12/2/13

How I applied lessons from class in term paper



MSD class has introduced many concepts and theories, practices and tools. However, it would be of little value if we do not apply, or at least try to apply them. Follows are some practices and knowledge that I did apply in my term paper.

 
·         IDEO cards:
I used IDEO cards as the tool to conduct gathering user’s requirement and opinions. In the scope of this project, I used 3 cards: 1) survey & questionnaire, 2) narration 3) experience prototype. I personally have the experience with the narration card. In narration session, I interacted directly with users and discovered their behaviors, habits and expectations of the “Recipe” function of Tesco Mobile App. Throughout the process, I also know more about the cultural and social context of Tesco mobile app.
For experience prototype phase, I created prototype by Balsamiq (http://balsamiq.com/), giving it to users for feedback and redesigned the prototype to satisfy all users. 
·         How to choose research method to gather requirement – lesson from class:
How I choose my research method is based on the above figure. The reason I use survey method in the first phase is that we feel at this stage, a large number of users of Tesco Mobile App can be reached, and they can say explicitly their opinion and review of the app.
In the second phase, I used narration and prototyping. The reason for such choice is that after gathering general requirements of users, now I wanted users to tell more detail about “Recipe” tab. These methods could only be used for limited number of users.

·         Activity checklist:
I also applied activity checklist to the research for my term paper: I asked myself questions such as Who owns? Who pays? Who charges? Who designs? Who develops? Who uses? Who has to change? What are the goals of designing the new system? to understand the space and context of the app.
·         MoSCoW rules and battleship’s lessons:
Subsequently followed by gathering requirements, I figured out that I have to manage the scope of the project. The tool I used was MosCoW rules which stands for must, should, could and want-to-have feature. In one email I sent to the professor to ask for advices, he replied that I should avoid “feature bloat” – a situation that software is continually added many unnecessary features. This is the reason that I decided to only implement a seemingly small “change” in Tesco Mobile App: To connect the recipe tab with the shopping function.
Battleship game’s lessons have indeed confirmed our intuition. The connection is the piece what must be hit before the “Recipe” function becomes valuable. Moreover, after hitting the biggest ship – and receiving reward – I stopped the game (and win).
·         Royce’s five remedies and development processes:
The knowledge of Royce’s five remedies and development processes is vital for me to design the development process to implement the “Recipe” function. The reason that I used “Waterfall” as that the requirements are clear. Furthermore, additional practices are used to increase the chance of success of the project. They are: 1) Design first 2)Document the design 3)Do it twice 4)Plan, control and manage testing 5) Involve users.
By designing the development process, I also identified different must-have roles in the development teams: Product/project manager, product owner, designer, analyst, programmer and tester. I also identified different possible interaction between them. The most important interaction are among system designer, system analyst and product owner because they address the problems of defining requirements and designing system.

Furthermore, it’s also useful to think of the other thing that I should have done, but I didn’t

·         User story:
I regret that I didn’t apply user story technique to gather understanding of the technical, social, cultural factors of the product. The implication was that we faced difficulties in how to define questions for the survey and questionnaire session. Failing to apply this practice had probably impeded the progress of this phase.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

My photo
Dublin, Ireland
I am a Master student in UCD Michael Smurfit School. With broad experience in start-up, research, software industry and sale, I am actively seeking employment in consulting industry.