HCI Project, Requirements

Part 1:
User Needs, Requirements Gathering and Task Analysis

By
Killian Mills 11368701
Chris Hurley 12417948
Krystian Dobkowski 13100491
Mark McCluskey 12514857

LIMIT OF ABOUT 255 WORDS PER SECTION,  IT IS MAXIMUM 2 MINUTES PER PERSON,  AUDIO WILL ONLY BE 8 MINUTES AT MAXIMUM



1.Understanding of chosen Demographic / User ----- CHRIS HURLEY

•Our target demographic for this project will primarily be students currently involved in the leaving cert /secondary level education. The reason this demographic is our primary focus is because students will frequently be estimating their point ranges for applying to college courses and also using the application to add up their actual leaving cert points. The expected computer and technology skill level of secondary school students is moderate to advance. This presumption is formed due to the vast majority of Irish schools hosting a computer class and teaching ECDL standard.

•In terms of available devices and technologies we expect our primary demographic to use mobile devices and laptop/desktop computers to access our website. When coding the website we will also take into account supporting different possible browsers. We plan to make our website cater to both device scenarios, and as many browsers as possible, leading to fewer problem factors. We assume that almost all average demographic users will encounter no problems or barriers when operating our website, but any users that do will fall under our secondary demographic.

•Our secondary demographic consists of anyone who doesn’t meet the criteria of the primary demographic. These are as follows; Parents of Students, Grandparents of Students, Users with disabilities, Users with a lack of knowledge regarding the Irish Educational System and Users lacking computing and technology skills.

•We expect users from our secondary demographic to have a broader scope when it comes to the understanding of computers and technology. As the sub categories of the secondary demographic are so varied, it is possible that some someone visiting the site could fall into any number of the secondary groups. It is much harder to gauge the ability of one of these users, meaning a number of precautions should be taken to make the website as accessible to everyone as possible. The main goal is to make the website as easily accessible for the secondary demographic as it is for the primary.



2.  Contexts of Use ------ MARK McCLUSKEY

•The chosen user will primarily be using our calculator service throughout their time in the senior years of secondary school (5th & 6th year) and immediately after the leaving cert results are distributed. The location in which they will be using our product will be mostly at home or in a learning environment such as in school or studying in a library.

•The main motivation of the user is to weigh their points against the points requirements of certain college/university courses. The goal of the user visiting our website is to easily be able to calculate their overall points from their supplied subjects and grades.

•Due to the ambiguity of location/environment cross platform support will be needed to allow phones and computers to access the website. Limited internet may also be a barrier, the smaller the website and the less to load will help support this. The devices screen resolution/ aspect ratio will be a barrier for the website to accurately display.



3.  Requirements and Functionality ------ KILLIAN MILLS

•We aim to allow the users to supply us with up to nine subjects and grades with the top six being selected for calculation, this will allow the users to supply us with all of their results and get their total points with relative ease. Seeing as students usually pick between the range of six to eight subjects for the leaving cert we feel that making nine options available will allow us accommodate to the larger audience, there will be a note next to the total points stating that it has been selected from the best six of the nine so that the user will not be confused.

•Our calculator will follow a simple format of a drop down menu for subjects: Maths English, Irish etc., radio input for their level: higher ordinary or foundation and a drop down menu for grade: A1-D3. The total points will be displayed below the nine input lines and show clearly how much points the user has acquired given their input.

•We also aim to have a breakdown of the results show up at the side of each grade so that the user will not have to consult a table to see exactly how much marks are being given for each subject, level and grade.

•All of these features should allow both the primary and secondary demographic to follow exactly what is going on as the simplistic approach requires little explanation; the compact design should also work well with students using the calculator from their mobile devices as well as on a desktop or laptop.




4.   Usability Considerations and Expected Problems ----- KRYSTIAN DOBKOWSKI

•Because one might find the calculation of his/hers points unclear, we had to put this into consideration.
To address this possible issue we decided to include a link at the bottom of the page that will redirect the user to a website, which describes the process of CAO’s calculation in detail, thus eliminating any uncertainty.

•Another issue that might arise is more technical. Network timeout could affect the users experience on the website. If one might be in the process of calculation and has provided necessary data, it would be inconvenient for the user to have to refresh the website and re-input the data, in case a network connection times out. To tackle this issue we decided to focus the calculation process on the client side. A Java script will be loaded onto users machine (given the user accepts this action in his browser when asked for) which once loaded, will do all the calculation and still provide a result even if there is no network connection. So in other words, we will adapt the “Load once, use many times” approach, unless the user closes the browser, in which case internet connection is required to obtain the website.

•Last but not least, given the issue above, we allow the user to save the website to one's computer and run it offline, as the whole calculation process is client based, the Java script code will still work offline, as no server interaction is required other than initial page request.