GR1 - Project Proposal and Analysis

User Analysis

We have two classes of users: parents and their children.  While it will be possible for anyone who needs to easily check in with someone else to use our system, we will focus on these two user groups.

Characteristics

Parent characteristics:*

• Ages: any parent age
• Education: Literate
• Language: English
• Technological experience: Low to Medium - owns a computer and/or smartphone and can use websites on either
• Motivation: wants to be informed about children’s safety and/or activities
• Attitude: High - safety of children is something that is a #1 priority

Child characteristics:*

• Ages: 11 (whenever they are old enough for a smartphone) through 22 (college-aged), with application focus on high schoolers
• Education: Literate
• Language: English
• Technological experience: High - owns and can easily use a smartphone
• Motivation: Have parents be satisfied with information about their activities
• Attitude: Varies, probably Medium - may not consider parents’ motivation important or have high desire to use application in depth

Personas

Parent: Marge
Marge is a hard-working mom who cares a lot about her children. She wants them to be safe, but she also wants them to have fun. Right now, her children are in that difficult stage where they are trying to declare independence, but are dependent on their parents for at least a few more years. One of the side-effects of this stage is that her children have stopped seeing her as “cool”, and try to reduce the amount of communication between them. Whenever Bart is out, she wants to make sure that he’s safe, since he’s able to drive now and he’s already been in a couple of accidents, and if he’s ever in trouble or needs help, that he won’t hesitate to ask. But, whenever she tries to call him now, he simply ignores her calls. She even learned how to text, but that was to no avail -- he won’t answer her texts unless it involves something he wants. Lisa is slightly easier to deal with, but Marge still feels that tension between them every time she checks up with her while she’s out. She wants to know that they are safe, but she doesn’t want to annoy them.

...

Bart is a seventeen year old who has recently gotten his driver’s license and stays out late partying and drinking with his friends. He would never call Marge in front of his friends, and doesn’t think that what he’s doing is any cause for concern; he’s never gone to the hospital, but he has smashed his car a few times (he was fine in both cases). He is really annoyed by what he sees as constant nagging from Marge, and he thinks that she’s going over the top by checking up with him so often. He wants to have fun with his friends, not talk to his mom, since that’s not cool. He wants to do as little as possible to make his mom not ground him.

Interview Results

Several feature requests were made during the interviews. Some parents with more difficult children like the Bart persona above would like automatic tracking, but children would most likely never go for that. For younger children, this may be ok. Some parents want to be able to set the reminder frequency for a check-in, or be able to instantaneously send a check-in request.

...

A teenager we interviewed would like a very fast interface, and the option to ignore all optional information that their parents might want but don’t need.  However they would like space to be able to give a reason for not calling or checking in as well.  Ideally they would also like to be able to check in later, though this conflicts with the parent’s ideal.  If both their parents had the application, they would like the opportunity to check in with just one of them.

Task Analysis

• Set a check-in time and create form
• Check in and complete form
• Send help message to parent
• View check-in
• View check-in history

Set Check-in Time and Create New Form:
Set up a future or instantaneous check-in with possible reminders and custom questions.
User class: parent
Precondition:* Has a profile set up

• Is a parent user and is linked to a child user

Subtasks:* Set a check-in time

• Choose which questions they want the child to answer:** can use or edit previous form created
  • can choose questions from a sample list
  • can create their own questions

Frequency of use:* Once for every time that they want the child to check in (efficiency is important)

Check in and complete form:
Respond to a check-in request from a parent.
User class: child
Precondition:* Parent has created a form and set a check in time

• The check in time is now (Optional: Child received a warning that the check in time is now)

Subtasks:* Open app

• See option to just send location at top of page.
• Below it see form with answers filled in from last time, if within 12 hours of last check-in (otherwise blank)
• Change appropriate answers
• Submit the form (will send answers as well as location to parent)

Frequency of use:* Once for every time the parent set a check-in

Send help message to parent:
A child might feel uncomfortable in their situation and want the parent to take some action to help them (e.g. to call them for an excuse to leave a party, to pick them up).
User class: child
Precondition:* None - any time child is in the app

Subtasks:* Press button to send help message

• Choose type of help
• Enter optional extra information (child is alone, with x number of friends, buzzed, etc.)

Frequency of use:* Probably minimal - only used in uncomfortable situations (otherwise, child might as well call parent directly)

View check-in:
User class: parent
Precondition:* Child has checked in at a specific time

Subtasks:* Choose check-in from list (see task “View check-in history”) or see most recent one

Frequency of use:* In theory once per check-in

View check-in history:
User class: parent
Precondition:* Child has checked in at least once previously

Subtasks:* View one page at a time of prior check-ins

Parents and children will have different tasks to perform in dealing with this problem.

Parent Tasks
Parents want their children to check in with them, without having to call them.  To get their children to do this, they must:

• Ask their child to check in

In fact, parents often want their children to check in on a regular basis, for example, every day after school, or every Friday and Saturday night by 11pm.  They would also want to be able to ask their child to check in and then not think about it for awhile - e.g. tell the child every time they want a check in for all of tomorrow.  Therefore this task of asking their child to check in would be related to another task that they would want to be able to do:

• Set future and/or regular check-in times for their children

If parents have to compromise with their children to agree to not do this via a phone call, they want to make sure they still get enough information from their children, e.g. who their child is with.  Therefore another task they need to do is:* Request specific information from their child upon check-in

Once the child checks in, the parent needs a way to obtain the check-in information.  Therefore another task for them is:* View check-in (and maybe old check-ins) (though this does not need to be a “viewing” action necessarily)

Child Tasks
Children need to answer their parents every time their parents want information from them.  Therefore the child’s main task is:* Respond to a parent’s request for check-in

Children might also need help but still not want to call their parents.  For this, they would have to ask:* Request parent’s help, or a phone call from the parent, without having to call their parents

TA Feedback.

As we discussed, I think you guys are on to something really cool. There are some issues with your GR1 that need work before moving forward, however.

The first thing is that instead of stating a problem, you share your solution, though you provide a bit of motivation for it. Think of it first as a problem to be solved.

You also don't seem to really get a good feel for what the tasks your users use to solve your problems, and instead you describe actions that your app will let users take. Don't forget that the next step is to make three separate designs - you shouldn't already have picked one. Think of task analysis as the analysis of tasks that need to be done to solve the problems.

I'd appreciate it if you made these changes, since we'll be working off this document for the whole rest of the project.Frequency of use:* Probably minimal - more likely to view most recent check-in