Microsoft Research Project

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.