09/12/2014

summary Q&A Understanding our compulsions



Q&A Understanding our compulsions

Summary

The article consists of questions which are being answered by the writer. First of all the author writes about how unintentionally bad decision making can impact on us in the workplace. People sacrifice their productive morning time for email and calendar tasks. Another bad decision is aligned with opportunity costs. When someone is doing some task or spending some money then this time and money will not be used for other purposes. Email is a great temptation because email works as random reinforcement. The excitement of getting emails makes us check our email all the time. Three basic things makes us to make bad decisions. The world around us tries to tempt us, we listen to the world around us and we don’t deal very well with temptation. The next question the writer answers is what to do about it. Email temptation is very hard to resist, the best solution is to tell the IT department to not distribute email in the morning. Our ability to exercise self-control to resist temptation is limited. It takes energy to resist a temptation and during the day when the energy levels get lower you easier give in to temptation. The focus that we should have to manage our time better is to work with progression markers. We must make our self like we are making progress at then barriers will become smaller.

Most valuable advice for me personally

The most valuable advice for me in this article is that making a way to feel like you are making progression is important to plan your time in a good way. At some projects I already did that by making a very good planning and crossing off things that I did. This will give me the feeling of progression. I will try to give more progression markers specially while working on big projects where the end is not clear.


What advice is most relevant for students and should be included in the coaching? Why? 

In my opinion the coaching misses a part of planning and looking towards the end product. Every week we get new assignments and things to do but if the whole planning would be available from the start then groups can better organize their own time.

Insight related to Smart Life Rhythms

Temptation is of course a big problem in Smart Life Rhythms in general. Instead of getting a good night sleep a lot of people are tempted by things like Facebook, twitter and YouTube. It is not only a problem because in the context of the new way of working the 24/7 availability of social media is a great advantage. Life is full with temptations and that has a big effect on everybody’s life rhythms. This article shows us that it is possible to find ways to resist a part of the temptation but it will never work for 100%.

03/12/2014

Persona Bob Venkel

Pre Research report Datumprikker








Pre Research report Datumprikker
Usability research for datumprikker

- CONCEPT -
- VERTROUWELIJK -







Mr. E Wisselink
Mr. Y. Dokov
Mr. M. Blanken
Mr. J Lazaroms
Students of The Hague University







Researcheport Datumprikker

Usability research for datumprikker








Client:
The Hague University
Johanna Westerdijkplein 75
2521 EN Den Haag
Meggie Williams
070-4458707
m.a.williams@hhs.nl

Client:Webbeat logo
Webbeat Products BV
Turfschipper 7-9
2292 JC Wateringen
Mr. Geert  Merkelbach
06 14790677
Geert@webbeat.nl

Researchers:
Eelco Wisselink
06 284 63 2 29

Yani Dokov
06 190 84 4 84

Micha
06 364 80 2 36

Joerian Lazaroms
06 833 61 3 81

INHOUDSOPGAVE

  1. Introduction


This research is started from the minor Smart Life Rhythms at The Hague University. Students will be doing an usability research of the service ‘’Datumprikker’’. This service provides a service that helps people plan meetings in an structural environment. This helps the user organizing.

Besides that Datumprikker provides a lot of help, it also comes with cons like cooperation in the process. People like using the service for complex and big groups but Datumprikker is too complex for small groups. So the problem Datumprikker is dealing with is probably somewhere an user expercience bottleneck.


  1. THEORY


  1. RESEARCH QUESTION
The question that was provided:
How can we stay in control of our agenda and at the same time make spontaneous catch-up appointments that work?

The question that is researched:
Where are the critical moments while using Datumprikker

  1. METHOD


The methods that were chosen were observation, interviewing and creating a customer journey. The methods came from the book Universal Methods of Design (Martin and Hanington  2012). These methods gave insights of were the bottleneck was of the service design. By interviewing and observation we registered the information of each step the customer was going through.

  1. INSTRUMENT
The interview and observation setting was open. There was a structure by giving the respondent the assignment of organize an meeting with Datumprikker and the other respondent with giving response to that particular meeting. The respondents were also interviewed by other services and the pros of these services. But the order of this was completely open.

In the flow chart showed every step colored with an positive effect on the respondent and an negative.

  1. SAMPELING & RESPONDENTS
For this pre-research we choosed our envirement of friends and family. This is possible since the target group is so big. These respondent were chosen within our personal cycles A-select. The age could be between 18 - 65 with internet experience. The amount of group was 8 respondent because we did a qualitative pre research. But before there was a research with this respondents, we did a research with ourselve so we investigated the steps frustrations.

  1. PROCEDURE
The research took place at an comfort location for the respondent, this could be home. The interview with observation was open for an natural order but had an specific assignment with questions.

There were two assignments, one for the organizer and one for the receiver. The organizer was asked to create an event with the service from Datumprikker. We observed the steps that were taken and asked them to think out loud with every step. There also was investigated with every step what there feeling was. The other assignment procedure went the same but had to give response to an invite from Datumprikker.

As last the respondents were asked about other experiences with other services in similar situations. The focus was at pros of these services so we could investigated there needs.

  1. RESULTS


something about merging the results together.

The results from the research are presented in a customer journey. The experience flow is backed with information of thoughts and feelings. The alternative used methods are listed and compared feature-wise.


  1. RELIABILITY INSTRUMENT
The research is partly reliable. The customer journey comes with pros and cons but
reliability is not as much of an issue for just gathering info about critical moments.

Customer journey
Pros
  • Four researchers interpreted, consulted and created as a group the customer journey
  • There were  eight respondent used in this research. This an good amount for an qualitative pre research.

