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Description

It was our pleasure to interview a graduate student Mr. Lester Oscar Lobo who has attained practical training in the field of requirement analysis and also HCI by taking Usability Course. A Graduate Student of Requirement Analysis at Virginia Tech himself having done research including designing user dialogs, giving recommendations for VoiceXML dialogs and in a number of the latest technologies. We targeted him as our Subject Matter expert and tried to extract his opinions, views, and suggestions from his personal likings and his experience in the field. Our contact came in very handy, and the interview proved very beneficial.

Our ideal SME was someone who was experienced in the field of HCI, possibly even someone who had written notification software before.

Artifact

Questions about the general background of the interviewee

What kinds of computer applications do you use? Undergraduate/ Graduate in CS Software programmer/ designer/ developer in IBM Software Labs Computer Experience: 8 years What day-to-day activities you are usually engaged in? For example, how many email accounts do you hold and how frequently you check them? What other type of work you deal with on your computer? Frequency: Email check- email client checks every 1 min To-do list -> always on the desktop Other activities: Virus updates, browsing... Are you having troubles managing or synchronizing your activities, schedules, appointments, pending tasks and other notifications at the same time? To a certain extent... Notifications do not distinguish between hi priority and low priority jobs... Also, notifications do not distinguish between mails sent from different people. Notifications can also be non-informative. For example: its not possible to know the number of mails in the inbox in the case of the notification for Outlook.

Specific points which we want to know that might help in analyzing user needs

How important is the visual interface to you in any notification system software? (Rate on a scale from 1 to 10). Will text notification or graphical notification attract you more? 8 / very important - more information is displayed and helps in better information comprehension type of notification depends on the application- in the case of news application a text notification may be useful for breaking news... however for time schedules, dates and so on a graphical interface would be better Have you ever missed an important mail, appointment, to-do task, or important notification in your work schedule? If so, what was the reason behind it? Missed an email - the email notification informed that 'u have email'. Wasn't descriptive enough and never conveyed the urgency of the email. Missed a task to be done- the notification wasn't catchy enough. Would you like your messages to be displayed as notifiers? Not the messages - but the sender and urgency of the message. Showing message should be an option Do you require any notification software for it ? If yes, what would be the best choice for you? For News :- CNN , Bulster newscheck... Incredimail is the best one of the current email notifications... it differentiates between user emails... doesn't tell u the number of mails in the box and neither about the urgency. But the others don't do it either. ESPN newscheck is good for the news notifier as its catchy but not bothersome. Does that notifying system satisfy your needs? How well? (Rate on a scale from 1 to 10). Incredimail is satisfactory... 6/10 Better than the other notifiers but can be improved a lot. Number of emails, mail urgency, display part of subject line... Is the system able to set priorities for you for your pending tasks? If yes, explain how this is accomplished. For keeping track of schedules I use Lotus Notes- This supports setting priorities and it is good. Current and important tasks are highlighted as per user preference colors. but the application is heavy on the system...

Specific things which we want to know which would interest us in evaluating our product

Do you have problems facing too many alerts and notifications from different programs informing about your pending tasks? Yes - also pop ups are very irritating Are there any means by which you can set priorities to your tasks? If so, can you get notified according to the priority of your work? Lotus Notes / Post it notes(software) on the desktop. Lotus notes has the prioritizing capability. Post it notes has color possibilities… left to user choice to select color for priority What technical aspects would you expect from such a notifying system Visual notification, Catches user attention ( different design / shape ), Not very flashy, Notify priority of emails and tasks, Scalable when the tasks/ emails increase, Keeps track of the history ( shows visually mails in the past and so on), Flexibility of maximizing and minimizing If you were given such complete notification software would you change to it from your usual notifiers? Yes When software notifies you of something, is it usually more useful to your productivity or detrimental? Give examples if possible. Very useful. Incredimail notifier notifies me the person sending me a mail. It produces a different sound for each person. Task notification help in organizing the tasks for the day without missing any meetings/ appointments.