, such as weather, or be more geographically limited, such as vegetation growth.
  
• Browse other's observations
• Viewing what other people have observed in a given area is a potentially important aspect of the service.  Users might preform this task in order to learn more about a certain environment or to find a location with a desirable organism.
  
• Search
• Users need methods of finding organisms in order to discover sighting locations or to properly identify one of their own sightings.
  
• Associate personal photos with observations
• Naturalists often document their surroundings and findings through the use of photography, and would likely require a method of associating the images they capture with the observation notes they enter.
  
• Restrict access to people and groups
• Privacy is a concern many users may share.  Any observation, including the associated photographs should provide appropriate privacy options, allowing only specific users or groups to view them.
  
• Ask questions for IDing
• Users may desire a forum or collaborative messaging space where they can request an observation be identified by the community.
  
• Answer questions
• Some users may wish to be able to answer other member's questions, again, in a collaborative message space.
  
• Friend list and management
• Community may be an important aspect for some of the users who often observe nature in groups, through hiking or doing other outdoors activities (biking, kayaking, etc.).  For these users, staying in touch and directly sharing their observations with others may be an important social component of the system, and would require the ability to associate other users as friends.
  
• Browse other's photos
• Seeing other users' photos or photos of an organism in order to positively ID a specimen may be important to some users.
  

Personas' task priorities

Task Adam Thompson Ted Sinclair Jenny Takahashi Lauren Polansky Mike Yee Frances del Toro Record Medium High High Low High Medium Correlate Low Medium High Medium Medium Low Browse Medium High Medium Low Low Medium Search High High High High High Low Restrict Low Low High High Low Low Photos Medium High Medium Low Medium Low Ask Medium Low Medium Medium Medium High Answer Medium High Medium Low Low Low Friends High Medium High Medium Low Low Browse Photos High High High Medium High High

Work Percentages

Step 1: Determine project management structure (A-25, J-25, K-25, N-25)
Step 2: Design interview (A-25, J-25, K-25, N-25);  Recruitment (J-50, K-50)
Step 3: Conduct interviews (A-25, J-25, K-25, N-25)
Step 4: Determine personas, goals, and tasks (A-25, J-25, K-25, N-25)
Step 5: Write up (A-30, N-30, J-20, K-20)
Step 6: Web site set-up/publishing (A-20, K-80)

All images published under Creative Commons licenses at www.flickr.com.