| Introduction Design Rationale
Evaluation
Scenario&Analysis
Interview/Survey
Trade-offs
Conclusion
Enhancement proposal
Conclusion
Visit Nostalgia |
Interview/Surveys of Designers and Users
After our group had finished with the claims analysis and gotten an idea of how the system worked and of a few
possible enhancements to the system, we attempted to get information from three different groupings of people.
First, we interviewed Christina Van Metre, who was on the team that recommended the guestbook and photo gallery
additions to the system. Mrs. Van Metre was particularly helpful in explaining her group's goals for the system
and how they hoped the new additions would help meet those goals. She also talked about her meetings with the
users and what some of their expectations and needs were. Finally, Mrs. Van Metre suggested we talk to Dr. Mary
Beth Rosson about the system's logs, which are in her possession.
- Mrs. Van Metre liked the idea of getting the users somehow involved, possibly through discussion groups.
- She thought a timeline or chronology that related to the stories would be difficult to implement and of little help.
- She did not like the idea of adding other media and music because of download times.
Next, we set up an appointment and met with Dr. Rosson. Dr. Rosson provided us with a copy of the usage logs,
which were unfortunately of little use because we could not parse them. She also provided us with her own
visions and goals for the system and critiqued our initial enhancement ideas and with her initial impressions of
how effective the changes to the system had been.
- Dr. Rosson also liked the discussion group idea, except for concerns about how time consuming it would be for administrators.
- She thought a timeline would clutter the site and add little.
- She did not like the idea of adding other media and music because they wouldn't relate specifically to Blacksburg. Further,
since users of Nostalgia span more than one generation, it would be difficult to pick appropriate music for everyone.
Finally, we send out e-mails to several Blacksburg Nostalgia users. Unfortunately, the response was not as high
as we had hoped, but we did get three replies. In the e-mails, we went over each of our main enhancement ideas in detail
and asked the users for their opinions. We also invited the users to give their own recommendations, to tell us
if they liked the new additions to the system, and to tell us their impression of the system overall.
- All of the users that replied liked the discussion group idea to keep the site fresh and interesting.
- The users also liked the timeline idea and thought it would be a good way to allow the stories to relate to each other.
- Users also expressed concerns about slow download times and had negative feelings about added media.
- Users commenting on the guestbook liked it a lot and saw it as a way to find others on the site.
- Users commenting on the photo gallery enjoyed the old pictures, but one comment said that many users did not
realize that they could click on the thumbnails for larger images.
Every group that was interviewed agreed that something needed to be done to keep Nostalgia fresh and interesting. Without
occasional changes or updates to the site, there was no great reason for people to make return visits.
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