- Observations & Interviews. Give a narrative of the three people that you observed and interviewed. Don't use their names. Don't identify the users by name, but do describe who they were. Each narrative should include a particularly interesting moment -- a breakdown or workaround that exhibits a feature of the problem you're aiming to solve.
- User Classes. Describe the user classes that you have identified, and their major characteristics.
- Needs & Goals. Describe the goals that you have identified, with reference to the observations you made.
Interviews
"Larry" - Larry is a student at a nearby college. He used to take medication for his ADHD until he became better and no longer needed to take it. His problem mainly consists of his inability to read long articles -- specifically, long blocks of text. He learns better visually, by looking at pictures, video, infographics, or other media, as opposed to text, and this learning preference may have something to do with his ADHD. Most scary to Larry are long, uninterrupted blocks of text with no subtitles or other breakpoints. When Larry needs to read long papers for school assignments, he will usually split the paper up into more manageable chunks and read them, taking breaks often in between.
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Social Worker/Guidance Counselor
Works with college age students in a private practice. Also runs a K-12 guidance department at a mid size school.
- Social Involvement of others is important to improving attention
- People with ADHD understand they have a problem. A common behavior is installing self help software and then not using it/uninstalling it.
- Tedious and boring material is so unappealing in relationship with easy access engagement and stimulation
- Precipitous drop in the grades of ADHD kids who are given iPads in the classroom
- Reward systems have proven effective where stimulation is given in exchange for accomplishment
MIT Course 16 Senior
- Long unordered lists get ignored, while lists with a clear hierarchy of titles or ideas are very attractive.
- Graphics and colors get noticed first, things that are familiar or expected or easier to look at and more appealing
- Low tolerance for sites that take more than a few seconds to understand
- Chunking improves ability to scan/comprehend
- It is important to keep track of useful information to pull up and see all together (e.x. Summaries)
Dina Course 9 Junior
- Has difficulty starting tasks, doesn’t know what approach to take
- Hyperfocuses on specific things. This tends to happen with hands-on work
- Low capacity for working memory: losing thread in the middle of a paragraph/long questions.
- Breaks information into parts to deal with it. Switches between topics and tasks to keep interested. Sets goals to accomplish before starting to work, and writes them down.
- Plans rigid time blocks in which to do activities