Velveeta » Phase 1 » Personas, Goals, Conceptual Model, and Tasks
To obtain the information necessary for creating these personas, we followed our interview protocol. We interviewed a total of five different individuals, ranging from paper calendar users to power users of Outlook, as well as those who use no calendar whatsoever. We believe the variety of people we interviewed has allowed us to create useful and diverse personas for this phase.
To actually create these personas, we took the notes and data from our interview (which we are unable to replicate here, due to privacy constraints), and sat down and discussed what types of people we wanted to distill the information into. We initially considered having a "professor" persona that managed a group and could assign tasks, but after a lengthy discussion over the lexicon and whether or not to make a distinction for "leaders" (see the lexicon section), we opted to drop this persona.
We decided that they really boiled down into only two types of users, those who use digital calendars because it helps them stay organized and those who use digital calendars because others do.
We then created two names for these personas and started applying the highlights from our interviews to the personas. After we had applied all of the highlighted characteristics we checked to make sure that the personas were consistent and believable. Once the general characteristics were completed, our group brainstormed goals for each of the personas.
Peer-Pressure Peter
- GPA of around 3.1
- Is good enough at managing his own schedule that he doesn't need an electronic one.
- Proud of the fact he doesn't need an electronic calendar.
- Has never needed any calendaring solution.
- Few sponatenous events, involved in several active organizations. Most meetings are scheduled regularly.
- Uses paper notes if needed.
- Enjoys going to parties on Friday nights, works mostly on Sundays.
- The only reason he uses an electronic calendar is for other's benefits.
- Not an early adopter of technology. Uses pragmatically.
- Only schedules meetings by talking to people or through email, not meeting requests.
Goals
- Doesn't want to be the source of friction.
- Doesn't like to spend a lot of time on things with little return.
- Wants to do as little work as possible for calendaring.
- Values independence.
- Doesn't want to be dependent on a computer.
- Doesn't want to deal with unnecessary technology.
Conceptual Model
The calendaring solution is used only to facilitate his academic endeavors. He thinks of Outlook as a place for others to find out about his class schedule, and nothing more. It is similar to posting his schedule on a piece of paper outside his door for others to see.
Tasks
- At the beginning of every semester, he needs to put in his class schedule.
- He needs to know what his classes are.
- Look up the scheduled time for each class.
- Enter scheduled times into calendar.
- Make classes recurring.
- Must make special exceptions for school holidays.
- Needs to add any recurring meetings throughout the year.
- He needs to find out about the meetings first. It takes a few weeks before he knows when each meeting will be.
- He then needs to complete the same tasks as inputting his class schedule.
- Needs to be informed that people are scheduling him for meetings.
- Sometimes needs to make note of certain tasks to accomplish.
- Needs to schedule meetings sometimes, through email or talking.
- He needs to find out who is attending the meeting he is planning.
- He needs to find out their schedules, and determine times that everyone can meet.
- He must coordinate through face to face interaction or email, until everyone is mutually satisfied.
Outlook-Organized Ophelia
- President of a student organization with frequent meeetings between students and administration.
- Often runs medium sized, hour long meetings, of around 15 - 20 people.
- Stellar student, really organized. Labels everything, color codes, and prioritizes and dates.
- She's really busy a lot of the time.
- She works a job as well as her student activities.
- She uses computer tools but often finds them annoying, but deals silently with the problems.
- She's a frequent AIM user, and updates her away message every time she gets up to leave her computer.
- Uses paper and color coded post-it notes, sometimes, as a supplement to her electronic calendar.
Goals
- She's ambitious. She wants to be able to do everything she's committed to, and do it well.
- She wants to be proud of her work.
- Since her social time is precious, she wants to maximize it.
- She wants efficiency in everything.
- She wants to feel like she's in charge of what she's doing on the computer.
Conceptual Model
The electronic calendar is a giant repository of her life's information. She spends time making it clean and organized because she likes to have that information at her fingertips. It is akin to an organized brain-dump that is cross indexed, color coded, fully searchable, and always accessible.
Tasks
- Schedule appointments with administrators.
- Get in contact with the person who controls their calendars.
- Depending on how the administrator's assistant or secretary schedules, she must meet their requirements.
- Update her electronic calendar after she has scheduled the meeting.
- Schedule appointments with large groups of students.
- Select attendees.
- Sends electronic notification of when the appointment is.
- Update meeting times as necessary.
- Find out when she and her friends are free for fun.
- She must check all of her friend's calendars, and determine when they are free.
- Confirm that they indeed are actually free during the time she (or they) have chosen.
- She wants to publish her campus-wide events for people to see.
- Find out when other campus-wide events are being held and plan accordingly.
- Manage tasks.
- Add tasks.
- Check-off tasks.
- Color code and organize tasks.
- Prioritize tasks.
- Wants to quickly contact her group of friends.
- Needs to email several groups frequently.