ContextualInquiry-Group:KMAT
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Team Members
Kang Chen - Assistance in interviewing subject L, storyboard, inputting and modifying in various wiki parts.
Melissa Jiang - Assistance in interviewing subject L and subject H, inputting and modifying various wiki parts.
Andrew Tran - Interviewed subject N, modifying and inputting various wiki parts.
Tak Wong - Assistance in interviewing subject H, modifying and inputting various wiki parts.
Description of Users
General User Group
We are targetting commutters. Commutters will include drivers as well as transit takers. The users must have a blue tooth device in order to send and retrieve information. The users also must know how to read a basic map. Generally, users who use our software will be those who need information on the spot, those who want an alternative to looking up information prior to leaving the house and even those without internet access. Also, we are assuming that the users are able to see and draw circles on a map. The target user group does not require the population to be tech savvy.
Interviewees
Subject H
Subject is a 4th year Civil Engineering student at UCB. Subject was born and raised in San Francisco. Subject currently resides in Berkeley during weekdays and resides in San Francisco during weekends. Subject H represented a possible user who are somewhat familiar with the area, but do not know it like the back of their hands. Subject H visits Oakland frequently but only in one specific area (Chinatown) due to the subject's sister taking musical classes in Oakland Chinatown. Subject H likes walking and exploring areas that he/she does have not already been to. Subject H also has an unique obsession with map and feel that if armed with a map, he/she will never get lost. Subject dislikes feeling lost and confused regarding where they currently are and want to go to next. Regarding trip planning, the subject will first prioritize getting information to and from the destination before anything else. After getting the information, second priority is for the user to bring a map in case he/she decides to go anywhere else or if plans change. Then, if others are going also, the subject will "make sure that they know how to get there or can meet somewhere". Finally, the subject states "have fun".
Subject L
Subject L is a 4th year Cal student majoring in MCB/Pre-Med. Subject L was born in Iran and immigrated to the USA about 8 years ago. She currently resides in Modesto, CA and typically goes home for the weekends to spend time with family. Subject also takes frequent trips to LA to visit other family members. Subject has a very flamboyant personality and loves to talk to people. In terms of technical expertise, subject L owns a Mac Powerbook but is not very tech savvy which is one of the reasons why we interviewed her. In spite of this, she would much prefer to do prior research before heading out to the first location on her list. The only exception is when the subject has a sudden urge to go to another area of interest. Finally, subject L has been to San Francisco a few times before but usually only to shop in the San Francisco Shopping Center. She also likes fashion, science, and shopping but dislike high tech gadgets. Her priorities are shopping, hunting for cute products, and having fun. In summary, she is more of a spontaneous and random person.
Subject N
She is a Vietnamese 20 year old college student currently attending the Arts Institute of San Francisco. She is studying fashion design at the AI, and wants to be a great fashion designer one day. She mentions her favorite tv show right now is Project Runway. This is her first year of college at AI. She lives in San Jose and commutes to school from there. She hates commuting but she thinks she is saving money commuting rather than finding an apartment in SF and paying rent. The Arts Institute is located in downtown SF and she barely is just getting to know the area. The subject rarely goes to SF by herself other than for school, she said she usually is accompanied by her boyfriend or another friend that knows the area better. She admits she usually waits until her gas tank is near empty until she fills it back up; however, if she knows that her tank will not last her for her trip she will buy gas before leaving. So her priorities would include checking to have enough gas to go where she wants. The subject never checks the current traffic condition of the road before she goes anywhere, but thinks finding traffic info might be helpful only when she desperately needs to be on time. She hates traffic and gets agitated when she gets stuck in one. The subject admits she gets lost all the time when driving on unfamiliar roads even though she has directions. She also admits she sometimes forgets her left and right. Subject N represents a good test subject for our application because she commutes frequently and is our ideal target user.
