ENGR $1182$

Assignment PD$1$

Identifying the Problem, User Persona, Pains, and Future Research

Purpose

It is critical to understand the characteristics of and develop empathy with the end user. This enables us to keep our user in mind through every step of the design process to create value for them. An understanding of the lives, daily tasks, and associated pains of this user group will be the foundation for the user$-$centered design you'll pursue the remainder of the semester. To understand the characteristics of our users, we will conduct interviews with them. Conducting interviews with our end users is just one way that we can understand their perspective when designing. To build empathy with our end user and allow our audience to develop empathy with our users, we will generate graphical user personas that represent our end user population. We will refer to our user persona when making design decisions.

We will then seek to build on this information by developing a research plan. Thorough research is essential to accurately identifying an opportunity for impactful design. By conducting research, we can further reveal the perceptions and tastes of our end users, quantify the scope of our opportunity, and analyze the current alternatives that one may utilize instead of our future design.

By completing this assignment, you will be able to:

Analyze user interviews to identify user characteristics, tasks, and pains.

Create graphical user personas.

Develop a research plan to further understand the end users and market characteristics that define an opportunity to create value.

Task

Before you begin writing, recall your audience and purpose. Your audience is someone or some group judging your work. This may be a supervisor within your company or research office, a grant committee, an incubator $($an organization that supports startup companies$),$ or any other funding source. They are familiar with the design process, but not the details of your project.

Complete an initial user experience analysis by completing the following three components. In the body of your report, in the problem definition section and corresponding subsections, introduce each component and include any relevant discussion, especially around how your team selected your user group and your understanding of that user group thus far to ensure that your thought process is clear to your audience.

User Group Selection. As a team, share and reflect on the interviews you conducted in PDO to decide on a target user group. This user group does not need to be a group that was interviewed, but you should consider the groups that you interviewed when making your decision. If your group decides that more information is needed to understand your selected user group, you should conduct additional interviews using the approach in PDO.

User Persona. Create a graphical persona that depicts the characteristics of your end user. The graphical persona should include:

Name $($fictious$)$ and an explanatory statement that describes end users

An illustration or photograph of a representative user $($fictitious$)$

Relevant demographic information $($gender$,$ race, location, education, occupation, etc.$)$

Relevant information tied to the task $($hobbies$,$ habits, technology familiarity, etc.$)$

Common pains experienced with a task