Microsoft Research Project

May 7, 2006
Meeting to refine and finalize presentation, documentation, models, flash demo, scenarios, etc.

May 8, 2006
Final Presentation
Flash based scenario portion of the presentation [Mac OS X Projector]

April 30, 2006
Met to finalize presentation draft details.

April 29, 2006
First draft of refined screen shots for flash demo

May 1, 2006
In class presentation

May 2, 2006
Presentation rough draft
To do list of tasks assigned to each team member.

May 3, 2006
Finalized images for INsite device flash demo finalized.
Documentation of INsite service finalized.

May 4, 2006
Finalization of competitive market analysis

May 5, 2006
Refined INSite screens uploaded, including highlight states, cab tips, phone screens and
 airport website screen. Enhancements of some screens planned for Flash demo walkthrough of scenario.

May 6, 2006
Work continues to build the walk through Flash demo of INsite.
Finalization of executive summary, further work on documentation, business case and presentation. Finalization of INsite service model

April 24, 2006
INsite documentation outline created
Refinement of visual language for flash demo screens finalized

April 25, 2006
First draft of business case

April 29, 2006
Meeting in preparation of in class draft presentation May 1st. The group discusses current status, creation of an outline of deliverables, and finalization of presentation draft.

First refined screen shots of look and feel of all INsite screens except cab tips, phone screens and
 airport website screen completed.

April 18, 2006
Meeting to discuss revisions based on prototype think aloud feedback. We discuss adding elements that meet users requested needs such as certain buttons and wording. Discussion of adding additional wireframes addressing what screen would look like for an unsubscribed customer and how screens would look if a customer chose to subscribe. Discussion of payment screens and look and feel of INsite branding were also addressed.

We also discuss incentives for subscription such as 1 month free if you buy the device and tier subscription plans. Discussion revolving around the issues of how the service will meet the needs of both the vendors and consumers continue. We decide vendors will receive aggregated anonymous usage data and advertising opportunites for their subscription fee. Consumers, on the other hand, will get precise information about their location and information relevant to their needs and interests.

Personas of potential users are also discussed. It is decided that three personas will be discussed fully in the documentation, however only the persona of the business traveler will be shown in the presentation.

April 9, 2006
Meeting to compare paper prototype evaluative feedback collected from each member. Results analyzed and issue themes and patterns identified. Preparation for presentation on Wednesday begins.

April 10, 2006
Discussion centers around refinements to make to the paper prototypes based on users’ feedback. One change is creation of a physical INsite button available from any screen throughout the device.

April 11, 2006
Last minute rush to finalize the presentation. Order of presentation slides finalized. Slide creation assigned to each team member. Scenario of use finalized.

April 12, 2006
Presentation of stage 4 protyping research and scenario of use.

April 15, 2006
Schedule for the rest of the semester is uploaded. Tasks are divided among members. Sofia and Siobhan work on content and layout for brief/documentation, Sun Joo continues work on the business case, Jonathan creates documentation for the INsite service and scenario and Simon works on the creation of the hi-fi flash walkthrough of the INsite service.

April 2, 2006
Summary of key features/concepts to incorporate into the device discussed. Issues revolve around software, hardware, connectivity, privacy and brand name considerations.

Investigation of existing online map tools such as (http://www.loki.com/). Which is an application that claims to combine the physical with the digital to make the Internet a truly personal and local experience. It harnesses the World Wide Web by automatically identifying your exact physical location and then making the web revolve around you.

April 3, 2006

Discussion of two key features: the dashboard and the bucket.

Dashboard

This will be a key feature of our system and really highlight the contextual nature of the information we’re presenting. The dashboard will draw from local networks the device senses, Mark’s calendar, unread messages, etc. This is meant to be an intelligent starting point when you first turn on the device.

Bucket
We talked about the idea of an information bucket. Mark can place any type of information (calendar event, address, flight number, food icon, etc.) and re-arrange these objects. Picture some sort of continuum that represents the whole day.

April 5, 2006
Preliminary sketches of user interface task screens compared and discussed.

April 8, 2006
Discussion of think aloud method leads to the creation of a think aloud protocol to be used by team members when evaluating the paper prototypes. Creation of a scenario for the paper prototype testing allows users to imagine a context of use while using the think aloud method to give us feedback.

Finalized paper prototype task screens uploaded for each member to print. Team members conduct prototyping sessions.

March 30, 2006
With generative session complete, discussions begin to center around identifying practical technological solutions for needs that have been addressed.

Team discusses using UMPC (ultra mobile personal computer) as the platform for our device. Team reviews Microsoft and Intel’s review of this technology.

http://www.intel.com/design/mobile/platform/flash/umpc/
http://www.intel.com/design/mobile/platform/umpc.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc/mobile.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc/work.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc/hardware.mspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/mobility/tabletpc/umpc/

March 31, 2006
Suggested list of interactions that need to be addressed in the wireframe screens of our device is discussed. We plan to meet Sunday to compare what each of us has come up with.

