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Edition 0: Philosophy Edition |
Brainstorming Sessions
by Sylvia Barnard, SAP AG, Usability Engineering Center – Last changed on 29.04.2002
This paper is outdated.
A brainstorming session occurs within the preparation phase of site visits. It helps the project team to come to a common understanding of the domain. Through sketching the main role's workflow you can clearly recognize what information is missing and needs to be gathered in the site visit interviews. This session provides a basis for setting a focus and creating questions for the site visits.
Note: The 'big picture' that you get from this session about the domain does not necessarily reflect reality!
This document describes a step-by-step process for capturing what you already know about your users, and then representing this information in two ways:
- In User Profiles - a summary of the important characteristics of a particular type of user
- In User/Task Scenarios - descriptions of how a particular type of
user performs tasks in his/her job
- The User Profile and the User/Task Scenarios constitute a complete User Role. For each User Role, you should develop a profile and, for each profile,Role. For each User Role, you should develop a profile and, for each profile, develop several task scenarios.
Figure 1: The step-by-step process for capturing what you already know about your users, and then representing this information
The Process Overview
Your team should go through these steps together to define the key user roles for your application.
| 1. | Brainstorm list of roles |
| 2. | Identify key characteristics |
| 3. | List goals and tasks |
| 4. | Create user profiles |
| 5. | Create user task scenarios |
| 6. | Apply the results |
1. Brainstrom a List of User Roles
Using a brainstorming approach, list all of the different types of users who need to use your application. These can be based on people you have met, people you have heard about, or just what you believe may be true.
Example: List of User Roles for an Accounting Application
- Accounting manager
- Accounts payable clerk
- Accounts receivable clerk
- Accounting analyst
- Named account specialist
2. Identify the Important Characteristics of the Key User Roles
Example: Lists of User Characteristics for Accounting User Roles
| User Characteristics for an Accounts Payable Clerk | |
|---|---|
| Training: | One week, taken right after implementation |
| Use of system: | Daily, with peak use twice a month |
| Keyboard/mouse use: | Prefers keyboard for efficiency |
| User Characteristics for an Accounting Manager | |
| Training: | None |
| Use of system: | Once a week |
| Keyboard/mouse use: | Prefers mouse to browse reports |
User Characteristics List
Use this list to help you think of the characteristics that are important in describing your end-users.
Education and Experience Level:
- Amount of experience/expertise in the application area (finance, HR, etc.)
- Amount of experience with R/3 or similar products
- Amount of experience with computers or operating systems
- Amount and type of training
- Size of company, department and/or group
- Job description and job title
- Characteristics of their computer (size of screen, operating system)
- Frequency of use (how often they use the product per month or week)
- Duration of use (how long they use the product per session)
- Number and type of transactions used
- Expectations for documentation (electronic, web, hard copy, none...)
- Preferred interaction method (mouse, voice, keyboard)
3. Create a List of Goals and Tasks for Eeach User Role
Example: List of Goals and Tasks for an Accounts Payable Clerk
| Goals | Tasks |
|---|---|
| Ensure that all accounts are paid at end of month |
|
| Set up new accounts as efficiently as possible |
|
4. Create User Profiles to Summarize the Information
Group the user roles you have listed into categories based on their characteristics and tasks. Select the 3 to 5 key user roles that are the most important users of your application.
For each of these key user roles, summarize their important characteristics, goals and tasks in a User Profile. If you have general information about a large number of users who fit this profile, for example, which operating systems they use, you should include it here.
Example User Profile: Accounts Payable Clerk
| Education and Experience
Level |
|
|---|---|
| Amount of experience in accounting: | 4 years |
| Amount of experience with R/3: | 2 years |
| Amount of experience with PCs: | 3-5 years |
| Amount of R/3 training: | One week, taken right after implementation |
| Environment and Personal
Characteristics |
|
| Size of department: | 8 people, with 2 accounts payable clerks |
| Operating system & Monitor screen size: | Windows 95 15-17 inches |
| Use Characteristics of
Product |
|
| Frequency & Duration of use | Data entry: 5 times per week, for 1-2 hours Reports: 2 times per month, for 2-3 hours |
| Preferred interaction method: | Lots of keyboard-only use during data entry. Prefers keyboard for efficiency. |
| Goals and Tasks | |
|---|---|
| Goals | Tasks |
| Ensure that all accounts are paid at end of month |
|
| Set up new accounts as efficiently as possible |
|
5. Create User/Task Scenarios for the Key Tasks
Example Use/Task Scenario: Maintaining Online Documents
This scenario applies to the Knowledge Engineer (KEN), which is used by documentation developers at SAP to develop application help. This scenario is based on contextual interview sessions.
| User Role: | Documentation Developer |
| Goal: | Ensure that online help is error-free |
| Task: | Fix broken links in help documents |
Once a day, the doc. developer looks in CSS for messages about errors in the application help and prints out a list of the current error reports. She also checks MLP mail and voicemail from support centers for error messages, and adds them to the list. She accumulates all the error reports into one list in order to fix them all at once.
Today, many errors of the same type (broken links in the help) have appeared. From past experience, she suspects someone used incorrect syntax for hyper-link definitions in several help screens that were created on the same day.
To fix these broken links, the documentation developer starts the KEN system. She goes to the information object tree and scans it to identify the first document on the list of errors. If she has difficulty identifying the correct object, she refers to a printed copy of her online help project.
Once she finds the right object, she downloads the source document. In the help editor (MS-Word), she searches for links using the Search function. When she spots a link that has incorrect syntax, she corrects it and then goes on to the next, again using Search.
Once this process is complete for the first document, she saves the document, and then uploads it. Next, she returns to the object tree and repeats the same steps for the remaining items on today's error list.
6. Apply the User Profiles and User/Task Scenarios
Depending on what your needs are you should take one of the following actions with your scenarios:
- If you are unsure about the content of these profiles and scenarios, conduct Customer Site Visits to verify them. The Site Visit Workshop (SAP-internal only) and Site Visit Toolkit are available to help you.
- If you are re-designing your existing application, use the scenarios and profiles to center your design on particular users and tasks. You can apply this technique in a Design Session.
- If you are trying to improve an existing application, use the profiles and scenarios as guides in a Usability Task Review.
- If you are preparing to do a Usability Test of your application, use them to identify the right sorts of test participants and to develop test tasks.
