Assignment 1 – Design Visualization and PACT

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106CR Designing for Usability
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Silviu-Ionut Hogasi
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3296705
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February 2011

2,105/2,264 words

Design Visualization and PACT

Table of Contents

PACT Analysis 3

Introduction 3

People 3

Activities 3

Context of use 4

Current Technology 4

Future Technology 5

Observation 6

Secondary Research 7

Prototype of the interface 9

Feedback 10

References 11

PACT Analysis
Introduction

Design Visualization and PACT

The following is a PACT Analysis for an informative system to help tourist and people
that are unfamiliar with the attractions of Coventry City. This system is aimed to help
them to find the way around the city, find places to dine, visit different attractions, shop
and do other activities.

Coventry is a city that has a lot of interesting places that can be visited by tourists, local
people and also people that got train/coach connections to different parts of the country
and also have time to spend.

People

The persons who will be using the system are from a wide range of people: normal
persons that have a daily job, unemployed persons, students, kids and old people they
can come from the city of Coventry, other parts of United Kingdom or even other
countries that are seeking just to visit different places. Most of the people that stop in
Coventry by the train station or coach station are people that work or study in Coventry
and live in different parts of United Kingdom or people that live in Coventry and work or
study elsewhere. This range of people is often in a hurry because if they have a
connection between trains or coaches they have a limited period of time and they have
to use every minute of it to help them fill the gaps between connections with other
activities.

Other range of people that will be using the system will be tourist from United Kingdom
or other parts of the world. This system will be much more useful for them because
most of them do not know many things about Coventry and what it has to offer. It will
help them find tourist attractions in Coventry and also places that they could use to
relax, dine, shop and spend their time.

The language could be an issue because the system will be used by people for other
nations and cultures, many of them do not know English but still they want to visit what
Coventry has to offer.

Activities

The objective of this system is to help people find their way around Coventry finding
places to visit without wasting too much time.

In this scenario the users are seeking to visit different places, dine or just find something
worth doing to fill their time waiting for the connection on the train or coach.

Visiting places as Coventry’s Transport Museum, Herbert Art Gallery and Museum or
Jaguar Heritage Museum could be a good way to spend your time waiting for your
connection, but many people that travel in the United Kingdom and have a connection in
Coventry don’t know about this places or other interesting places to visit or a good
restaurant to dine.

Design Visualization and PACT

The actions that a person has to perform to find the information’s he needs could be
very complicated and frustrating. He has to ask different people about the attractions,
restaurant or what he intends to do in the free time he’s got, also ask them for directions
on how he can get there. That could become very frustrating and time consuming
operation because some people may be in a hurry to get to work or have some
problems and they won’t help, also some people may not know so many things about
the city and can’t help them even if they want to. Also problems may appear even if you
have the right information; if you don’t have a map or someone/something to guide you
it could take a lot of time to find your way to your desired location.

Context of use

The environment that the action is happening could be in different places such as:
Coventry City streets, Coventry Coach Station, Coventry Rail Station or other
institutions. These places are often crowded by busy people that carry a different task;
the environment is often noisy and filled with a lot of people. The design will not require
a special training to use it will be very simple; users just need to point and touch the
screen with the finger on whatever button they need. The system will need to be used
quickly because of the crowded place of the scenario it will get really crowded around it
and it will become frustrating for people that wait too much to use it.

Current Technology

The current technology helping people find their way around Coventry and also other
places is very large. Nowadays on the internet you can find almost all information’s you
seek, there are many websites where you can find information about the attractions of
different cities or places and you can know exactly what to expect from the place you
want to visit, also on the internet you can find maps that can lead you exactly where you
want without wasting too much time asking for directions. The internet spread a lot in
the last few years so now you can access the internet from your mobile phone via
provider’s internet service or connecting to a wireless connection that can also be used
to connect laptops to the internet. But not all the public places have free wireless
connection and not all users have internet on their mobile phone to find different
information’s on what they can do in the time waiting for their connections.

Future Technology

The present technology can help us in a lot of ways in the present scenario including
hardware and software in creating a computer with all the information of the city and its
attractions without the need to connect to the internet. The computer should be placed
in different points in the city such as: Coventry Rail Station, Coventry Coach Station and
other crowded places so the people that are arriving in Coventry to search more easily
for a place to spend their time. This system would allow people who want to do different

Design Visualization and PACT

activities to choose between options that give information’s about what they are
interested in..

Fig 1. Main screen of prototype

Observations
From observation done at the Coventry Rail Station and Coach Station and questioning
people I discovered that you can’t find many things to help you guide yourself through
Coventry City neither at the Rail Station or the Coach Station or many people don’t
know about it. So if someone that doesn’t know anything about Coventry travels by train
or coach through United Kingdom and has a connection in Coventry and has a period of
time to wait for the connection he can’t find where to go spend his time visiting or dining.
Also many people that come to Coventry find their way in the town using a mobile
phone with internet connection or GPS connection.

