Week 6 – 07/04/20

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Lecture Pods Summary

The lecture pod this week covered the following topics:

User Scenarios:

• A prediction of how specific users will interact with your product in a specific situation.
• Allows designers to isolate issues with the interface.
• Should provide the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.
• Users with a goal or an issue should be allowed to resolve it within the user scenario – it should be an example of a successful user experience.
• Begins with a base understanding of who the interface is for. What appeal does it have, and why?
• Scenarios are narratives describing purpose and interaction. They may discuss goals and motivations, actions, reactions and problems based around a specific user persona.
• They are not forecasts, but rather serve to illustrate the context of the interface’s use in every day life.
• The persona and scenario are both fictional, and may not apply to everyone. it is important to make sure the scenario is specific and concise.

Reflection

The lecture pd for this week was brief and quite simple. it focused on the nature of user scenarios and what they are used for when designing an interface with personas in mind. The pod went over what scenarios are, who they apply to and what they do.

Through this pod I gained a better understanding of what to do for my own user scenario – I was able to gain insight into its structure, for example; providing the “who?” first to give context, and then outlining the motivations or goals of that persona, and then the “how?” which can demonstrate how they use the interface to meet their goal or resolve their issue. It was enlightening and gave me a better grasp on the basics of user scenarios and their context.

An example of a user scenario with a lot of detail and comprehensive steps is an example scenario made by UXM (UX for the Masses), detailing the scenario of their user persona Cheryl marking a GCSE paper online. Not only does the scario provide the steps taken by Cheryl, it also provides the questions asked with each step, the knowledge and interface functionality required and comments about Cheryl’s behaviour patterns and thoughts. The graphic can be seen below:

Image Source: UX for the masses. (2019). Example Scenario: Cambridge Assessment [Graphic]. Retrieved April 8, 2020 from http://www.uxforthemasses.com/resources/example-ux-docs/#Example%20scenario:%20Cambridge%20Assessment.