User’s Environment

1. User’s Environment

2. Working environment (home, office, lab, outdoors; fixed, mobile) Working space Noise Dirt Lighting Temperature Speed (expected/needed reaction) Power sources Proximity to info sources, other workers Danger Physical

3. Tools • Information and communication technologies of many sorts • Information sources • Documents (paper and electronic) • Work spaces • Other kinds of tools • Shared and otherwise

4. Social Environment • How workgroups interact, formally and informally • Division of labor, modes of interaction, cooperation, power relations • Socializing, informal communication • Sites of informal interaction • Other people • Social networks of various kinds as sources of info, determinants of behavior • Interaction between physical and social environments • Isolation or shared space; interactivity • [presence awareness technology]

5. Organizational environment: structural features • Goals, priorities • Hierarchy • Reward system • Power relations

6. Characteristics of job/tasksuch as: • High reliability, safety-critical • Confidentiality requirements • Pixar’s new campus: animators hidden • Strongly time-dependent • Airport ground ops

7. Cultural Environment • Organizational/corporate culture • Willingness to cooperate • Competitiveness, secrecy – internal, external • ‘How we do things here’ • Ethnic/national cultures; gender? • Differences across cultures • Multicultural worksites, work groups • Disciplines, job classifications • Professional/support staff differences • Differences across professions • Knowledge communities

8. Airport Ground Control

9. Making the Case for Site Visits: How many users? • Sample size calculations using methods and rules from statistics are based on assumptions that may not apply • Rule of thumb: keep going until you don’t learn much new • Empirical: • in usability tests, Nielsen found that 5 users find 75% of problems, 10 find 90%. He recommends 3 to 5.