Assignment 2: Project Personas, Goals, Task Analysis

Team Management Structure
Revised Problem Statement
Explanation of Personas and Goals
Personas and Goals
Task Description
Work Distribution
Appendices

I. Team Management Structure

• Group manager and documentation manager: Mary Trombley
• Evaluation manager: Shirley Chan
• Design manager: Susanne Eklund

II. Revised Problem Statement

New textbooks for SIMS courses are costly, and textbook buyback services do not offer much money for used books. Many SIMS students have textbooks from previous classes that they would like to sell, but they do not currently have an easy way to connect with potential buyers. Sellers may email class lists to attempt to find a buyer; sellers may solicit upperclassmen who may or may not have books to sell. This method is annoying and not highly effective since the majority of email recipients are not interested in either buying or selling.

We propose to design an online book exchange interface for SIMS students to buy or sell used textbooks and class materials. For project purposes, we plan to focus the system on the SIMS community. If expanded, this project could be used to serve the entire Berkeley community. This system will exist to put buyers and sellers in touch with each other; it will not facilitate on-line auctions or currency exchange. The system will not help sellers get the highest prices, but it may facilitate price comparisons. Sellers will be allowed to list a suggested price and whether or not he or she is willing to bargain. We plan to have our site linked from a portal page such as Simians or the SIMS departmental page.

At the beginning of the semester, a system administrator (possibly a Simians delegate) will list the courses and the books recommended for each course, using an administrative screen. He or she is also responsible for benevolent censorship in case of pranksters.

Features will include notification to potential buyers that a desired book has been posted for sale and mechanisms for ensuring that sold books are removed from the list as soon as possible.

III. Explanation of Personas and Goals

We developed personas from both personal experiences with people at SIMS and from the results of our surveys and interviews. Our survey base consisted of 16 first- and second-year SIMS students and one PhD student. We also conducted three personal interviews with people we felt reflected the diversity of SIMS.

Our results indicated that students place a high priority on ease and speed of use, so our personas reflect these priorities. We also found that students, with their busy schedules, are unwilling to use a system unless it has a critical mass of users that make using it worthwhile. Accordingly, we created personas who had little patience with systems that don’t work. We also have a lot of experience with book buying as undergraduates and graduates; we have experienced frustration with the current systems. Our users are also dissatisfied with current options for different reasons, and so they are willing to consider a new approach to the problem.

IV. Personas and Goals

We created an equal number of male and female personas to reflect the SIMS population. We also decided to choose personas with substantial Internet usage experience, a reflection of the majority of real SIMS students. However, our personas have differing technical backgrounds, family commitments, age levels, and personal goals.

We chose four personas to reflect the four main categories of activity that will occur on the site: browsing, buying, selling, and maintaining the system. These functions will each have an interface; hence, we have a primary persona for each function.

• Sarah McClintock: Browser
• Steve Patel: Buyer
• Yvonne Mallory-Carter: Seller
• Oliver Wang: Administrator

Persona #1: Sarah McClintock

Persona

• From Austin, Texas
• Age 24
• Undergrad at Rice, Econ B.A.
• Worked for Anderson for two years, developed e-commerce applications
• First-year, first semester at SIMS
• Lives in Oakland, takes the bus or rides her bike
• Has an old beagle (100 in human years)
• Long distance boyfriend Michael (in Texas-- he works at Dell)
• Dials in on a modem; can’t afford DSL
• Frequently buys books from the Web
• Not home during the day, so hard to get UPS packages
• Has used many business applications; confident user of Web technology
• Knows what books she needs, but doesn’t know the town bookstores or potential sellers

Goals

• Wants to buy books as cheaply as possible
• Wants to compare as many options as possible
• Doesn’t want to commit any faux pas about asking peers for used books
• Doesn’t want to get ripped off by the bookstores
• Also wants to see the books for other classes she might take later
• Wants to know more about the people at SIMS

Persona #2: Steve Patel

Persona

• First-year SIMS student
• Second generation of Indian descent from New Jersey
• Age 30
• Lives in Emeryville with wife Geeta and daughter Anita (20 mos)
• Has DSL
• Part time worker at PG&E IT
• Doesn’t like to spend his downtime at SIMS
• Impatient with navigation; always uses search
• Plays pick-up Ultimate Frisbee on weekends
• Careful spender; on a budget
• Time is more valuable than money
• Shy; doesn’t know many people at SIMS
• Undergrad at Purdue in CS
• Time is at a premium
• Advanced computer skills: power user
• Likes efficiency and shortcuts

Goals

• Looking to buy textbooks
• Wants to find what books are being sold as quickly as possible
• Wants to spend as much time as possible with his family
• Wants to buy books easily from peers without the awkwardness of approaching strangers

Persona #3: Yvonne Mallory-Carter

Persona

• Second-year SIMS student, about to graduate
• No boyfriend
• Parents are fussy yuppies; grew up in Saratoga
• BFA in graphic design with minor in dance from Wellesley
• Wears black matte jersey and has really cute scarves
• Job offer from Yahoo as usability expert
• Before coming to SIMS, she worked at three different failed startups
• Also works 30 hours a week at a Web design firm
• Always goes to Thirsty Thursday and spends a lot of time at SIMS
• Senior Project: online literacy project
• Secret shame: addicted to Dawson’s Creek and Buffy
• Spam offends Yvonne

Goals

• Wants to sell all books not related to interface design and usability
• Wants to sell books quickly
• Doesn’t care about getting the top price
• Doesn’t want to lug unnecessary books to her new condo in Mountain View

Persona #4: Oliver Wang

Persona

• Second-year SIMS student
• President of Simians
• 23 years old
• Got drafted into being system administrator for this semester
• Doesn’t want to spend more than an hour a month working on system
• Big drinker: organizes Thirsty Thursday
• Secretly in love with best friend
• B.A. in Cognitive Psychology from UC Irvine
• Loves Hitchcock and Bruce Willis movies
• Library science enthusiast: likes policy, info design, and cyberlaw

Goal

• Keep Simians active: build sense of community through programs like BESS
• Wants to efficiently administer BESS and keep information updated
• Wants to save time
• Wants Simians site to be accurate

V. Task Description

Description of necessary and optional tasks and their predicted importance for each persona.

Legend

*Optional task. Otherwise, tasks are required.

**Importance Rating

1 - less important
2 - important
3 - very important

N/A - task does not apply because user is exclusively buyer, seller, or administrator

VI. Work Distribution