Problem and Solution Overview
For commuters and drivers, even if they are less tech savvy, they can use our system to easily find out regarding traffic congestion and speed without resorting to waiting for the stupid news to say the info. Sometimes the comutters and drivers know where they are, but they are not familiar with the area enough to know the closest ATM or gas station. Therefore, they should be able to get information on the fly and can even do it in their car (when safe) or while having coffee. Thus, having the ability to send the information to your cell phone or PDA at anytime you want without having to resort to a laptop once again will be very useful. The solution to this problem is to use a map based system so that they can circle an area and get the cheapest gas stations or the closest ATM in the area. The users can also cicle their source and destination locations to find the fastest transit or vehicle route. The user can also trace a freeway to find the traffic information and estimated travel time along the route.
Contextual inquiry interview descriptions and results
Subject H
Subject H is already somewhat familiar with the Oakland area, but not completely. He knows he should take the 40L or 43 to get from Berkeley to Oakland. A friend points out that since 40L has the 'L', it should be faster. So we walk to the 40L bus stop and finds a bus schedule. At first we think we will need to wait 15 minutes because it is currently 10:05AM and it says the next bus will come at 10:19AM, but later he realizes that the bus comes from Center and Shattuck street and we are at Telegraph and Parker. A friend estimates that the distance will take about 5 minutes and the earlier bus leaves at 9:59AM, so it may come anytime. Sure enough, we spot the bus a block away. We ask the subject where we should get off and he says he will recogize the area. So right after the 12th Street Oakland BART station, the subject told us to get off. This is Oakland Downtown/Chinatown. Since the subject is not totally familiar with the area, he went down to the BART station and picked up a "Transit Connection" brochure. It contains maps of the area that BART passes by and specificly, the downtown Oakland area with its main attractions. The subject then walks around Oakland Chinatown and decides to eat at D&A cafe for lunch. After lunch, the subject takes out the map and looks for Jack London Square. The subject says it doesn't appear far, so we walk towards the general direction of where Jack London Square is. After a few minutes of walking, the subject spots some tents and wondered what fair was going on. After walking through the fair for a little bit, the subject realizes that they were actually in Jack London Square already. Subject hears a train coming and proceeds to watching the freight train pass. The subject then proceeds to walk around more until subject reaches The Port of Oakland. Subject then spots the Ferry terminal and walks towards the terminal. Subject then stops in front of the schedule and checks the time for the Ferry. Subject then finds that there is only one single Ferry and the Ferry is specifically for the San Francisco Giants Baseball games. Subject then walks away from the terminal and fails to notice a directory. Subject finally sees the directory after a friend points it out. The directory itself was of no help because neither the subject nor the friend could find anything of interest. Therefore, subject refers back to the BART transit connection map in hopes of finding new places to go. Subject wanders aimlessly towards downtown Oakland once again while looking at the map. Subject finds no other place of interest and decides to go home instead. Subject then looks for the closest bus stop that would bring the subject home. Subject attempts to find the nearest bus stop and sees that the 72 bus stop has been moved. Subject walks towards the detoured bus stop and finds the bus stop very unhelpful. The bus stop does not include any type of schedule to inform when the next bus would come. Only a system transit map and AC Transit general information appeared in the bus stop. After a few minutes the 72M comes and subject hops on in order to get back to downtown Oakland. The subject recognizes a spot and gets off in order to take the 40L back home. 40L comes and subject returns.
Subject L
Subject L had an urge to go to Japantown. The Subject knows how to get onto BART and get off at Powell Street from pure experience. However, since the subject is not too familiar with the city, the subject does not know where to go from there. Subject has a unique ability to freely talk to any stranger without any hesistation. Subject then decides to look around and ask a random cute person. She spots a group of boys and asked them. The boys gave her too many directions and the subject was confused from the many different Muni letters. The person, seeing that the subject was confused, then simply said take the K or L and just get off at Church Street then take the 22 bus. Subject thanks the group and walks away. Unforunately, after walking around, the subject realizes that she does not know where to take the K or L and the people who helped her did not mention where either. Subject then simply calls roommate (who was native to San Francisco) and asks for where to take the L or K. The subject explains where she is, roommate then proceeds to telling the subject that the trains are in the same spot as the bart station, she just needs to get change of 6 quarters before being able to get on. The subject then heads down and was originally confused by about how to get change for $1. After some help from a friend, she was finally able to get change from the BART machine (hinting at a bad UI for BART machines). After the subject entered the Muni, she realizes that she, once again, does not know which direction to go (outbound or inbound). Subject asks around but the person she asked (let's call her A for assistance) appeared just as confused as the subject. Person A then proceeds to asking other people for the subject about which way to go. A person tells person A and subject L that subject L should take the outbound. Person A, not convinced, proceeds to the other side (the outbound side) and asks some more people sitting down regarding which direction to go in. The three people sitting down all said that outbound would be the right direction to go. At this point, interviewers spotted the charts displaying the directions of the trains.
