Week 8: Identifying Needs and Establishing Requirements.

In this week.
We talk about Identifying Needs and Establishing Requirements.
So.. What is Identifying Needs and Establishing Requirements?
(based on Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction)

Identifying Needs:
Understand as much as possible about the users, as well as their work and the context of their work and system under development should support users in achieving their goals.

Establishing requirements:
Building upon the needs identified, produce a set of requirements.

What are requirements?
A requirement is a statement that specifies what an intended product should do, or how it should perform. Two types of requirements :
1. Functional requirements specify what the system should do.
2. Non-Functional requirements specify what constraints there are on the system or its development.

Categories of requirement
• Functional requirements ---> What the product should do.
• Data requirements ---> The type, volatility, size/amount, persistence, accuracy and value of the amounts of the required data.
• Environmental requirements ---> Or “context of use” – circumstances in which the interactive product must operate.
• User requirements ---> Characteristics of the intended user group.
• Usability requirements ---> The usability goals and associated measures.

Data Gathering Techniques:
• Questionnaires
elicit specific information, can be YES / NO, multiple choice, comment
• Interviews
forum for talking to people, can be structured, unstructured, or semi-structured
• Focus Groups
group interviews, good at gaining a consensus view and / or highlighting areas of conflict
• Naturalistic Observation
spend time with stakeholders in their day-to-day tasks, observing work as it happens gain insight into stakeholders' tasks
• Studying Documentation
procedures and rules are often written down in manuals good source of data about the steps involved in an activity, and any regulations governing a task

Task Descriptions:
• Scenarios - an informal narrative story, simple, 'natural', personal, not generalizable
• Use Cases - assume interaction with a system, assume detailed understanding of the interaction
• Essential Use Cases - abstract away from the details, does not have the same assumptions as use cases

Task Analysis:
Task analysis is an umbrella term that covers techniques for investigating cognitive processes and physical actions, at a high level of abstraction and in minute detail.

Summary:
• Getting requirements right is crucial
• There are different kinds of requirements, each is significant for interaction design
• The most commonly-used techniques for data gathering are: questionnaires, interviews, focus groups and workshops, naturalistic observation, studying documentation
• Scenarios, use cases and essential use cases can be used to articulate existing and envisioned work practices.
• Task analysis techniques help to investigate existing systems and practices

Warawit Whangpakdi
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