[Fluid-announce] Location of FLUID launch meeting

Wed May 9 22:53:43 UTC 2007

Hi all,

Rich was asking about the Higher Ed profile matrix so I thought I'd  
share some thoughts with the team on this since it hasn't been  
revisited in a few weeks.

I haven't done anything new to the profile matrix since you saw it  
last week Rich.  I'm attaching it here.   The idea is still in it's  
infancy.  And in fact the matrix itself needs a lot of cleaning up.   
The characteristics listed there now are from a brainstorming session  
with a group of instructional designers.  I have not cleaned it up,  
synthesized, etc.  By the end I see many of the current  
characteristics being collapsed into larger categories.  There are  
also several gaps, the main ones are around accessibility.  It would  
be great to hear your thoughts.

I've used this kind of matrix previously as a way to help understand  
the type of people we needed to do field studies on for a software  
project.  We used them to be diverse and holistic in our research  
approach.   So, we pulled out characteristics that we thought would  
differentiate users needs and goals.  For each square in the matrix  
we would usually want to observe and talk to 3 - 5 people.  Usually  
the matrices are much more focused on a set of activities and thus  
not as huge as the one I've attached.   Trying to capture all of  
higher ed without the context of a set of activities is much more of  
a challenge.

I'm thinking about this matrix as a tool in the "Designers Toolkit"  
in 2 ways:

1)  a way to think about the kinds of users that should be included  
in user research for any particular project.  So a project team can  
look at the matrix and go through and check off the boxes that they  
hypothesize are distinct user groups for their project.   The matrix  
becomes a checklist to remind people of the distinct factors across  
higher ed that drive user's needs and goals.   In our world I think  
this will turn out to be very valuable but only to a small group of  
people since not a lot of field studies are completed in either  
higher ed or community/open source.  On the other hand, perhaps  
figuring out who to talk to is a hurdle people don't get past and  
this will help.

2)  a way to distinguish profiles from personas.  These terms often  
get used interchangeably but in software design they are much  
different.  Profiles focus on characteristics and demographics while  
personas focus on goals and particular activities.  Profiles are  
useful in helping us understand the diverseness of our user groups  
but they don't do much (and in fact can be dangerous) if we use them  
in design.  Personas are archetypical users based on in depth user  
research around a set of activities.   We are also talking about  
creating a "Persona Library" for the designers toolkit.  My current  
thinking is that these personas will be focused on an area of  
activity in higher ed...image use in teaching and learning or  
assessment or course administration/management for instance.

Again, thoughts are welcome!  This is a twist on the way I've used  
these tools in the past in an attempt to make them more useful for  
multiple, large, diverse and highly distributed projects.  I may not  
be able to turn my attention back to this for a week or two.  Would  
it be helpful to get this in the wiki so we can work on it more  
collaboratively?

-Daphne

On May 9, 2007, at 2:43 PM, Richard Schwerdtfeger wrote:

> Daphne?
>
>
> Rich Schwerdtfeger
> Distinguished Engineer, SWG Accessibility Architect/Strategist
> Chair, IBM Accessibility Architecture Review Board
> blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/schwer
> <graycol.gif>
> Colin Clark <colin.clark at utoronto.ca>
>
>
> Colin Clark <colin.clark at utoronto.ca>
> 05/09/2007 03:51 PM
>
> <ecblank.gif>
>
> To
> <ecblank.gif>
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> Richard Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM at IBMUS
> <ecblank.gif>
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> cc
> <ecblank.gif>
>
> Daphne Ogle <daphne at media.berkeley.edu>, Jutta Treviranus  
> <jutta.treviranus at utoronto.ca>
> <ecblank.gif>
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> Subject
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> Re: [Fluid-announce] Location of FLUID launch meeting
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> <ecblank.gif>
>
> Hi Rich,
>
> > Have either you or Daphne started this educational matrix of use
> > adapation requirements?
>
> I haven't had an opportunity to look at the profile matrix this week.
> Daphne may have some further information about her plans with this,  
> but
> I know she's been pretty busy coordinating other aspects of the UX
> process recently. It's definitely on our radar.
>
> > Also, you were going to send notes on last weeks whiteboard  
> discussion.
> > I want to start putting together some use cases for IMS.
>
> Yes, one of us will definitely post those whiteboard notes to the  
> FLUID
> wiki shortly. I'll send you the link when they've been posted.  
> Sorry for
> the delay.
>
> Colin
>
> -- 
> Colin Clark
> Technical Lead, FLUID Project
> Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
> http://fluidproject.org
>

Daphne Ogle
Senior Interaction Designer
University of California, Berkeley
Educational Technology Services
daphne at media.berkeley.edu
cell (510)847-0308

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