Cons
  • Unfortunately every researcher had just two respondents.
  • There was not a clear criteria for the respondents. But everyone was in the target group.
Alternative used methods to catch up

Pros
  • The material was recorded with video, screen-recording and audio

Cons
  • One respons
  • No one checked the data


  1. GENERAL RESULTS
The general results are shown below.


4.2.1 Customer journey

The critical moments are shown with colors and explained with feelings.

Link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pSzzKee3elnCaQVw1uZM4Qsjg3Y-lPBRHxBuGM3gsMU/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true

4.2.2 Alternative used methods to catch up

Phone

Used with max 3 people

Pros
  • Immediately organized and you know what you can expect.
  • Peronal

Mail

Used with 3 people or more

Pros
  • Quick but everyone can still answer in their own time.
  • Personal
  • Everyone has input:
    Consulation about things like, what to do and when. Not just one organizer.
  • More structured than groupchat

When we meet

Used with small group

Pros
  • Immediately organized and you know what you can expect.
  • Peronal

Chats

Used with a small group

Pros
  • Quick but everyone can still answer in their own time.
  • Personal
  • Everyone has input:
    Consulation about things like, what to do and when. Not just one organizer.

Facebook & LinkedIn

Have no facebook or use it almost not and would not use LinkedIn for these things.

Google Calendar

Small and big group

Pros
  • You know more about each other left sparetime
  • It is already integrated with my calendar
  • 100% by the time; there will be no situation where I first say that I am available and later plan something because I forgot about my input.
  • I don’t need to share my personal data with another organisation
  • Other users can bring input as well
  • You can choose your visualization; list, day, week, month and year.
  • Suggestions for mail addresses.
  • Quick respond in mail without opening.

Other input


  • Create your own layout especially for business (look and feel)
  • Add an attachment
  • Include also the travel options
    • Can I fix a cab for you?
    • You will have one hour travel time from your previous appointment with public transport
  • If datum prikker would know everyone’s location he could give suggestions about the best location for everyone; make it smart.
  • No physical appointment? What does everyone prefer? Skype? Hangout?
  • Communicate with my calendar
  • Animate; Move answered dates te the left in listview
  • Animat; Weekview so you got better comparing with you own calendar (or month)
  • Could be more structured, choose wisely what is the most dominant thing on the webpage.
  • Everyone can edit.
  • Show earlier: Respond later
  • Option to give direct notes

  1. CONCLUSIONS


The initiator finds the biggest problem with picking dates and fill in the e-mail addresses of the participants. The receiver finds the biggest problems to compare his or her agenda with the list of dates. This could be fixed with new dates layout that matches the layout of the agenda instead of the list or by give permission to your agenda and let Datumprikker check your availability. Other pros of methods were that you can start as open as a groupchat like Whatsapp and end as specific as Datumprikker itself. Furthermore Datumprikker isn’t personal and that bothers people aswell.

  1. RECOMMENDATIONS


The first recommendation is further research to discover more of how these new possibilities practically will work out. But the research need to be focused at the steps picking dates, select participants, create an open way of starting an event and a way to make it personal.


REFERENCES


Martin, B., Hanington, B.,(2012) Universal Methods of Design. United States: Rockport


ATTACHMENTS

ATTACHEMNT 1: HARDCOPY DATA RESEARCH
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xpkjNQ7tZI0Ht7DZqaRZmpXswIX3KWvZfa6MoZgPx10/edit?usp=sharing


https://docs.google.com/document/d/11F4dsVQqXI3BjFGHXEwvWUVR4xhhXmzr5kKGZoSH0p4/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vBveEQ-8traPIqjldnL0fo0dFNFA_glalRKXE4-U10s/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kOEKKAMXVbFjhN8B74vKZ5PAqo5Mawg0Y6Y30YruQWI/edit?usp=sharing



Persona Merel van Dijk


02/12/2014

Challenges defined

Challenges
Moment of truthWhat typical moment (activity-time-space) in your experience flow offers an opportunity for improvement for your user? ​
When you start to think about meeting with a friend and you have some time left. (the very start of the proces)You get an invite to meet a friend. You want to meet him, but you don't want to end up with only him.
Think & FeelWhat frustration, unmet need or dilemma occurs at this moment, is experienced by your user?​
Frustration: the expected feeling of working hard to fill in the dates and the uncertainty of the respons. Unmet need: the user wants to be sure of the response without doing work. Dilemma: shall I use datumprikker or should i risk being alone?Frustration: I dont want to think about it. Dilemma: shall I wait for the others to respond, or shall I risk to be the only one at the bar? I dont want to hurt his feelings with my neglect to respond but I dont have enough to talk about with only him.
VisionIn the ideal future situation, what would you want your user to experience? ​
With one button send a message to a group of friends to meet.After receiving an invitation to meet, the user can view the other invited people and select a minimum amount of friends to join or select specific people that need to join before he even considers coming to the bar.
ChallengeTranslate this into a challenge statement
How to get a fast and easy response from your friends?How to be selective in your response without harming the organiser emotionally?

Design goal and metaphor


To define our design goal we looked at our target group, the effect we want to achieve and the interaction vision we have. As target group we have people that want to have spontaneous catch-up meetings. We want to enable people to schedule an appointment with friends. We want this in a convenient and friendly way.

Our design goal is:
We want to enable people, that want to have spontaneously catch-up meetings, to schedule an appointment with friends in a convenient and friendly way.

To understand our design goal better we made a metaphor for the experience of using our solution.
The experience should be like making popcorn.