- <--Powell
|
- <--Civic Center
|
- <--Van Ness
|
- <--Church
|
- <--something else
Powell was where we currently were but from the chart, it appears as if Powell is the furthest station from us. The chart can be very confusing for those who are not used to it. The M train comes and the subject gets on. The subject repeatedly looks out the window trying to catch her shop. Arrive at Church and subject disembarks. Subject seemed a bit confused about which exit to go up but eventually just randomly picked one. Once no longer underground, the subject cannot seem to find the 22 bus stop and decides to ask another person. Unfortuantely, the boy told the subject the wrong bus stop to wait at. Fortunately, subject's friends were able to convince her that was not the correct spot and she looks around and finally spots the 22 stop (poor visibility). The 22 arrives, subject boards, then asks another person where to get off and the person simply said to get off at Post street. Subject continously looked out the window trying to spot Post. Finally, subject sees a familiar blue wall, gets off and arrives at her destination.
Subject N
This interview was conducted in a car ride starting from Berkeley to San Jose. Because Subject N commutes daily she is a great source of information for our application. During the car ride, i asked her many questions relating to situations commuters face while driving such as how she finds gas stations when low on gas, low on gas in an unfamiliar city, what is her process in finding cheap gas stations, does she have a peference in which gas station she goes to, what she does while she is stuck in traffic, what she does to avoid traffic, does she text message on her cell phone while driving, what does she do when she gets stuck in an unexpected detour, and does she use a map while she is driving. Subject N was quite unique, she gave me some answers i never expected anybody to say. For example, when i asked her what is her process in finding gas stations, she blatantly replied "Drive home". Now that answered perplexed me a bit so i was forced to ask her explain what she meant in more detail. When she gave answers that i found to be too general, i rephrased my questions in order to get a more specific answer. During the ride, i also made observations to some of Subject N's actions. Starting in Berkeley along College road, Subject L notices that she does not have enough gas to make it to San Jose. She states she usually waits until her gas tank is low before she refills it, and she also makes sure she has enough gas in the car to at least be able to find a gas station when needed. As she is driving, she spots a 76 on her left and Shell right in front of her across the street. I see her signal left but changed her mind at the last minute and went straight. After she pumped gas i asked her why she chose Shell instead of 76. She said she scaned the intersection for gas stations and looked at the prices, Shell was 2.63 and 76 was 2.71 so she just went to the cheaper one. Another observation i made was that Subject N never changes lane while she was on the freeway and she did not try to take an alternative route to San Jose while in traffic. I asked her why she would just stay in this lane, and she replied she just takes the same way home. It was a routine for her that she took 880 south all the way home down to San Jose. I knew of other faster ways to San Jose from 880, and i gave her some suggestions. She answered she didn't know those alternative routes well enough to try, and it was safer to stay on the route she already knew so well. She states it is better to be safe and be a little late to wherever she goes rather than to be daring and take shortcuts. Those shortcuts could make her more lost and more late. If presented with something visual that showed her alternative ways to her destination, she might be inclined to take it. The interview lasted about a little over an hour, the length of the car ride from Berkeley to her house in San Jose. She presented lots of information we can use in designing our interface and implementing our application. This interview can also lead us to change some features of our application for the better. From this interview I come to a hypothesis that commuters are all different from one another with their decision making abilities. Each have their own preferences and routines they follow when driving. Some may follow the norm, others may be spontaneous in their actions.