Design Visualization and PACT

In my opinion adding a new system at the Rail Station and Coach station that can help
tourists and people that have no knowledge about the city, to guide themselves it will be
very useful eliminating frustration that the people they ask don’t know or don’t want to
help them, in this situation they can help themselves and they will have more time to do
what they desire.

By questioning people about adding new technology to the specified spots you can tell
that the system will be very useful for people that don’t know anything about Coventry
City. They answered that a system that is not based on an internet connection and
placed in important parts of the city it could help tourist and even local people with
information of the city and what it can offer. It will be a good system that could help
visitors enjoy the time in Coventry. Also the persons questioned said that it will be good
to have a system that can tell the visitors all the information about a specific attraction
such as: opening and closing times, entrance fees not only the way to the specified
location. Persons that were questioned said that the system should be as simple as
possible because many of them get confused when having to do too many task to reach
their goal.

The PACT Analysis and the Observation helped me get a better idea on the design of
the system so it could be as easy and helpful as possible so all kinds of people can use
it. The need of people for a system that is designed to be used easily it is very important
because the time spent using it is critical it must be accessed easily and fast and also
show all the information needed by the users. Users do not have to get frustrated using
the system that is essential because people will make mistakes resulting in requesting
the wrong information.

Secondary Research
TripAdvisor: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/

TripAdvisor is a website that provides users with all kind of information’s about different
places around the world offering information’s about: hotels, flights, tourist attractions,
restaurants, almost every information you need about your vacation. On the website you
also can book a room at a specified hotel, book a flight and other tasks. TripAdvisor also
has a large database with almost every city in the world and its attractions that can help
you know what you are going to do on your vacation. This website is very useful for
tourist that are connected to the internet either by mobile phone internet, wireless
connection or any other connection on their vacation because they can check any time
what they could do.

Design Visualization and PACT

 Fig 2. TripAdvisor Website

Also there is an application for your smartphone that works only in Dublin, with this
application you can point your smartphone to a building or an object in real world and it
will retrieve information about it. According to Dublin Chief of Tourism the application
“delivers Dublin in the palm of your hand” and “will become the default way of visiting
Dublin and inevitably be replicated by other leading tourist destinations around the
world”. This application works at the moment only on the iPhone and the Android
systems. In the future it may be available also for other systems and could be used by
everyone.

With this application users can point and lock at a real world point of interest to retrieve
information about it also users can virtually move to destinations and virtually explore
them before making a visit.

Design Visualization and PACT

 Fig 3. Visit Dublin Application

Prototype for the interface

I developed a visualisation of what the main interface of my system would look like. The
system is made to help visitors in the easiest way possible to find a way thorough
Coventry, to find the best places to dine, interesting attractions and many other nice
places to visit.

The design is made for a software that has a simple design and it’s aimed to help
people, the software would be part of an ATM style computer with a big touch screen
display. It will have a database of all information’s related to Coventry so that it doesn’t
need an internet connection, all the information needed about the places to visit, dine
and have fun in Coventry will be available with just a touch on the screen. The main
screen of the design as you can see in Fig. 1. is very simple, so it’s not hard to use, just
by pressing the buttons which interests you and there you go, all information is on the
screen.

Design Visualization and PACT

Feedback
I questioned some potential users about the prototype design about what they think
about the design idea and what should be added to make it better. The users looked
over the design and asked what information that the prototype gives, once explained
they pointed some missing things in the design such as adding some extra information
that could be helpful to main attractions especially. They wanted the information about
opening and closing hours and entrance fees to be displayed at every main attraction so
that when someone is searching for the information would know when it is opened,
when it is closed or if they need to bring some extra money with them to pay an
entrance fee. Also they asked if is possible to add a print option to the information so if a
person needs to take the information with him he can do it. Also some of them said that
the design should have more pictures instead of text because they can be more easily
interpreted by future users.

After the asking some potential users I considered adding the features they mentioned
to the design I think they could be very useful like the users mentioned and also adding
more images to each menu and button just to make it more clear.

Design Visualization and PACT

References
Benyon D.(2005) Designing interactive [online] available from
systems: people, activities, contexts, <http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/> [01.Feb.2011]
technologies

TripAdvisor (‘n.d’) Coventry Attractions: What

eTurbo News (‘n.d’) Revolutionary new to Visit in Coventry – TripAdvisor [online]
technology for tourists in Dublin Point your available from
smartphone to a building and get information http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attractions-
[online] available from g186403-Activities-
<http://www.eturbonews.com/18301/point- Coventry_Warwickshire_England.html >
your-smartphone-building-and-get- [01.Feb.2010]
information> [01.Feb.2011]

Apple Inc. (‘n.d’) Visit Dublin - Official Mobile

Guide for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad on the PhotoBucket (‘n.d’) Pictures by kiker24 -
iTunes App Store [online] available from Photobucket: [online] available from
<http://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/visit-dublin- <http://s1090.photobucket.com/albums/i372/ki
official-mobile/id386857611?mt=8> ker24/> [02.Feb.2011]
[01.Feb.2011]

TripAdvisor (‘n.d’) Holiday Reviews - Hotels,

Resorts and Holiday Packages – TripAdvisor

Design Visualization and PACT