1 Technical & Business Writing (ENG-715) Muhammad Bilal Bashir UIIT, Rawalpindi

Outline 1. Analyzing your users 2. Guidelines for conducting a user analysis 1. Choose users carefully 2. Anticipate transfer of learning: Study users before and after using a program 3. Research professional behaviors 4. Write use case 3. Summary 2

Analyzing Your Users Lecture: 13 3

Analyzing Your Users This is the basic research phase of documentation process In preparing a user analysis you use interviews, questionnaires, surveys to gather information about users The user analysis makes you to contact with person who might use the software that you want to document It helps you to find out how your software fits into the pattern of workplace activities of potential users in productive and appropriate ways 4

Analyzing Your Users (Continue…) The analysis consist of user inquiries into eight areas 1. Task and activities the user will perform 2. User’s informational needs 3. User’s work motivations 4. Level of user’s computer experience 5. User’s knowledge of program’s subject matter 6. User community 7. User’s learning preferences 8. User’s usage pattern 5

Analyzing Your Users (Continue…) These information’s help you to set the goals of your documents and features included in them. User analysis can be used later in the development process when you design documents 6

Guidelines for Conducting a User Analysis There are eight guidelines to conduct a user analysis 1. Choose users carefully 2. Anticipate transfer of learning: Study before and after using a program 3. Research professional behaviors 4. Write use cases 5. Plan interviews carefully 6. Involve users in all phases of project 7. Identify document goals 8. Tie the user analysis to document features 7

1. Choose Users Carefully While analyzing your user, you may have to choose your imaginations in indentifying whom to select as examples As starter you should list as many types or groups of users as you can Then study the list and ask yourself “which users would most probably use the program and which users can I interview most easily?” Choose the most typical users and users with whom you can develop a working relationship 8

Examples of User Groups for Programs 9 ProgramUser GroupTasks Network Program System Administrator Set up user accounts and passwords UserLogin, run program, store files Jogging Log CoachEnter data about athlete, create reports, track progress AthleteEnter data about workouts, create reports, track progress Math Tutor TeacherSet up tutorials, track progress StudentRun tutorials, score tests, record progress Family Financial Planner Financial consultant Create consultant profile, reports for customers Head of household Enter data about assets, income,, create tax reports

Choose Users Carefully (Continue…) Once you have narrowed the list you can conduct user interviews If you don’t work with the users then locate some people with similar jobs in your own organization. Call them, explain your document project and ask and discuss from them Identify the user activities, pay special intention to information related tasks and identify user concerns related to their tasks This will help you a lot to relate the document according to the user’s workplace activities 10

2. Anticipate Transfer of Learning: Study Before and After Using a Program After collecting the information through interviews, you have to describe the job related activities that a user does without the benefit of your program Then you can evoke these activities in your tutorials and procedures Research shows that skills learned in the workplace can transfer to skills using software.  The more you understand these skills in your user, the better you can transfer this valuable learning to the use of your program 11

Anticipate Transfer of Learning: Study Before and After Using a Program (Continue…) Notice even small facts about users, such as their attitudes toward computer programs or their habits when developing computer skills Find out what values—efficiency, team orientation, environmental concerns, ethical issues—confront your user, and he or she responds to them  This tacit knowledge, can help you understand the way users see their work: attitudes and understandings that can provide the energy to get them to use a tutorial or to follow a procedure 12

3. Research Professional Behaviors Sometime you do not have actual users at your disposal or you need to research professional behaviors with which you are unfamiliar In such cases you can construct a mock-up of the user; a kind of model to use as a resource in making design decisions You can find out about what tasks people perform in various occupation by consulting occupational guides such as Occupational Outlook Handbook  13

Research Professional Behaviors (Continue…) These publications may provide the best information about jobs and tasks, because they show how different organizations defines different jobs  e.g. the definitions of a system analyst varies greatly from company to company: A system analyst of a bank has different task than a communication firm 14

4. Write Use Cases Your goal is to uncover motivations, behaviors, values, and knowledge pertaining to your users that might not be visible on the surface  This is called tacit knowledge One way to uncover these values of professional activities is the case or use case Use cases depict the actual work flow tasks that users of the software would perform You can employ use cases to provide role models for users and in your documentation plan to illustrate the activities you will support 15

Write Use Cases (Continue…) You should prepare one or more uses cases for each user type that you envision for the software you are documenting The documentation needed for each user group may vary You may have special section for each type of the user or if their needs differ greatly, each type of the use may require a separate document Sometimes it is a good idea to draw out a work flow diagram to accompany a user scenario 16

17 Summary Any Questions?