Some similar tasks these interviewees share in common are they are not reluctant to ask someone else for help when they are in need of service. When in need to find a location to a particular place they would ask random people. For directions, if these interviewees were to drive their car they would look up a head of time on the internet how to get to their destination. Each of these interviewees do not look up current traffic information on the route they will be traveling on. One major theme these interviewees share is that they all use the internet for a little guidance before they travel by car, sometimes looking up information for Bart times if using that instead. A similarity between Subject L and Subject H is how each walked along the bus route to find the closest bus stop. They both knew part of the bus route in order for them to find the bus. It is harder to compare Subject N to Subject H and L because Subject N is more of a commuter using her automobile while Subject L and H uses the bus as their primary method of transportation.
List of tasks
Hard Tasks
Retrieving route information from Circling source and destination: Circle source and destination (goes through freeway at some point), then retrieve route with traffic information on the freeway as well as the route direction. First of all, the map itself will most likely be printed on an 8 by 11 inch sized paper and therefore, will omit some details that a typical map will contain. Therefore, the user may have a hard time pinpointing exactly where they currently are on the map as well as pinpointing exactly where their destination is. Also, our program will only return the general area that they circled. The user will then have to navigate within that area to the specific point they want.
Circle source, destination, and retrieve transit route This is perhaps one of the harder tasks to perform with our application. Due to the lower resolution of our pre-printed map, users might have a hard time pinpointing the location of the source and destination. Similar to the above, this task is made especially hard if the user does not know exactly where they are and where their destination is on the map.
Medium Tasks
Recieving Accident Report on Text Messages: For example, if somewhere in the middle of your route, and you are sent a text message stating that there is an accident that occured on 5th St. in San Francisco, the user may have a hard time mapping where 5th street is in accordance to where they currently are. Simply stating where the accident happened may not be enough for the driver or commuter.
Reaching the destination from the Text Message: If the user circles an area where they want to find a gas station or bank, they may receive a text message giving them the intersection where the gas station is. If the user knows the area well, then the user will most likely have no trouble finding the destination. However, if the user is not too familiar with the area, then the user will have to rely on our map. Pinpointing where the location of the destination can be difficult.
Easy Tasks
Finding the Closest Bank: Sometimes we are in a neighborhood that we are not very familiar with (for example, at a restaurant) and wanted to find the closest ATM or bank in the area. Some places do not accept anything other than cash, so this feature is important. It is easy for the user because most users who want to find an ATM are not tourists and already know where they are.
Finding gas stations with their prices: This task is easy because if the user wants to find gas stations and their prices all he has to do is draw a circle on the map around the area where the user wants to find gas stations. Ideally this task is to be used by users who want to find cheap gas stations around where they are currently, but that is not required. The user does not need to know where he currently is to perform this task, wherever he draws a circle he will receive those gas station locations and prices within that circle.
Task Analysis Questions
1. Who is going to use the system?
Commuters will use our system. These include drivers and transit takers. The users must have a blue tooth device in order to send and retrieve information. The users also must know how to read a basic map.
2. What tasks do they now perform?
In order to find driving directions, the users current look up information from google maps or yahoo maps if they are at a location with computers and internet access. For transit information, 511.org provides a trip planner that tells how which route to take and transfer at which stop in the bay area. To find the cheapest gas stations in the area, the users can go to gasbuddy.com. If they are already on the road, they can ask random people on the street, like what subject L did. The drivers can stop by gas stations to ask for directions or buy maps. They can also drive around the find a gas station, like subject N. The transit takers can find maps at bus shelters or subway stations. For example, subject H looked up the schedule at the bus shelter and picked up a "Transit Connections" brochure at a BART station.
3. What tasks are desired?
The users want to be able to find the cheapest gas station in the area and the closest ATM in the area based on which bank they want. They are usually somewhat familiar with the location, but do not know where these stores are located. For commuting users, they will want to find the directions and estimated time of travel from one place to another by car or transit. It will be best if they can obtain a better estimated time of travel with real time traffic information.