Key interactions that need to be addressed in the design include:

Explicit Query
Our system needs to allow direct requests for information.

Send/Receive Messages
Mark should be able to send a get messages in a variety of ways, such as voice, video and text. The designs should imagine how these might work together and the support the varied types of messages.

Mapping
Geographically navigating is a big component of our system. What do these maps look like? How do you pull one up and manipulate it?

Dashboard
This is the idea of there being a single screen that shows Mark everything the system “thinks” he wants to know about right now.

Alerts
Various activities require Mark to be alerted—or not alerted. How does the system know when to alert them and how?

Calendar/Scheduling
The system will need to know something about Mark’s schedule if it wishes to deliver a contextual and personalized experience.

Common themes
There are some common concerns that run through the entire system: contextual hierarchy, configuration, privacy, and reusable interface widgets.

March 19, 2006
Group meets to assemble and prep materials for the research session tomorrow. Details for each component activity are finalized. Because the group contains some vegetarians, some adjustments to the food plans are made.

March 20, 2006
Show time for the research session.
Siobhan and Jonathan will serve as social hosts while Simon handles audio/visual documentation and Sofia takes written notes. During the day, the group does a final sort and check of the materials. Unforeseen circumstances force the group to shift the research session to a new location on campus. One participant e-mails that she is sick. The group manages to find a replacement member and get everyone to the right location on campus; the research session starts promptly at 6:30.

The first activity takes longer to complete than anticipated. The social nature of the event and the large piece of blank white poster board — which the participants tell us they find a bit intimidating — serve to slow things down. After creating their artwork, the participants tell stories about the various materials they included. Aiming to finish on time, we shorten the time allotted for the second activity. During the second activity the participants create storyboards depicting an ideal new experience. They are given a “blue sky” scenario and can use anything from imaginary technology to magical devices to create the story.

Post-activity reflections:

In an ideal world we would have had:

• more time to give the participants for creating/reflecting
• more time to debrief with the participants afterward
• a session held earlier in the day and/or on the weekend so that participants could be fresher
• time for a second research session. Since most of us are new to conducting a research process and learning on the fly, learning from mistakes means either a very fast reiteration or doing nothing.

March 21-26, 2006
Generative Research Analysis and Persona and Scenario Building

The group kicks into high gear preparing for next week’s presentation. The group meets on Tuesday to review and analyze the research session. The business traveler persona initially sketched during the analytic stage is given depth and refined. On Wednesday, the group begins building the presentation’s components, focusing on three main aspects: generative research, usage scenario and proposed solution.

Long meetings are held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as we prepare for the presentation on Monday. We focus on the core ideas from the last presentation in order to include them without going over our time limit. The personas are refined, the scenario is visually represented, and the presentation is practiced. The final step is converting the PPT file to a PWP file for use in Live Meeting and testing it with a trial version of the program.

March 13, 2006
Spring Break! Sensitizing packages are mailed to participants to work on during the week. Our group members take the down time to do some “think” work about our project, considering ideas for personas, scenarios and device forms. Informally, we do a bit of empirical research for our project by talking to friends, family and strangers as we travel.

Monday, March 6
Class Meeting

In class we showed our generative research proposal to Shelly and Bruce and discussed our plans for the remainder of this stage. We have decided to hold our group research session on Monday, March 20th with 6 people. We will be creating a sensitizing package to give them ahead of time that will get them thinking about our topic area so they are ready for the session. These packages will also serve as research results that we will analyze.

Tuesday, March 7
Group Meeting

We finalized plans for the generative session and sensitizing package and assigned roles within the team for getting everything done. We hope to create the packages by Friday so they can be given to participants to fill out while we are on Spring Break.

Wednesday, March 8
Class Meeting

Presentation by Austin Henderson from Pitney Bowes. He talked with us individually about our projects and gave feedback.

March 10, 2006
Sensitizing packages
Materials for sensitizing packages are finalized and the packages are assembled. Encased in primary colored folders, they include four exercises with instructions — two drawing-based and two short answer — as well as stickers, colored pencils and scissors to help spark participant reflection and creativity.

Participants for the research session have also been recruited. The six adults who’ve agreed to participate range in age from early twenties to late thirties. One couple is new to Pittsburgh and just bought a house. Another couple is recently married and have a two-year-old daughter. The group is diverse in experience and cultural background.

The research session is planned for March 20 at Siobhan’s house. The session plans divide the evening into two activities. During the first part, participants use collage to create visual representation about “being new to an area.” The second activity consists of participants using storyboard (or comic book) panels to describe their ideal experience in being new to an area.

Sunday, Feb 19
Group Meeting

• Work on presentation
• Gathering of materials, refinement of models, slides, presentation format.

Monday, Feb 20
Class Meeting

• Finalize presentation
• Gathering of materials, refinement of models, slides, presentation format
• Consideration of “next steps” research methods

Tuesday, Feb 21
Group Meeting

• Finalize presentation scripts
• Rehearse

Wednesday, Feb 22
Microsoft Presentation – Stage 2 Deliverables

Download the presentation here.

• Finalized presentation format.
• Decided on 6 areas of information that would make up the final presentation.
• Formalized the format of the presentation goals.

• Worked on conceptual models for the presentation.
• Finalized the order and manner of presentation.
• Establish a consistent color palette and modified the original territory map to reflect that.
• Finalized how exactly we will present the “what we saw” and “design implication” models.
• Went through the stickies and pulled out ones that really typified each grouping.

Monday, Feb 27
Class Meeting
Agenda: Create slide that summarizes our product and our audience, including scenarios of use.

• Brainstormed ideas for presentation slide
• Started to develop a workable scenario, consideration of information needs, and how these needs would be met by our product.
• Considered the levels of contextual information our device might provide, created mocked up model of what this would look like.
• Considered implications of a product within a ubiquitous high bandwidth future, the limits and possibilities of this future.

Tuesday, Feb 28
Group Meeting
Agenda: To finalize presentation slide.

• Finalized presentation slide content.
• Created statement that summarizes the type of product we are creating, design considerations, persona and scenario of use.

Download extra presentation slide

Wednesday, Mar 1
Class meeting
Agenda: Discuss Generative Research proposal due Monday

• Discussed class presentation on personas and scenarios and how we will use these methods in our research.
• Discussed generative research proposal elements, including what we are trying to understand about our participants and research materials we might use.

Thursday, Mar 2
Group Meeting

• Finalized Generative Research Proposal

Sunday, Jan. 29, 2006
Group Meeting | Grad Studio

• Agenda includes setting audience and creating a research plan. We use IDEO Method Cards to help us become aquainted with different research methods. Research methods will include:

1. current resources – product analysis
2. survey
3. drawing our experience
4. camera journal – directed writing of experience plus pictures
5. touchtone tour – Bruce’s research methods assignment
6. personas – create archetypes of what a typical participant/user is like
7. directed storytelling
8. bodystorming – focus on experiencing new situation, ex. Find a new restaurant, pay attention to what we do to accomplish goal

• The discussion also reveals that our potential audience is hard to determine without some initial research. We agree to revisit this topic once we have some data from the directed story telling.

• Group also determines an additional set weekly meeting time: Tuesday 3 p.m. - ?

• Work begins on content/design of camera journal.

• Complete notes from this meeting are here.

Monday, Jan. 30, 2006
Class Meeting — “Seeing With New Eyes”

• Brief after-class meeting to talk about scheduled research and papers to read

• Reports on initial

Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006
Group Meeting

• Review and refine camera journals.

• Confirm camera journal participants; 1 visitor, 1 semi-permanent visitor; and 1 permanent “mover” will maintain the journals.

• Review and set deadlines for Feb. 22 deliverables.

Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2006
Class Meeting

• An incredibly helpful and pertinent (to us) presentation from Aradhana Goel of MAYA. Group decides to co-op some of MAYA’s techniques in understanding “being new to an area”.

Thursday, Feb. 1, 2006

• Sofia and Jonathan finish producing journal and gathering cameras and deliver them to study participants.

Jan. 23, 2006

• In-class meeting to continue refining and narrowing area of study. Today’s goal is to develop a central topic or theme upon which to build a territory map. Group tries several different ways of framing a sentence based on the overlaps in areas of interest. Group members continue to agree that connectedness and awareness are key aspects of whatever area they finally choose. After some input from Shelley, the group arrives at “New To An Area” as topic.
• Meeting notes

Jan. 24, 2006

• Group meets in the graduate design studio to map out the territory map. Several iterations of the categories and the respective connections entailed in that topic are drawn up on the white board. After several hours of brainstorming and refinement, “knowledge/understanding of an area” emerges as the center of the territory map that will be developed as a Venn diagram.
• The group discusses and assigns roles for the following day’s presentations
• Simon is assigned the design of the Venn diagram.

Jan. 25, 2006

• Presented our area of study to the rest of the project teams and used our territory map to hold a discussion about the many factors we want to consider. Here is a copy of our territory map at the time of this presentation:

Jan. 18, 2006

• We met briefly after the first class to introduce ourselves to each other and to schedule our first meeting as a group. Our assigned homework was to think of four or five areas of individual interest. At our meeting we would compare notes and see if there were related or overlapping areas.

Jan. 22, 2006

• Meeting at Panerra in Squirrel Hill. Several keywords emerge from the discussion, including connectedness, awareness and quality of life.
• Extensive notes from this meeting and details of proposed areas of study are available.