4. How are the tasks learned?
They learned to find their information mainly through the word of mouth. They will ask their relatives and friends for directions to places or locations of certain gas stations or banks. To find the cheapest gas station, they memorize the cheapest gas price they've seen recently and compare that with the gas stations they pass by. Some learned to utilize the internet and look up gas prices through gasbuddy.com or the transit planner on 511.org. Some memorize directions by memorizing the map of the area they will generally go to.
5. Where are the tasks performed?
The most self-sufficient and efficient way to look up information is at home or office on a computer with internet connection. If the user is already on the street, they can guess first their way around. If that is not successful, they can call up a friend while on the street or bus or in a car that knows the area better. The user can also open a map and find the desired location themselves if it is available to them. For gas stations, usually it's easy to spot one while driving around randomly. If these don't work or some people prefer not doing the research, they can find the most convenient person to ask on the street.
6. What's the relationship between users & data?
Without our system, the user has to gather the data themselves in different forms and have to analyze them based on the form that they are given. For example, subject L was told to take J, K, L, or M, but someone else may tell her to take the metro or streetcars. She will have to somehow translate different messages to something that she can see around her or be able to find. With our system, the users can perform their task more efficiently and not have to wonder around aimlessly using our data.
7. What other tools does the user have?
Besides our map based system, the user can use a regular map or the map and bus schedule at bus shelters. They can use wireless internet cafes or any computer with internet access to find information or directions. Other tools that can help include friends and random people, communication devices such as cell phones and PDA, tour guides, almanac, yellow pages, gazzetters, and directories either located on the street or through the internet.
8. How do the users communicate with each other?
This is irrelevant in our system since we only have 1 user interacting with himself/herself. But if the user wants to ask for help, they would usually use their cell phone to call up a friend relative and get assistance from there.
9. How often are the tasks performed?
The commuters will need to look up these information when they deviate from their normal route to work or school, which is a few times a month. They may use it daily if they want real time traffic information. Less tech savy people may use it infrequently since they are more limited in finding resource and would rather ask others for help.
10. What are the time constraints on the tasks?
If the user is driving and/or low on gas, they will want their information instantiously to avoid calling a towing truck. The information should be received/gathered in less than one minute because people will be annoyed if it takes too long.
11. What happens when things go wrong?
If the system can not accurately detect the input, then send a message to the user and tell them to redo the action. We'll put up a disclaimer to not take responsibility if what we gave is not what the user intended. If the system perceives the wrong input, then the user can redo the action with more precision. We can also provide a help option that will hint the user of possible input error sources. Since our system is not life threatening, it is OK to have occasional errors and the users can always redo the action.
Interface Design
Functionality Summary
The rationale behind our system is to let the user obtain information that they need at a certain location easily from anywhere. These information should be related to where they are or where they need to be. With our system, the user can find the closest ATM by their desired bank, find the closest gas station, get directions on how to get from one place to another by car or transit, and can get real time traffic information of major freeways.
The rationale behind why ATMs is primarily because the main reason why people look banks is simply to retrieve money. Also, most bank ATMs also allow the user to deposit. Therefore, with ATMs, user can take out money or deposit money easily. We did not encorporate banks as well because not all banks provide ATMs. We are assuming most users have one of three main Banks (Bank of America, Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo). Therefore, by providing information for these three banks, we believe would be sufficient for most users.
As for gas stations, most users have gas prices on their head. Returning the cheapest gas station seems most intuitive when accounting for what users think about when they look for gas stations. Also, another option would be to return the closest gas station. However, as we have pointed out before, the user may have a hard time circling their exact location on the map and thus, returning the closest gas station may be hard. Not to mention, it wouldn't be great if all the gas stations nearby just happens to be really expensive gas stations.
Regarding trip planning, drivers will want to either arrive to their desired destination either by transit or by vehicle. Therefore, we provide the user an option to choose either. We want to also provide traffic information option because many commuters already know where and how they want to go. They may just want the current traffic information. THerefore, they can have the option of just tracing the major freeway they want traffic information about and check the traffic information checkbox without needing to be bombarded with access directions.
The rationale behind why we want to provide a map is because many users do rely on maps. However, some users simply rely on maps without knowing where they can enter the freeway or which exit to exit. And if we simply return directions, some uses may still want to look at a map in order to get a better sense of where they are going and which direction to head towards without blindly following some written direction. Therefore, we are providing users with visualization as well as written information regarding where and how to get to specific places.
User Interface Description
To use our system, the user will be given a preprinted map of San Francisco and a list of checkboxes on the dot-patterened paper. The user can circle his or her desired location on the map with an Anoto pen, usually the current location, to get information about the closest ATMs by checking the box next to his or her preferred bank (one of the check box in the first column of the figure below). The user will get a text message on his or her cell phone shortly after. The text message will give the user a list of the closest ATM's and their addresses with cross street in the circled area. The user can use this information to find the intersection of the ATM on the preprinted map. The user can similarly find the closest gas station in the area by checking the box next to "Gas Station" (the checkbox in the middle column).
Another functionality that the user can use is circling his or her desired source and destination location on the preprinted map, then check the box next to "By Public Transit" (first checkbox in the right-most column) if he or she wants to travel by transit. A text message will be sent to the user's cell phone telling the user at which intersection's bus stop he or she should get on and which bus route to take. It will also provide information on which bus stop to get off and what bus to transfer to, if necessary. The message also includes the estimated travel time of this itinerary.
Similarly, the user can get driving directions by checking the box next to "By Private Vehicle" if he or she chooses to drive (the second checkbox in the right-most column). A text message will be sent to the user's cell phone with directions on which street he or she should drive on, which block to turn, and in which direction (left or right). It will also provide the estimated travel time of this route.
The user can also get real time traffic information on the freeways by tracing along a freeway route and checking the box next to "Freeway Traffic Information" (the last checkbox in the last column). This will generate a text message letting the user know the current estimated speed, any constructions or traffic accidents, and the road condition on the route. The user can use this information to adjust his or her travel plans accordingly.
Scenarios of Example Tasks
Analysis of Approach
There are many advantages to our system. The Anoto pen and paper are lightweight, so they can be carried and used anywhere, not just in the car or at home or in the office. Our system provides a more natural interface. Some of the older generation may not be too comfortable using GPS systems or using online information. A pen and a map can be much more intuitive and less intimidating which can encourage usage. It gives a better sense of the direction of where you want to go because you are already looking at a map. It is easy and fast to use our system and it provides instant feedback. All the user has to do is circle or trace a route, then the information will be delivered to their cell phone in less than a minute. This interface is much simplier compared to the GPS system or laptop application. Also, our system is much cheaper than GPS system or laptops. A GPS system typically needs a mounting device such as a car. Therefore, a user cannot walk around and be able to get the same information if they are simply using a GPS system. Compared to a laptop, our system also do not need wireless connection. Even within San Francisco, there are not many places currently provide free wireless. The system only requires a cell phone with reception, which most people should already have.
There are limitations to our system because we can only send text based feedback. Sending a graphical feedback to the user via cell phone may cost the user too much overtime and may not be detail enough. Many problems arise from this limitation. First, the user needs a cell phone with bluetooth capability. This should be fairly common, but there are still some without this capability. Unlike the GPS system, our system cannot track where the user is, so we cannot automatically generate the user's current location as the default source location. Because of this, we cannot provide real time directions to the users. In the GPS system, it will inform the user to make a turn about 100 feet before the intersection, but this is not possible in our system. Also, as mentioned in other areas, cells phones only allow a certain amount of characters per text message. Therefore, the user may not be too happy with the amount of text messages they are recieving for one set of direction. Also, many cell phones limit the total amount of text messages a user can recieve. If the user already has many text messages in their cell phone already, then they may not recieve the full messages. Not to mention, text messages cost money. If they user care a lot recieving at $0.02 per text messages, then this may represent a limitation as well.
