CO2702 HCI Assignment 2010-11

Persona 1-student

Pamela is 10 years old. She has a younger sister, Anna who is 7 years old. Pamela is a primary school student and lives in Manchester, the largest city in North west of England. Usually, this town as the whole of England, is cloudy and rainy. Her parents are both doctors, so they have enough money to live in a very nice house with garden. Furthermore, as they wanted the best education for their children, they took Pamela in one of the most famous schools of Manchester. Pamela is a little kid, full of energy and she likes running all the time and listening to music through her i-pod, going to the fun park,zoo e.t.c. She is also taking french and piano lessons at home. Even though she is young, she knows how to connect on the Internet and search for anything through her personal computer. She is enthusiastic with the microsoft surfaces that recently settled at her class and she finds it interesting and funny.


I chose this persona because it thinks it is a focal persona and responds to an average student whose school provides the microsoft surface. She is a student full of energy and the children of this age have a very good  relationship with new technologies and they can learn really fast.

Persona 2-teacher

Sophia is 30 years old. She is a teacher at a primary school and recently was married. She lives and teach at Manchester, the largest city in North west of England where is usually cloudy and rainy. Sophia has a 2 years old son and she lives with her family in a nice house owned by her and her husband. Her husband is a tax advisor and they practise Roman Catholic religion. She is an impressive woman with strong will as a person and as a teacher. She is the favorite teacher of the students and she is trying every day to requite this love back with her behavior and teaching. She likes going to restaurants with her husband and also going to the cinema. She is watching her daily favorites series, news and movies. She goes for jogging daily around the neighborhood and she also uses the internet for reading news, downloading music and movies, facebook, e-mails and more.It's been just a few weeks since the school is using microsoft surfaces at the classes and Sophia has to use it and teach through it. She thinks that it is interesting and she likes it because see can see that the students are happy with that and finds it funny.


The choice of this persona was because it is focal. A teacher at such a school reasonably must be relatively young and have a very good relationship with the technology.

persona and scenario

Persona

Alex is 20 years old.He is studying history and archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, which is also the city where he lives. Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece and has generally Mediterranean climate.He is from another city but he is renting a house in Thessaloniki and parallel with his studies, he works as a waiter.His parents have not big difficulties of sending him money but he wants to be as much independent as possible and earn his own money. At his free time, he likes having fun with friends, going to the cinema, listening to electronic music, e.t.c. Also, one thing he loves to do at his free time is going for joking near the port(twice per week) but mostly he loves to go for swimming at the municipal swimming pool (3 times a week).He was never fat from his childhood and always had a normal - well build body but wants to make it better for his health and physical state. He likes gadgets and he is connecting to the internet through his personal computer or his mobile phone where he is reading news, downloading music and more. He has a special sympathy to the x-training application from his mobile, which helps him in many issues and he feels happy and comfortable having it.

Scenario - x-training

Alex decides to go for joking near the port.He wants to calculate some things such as speed, how many calories he's going to "burn" e.t.c. He "run" x-training application which is easy at its use and very understandable. He presses the "menu" from his mobile, afterwards he presses x-training and at the end, he scrolls down using the arrow keys to "calculate speed". As far as the application is on, he can see during the running, the speed he is running at the moment, the average speed and the total distance he has run. When finishing, he can calculate the calories he "burned" and save the running time to a record file in x-training.He can also see what it is advised to eat after training, to substitute his energy. For instance, if he is going to run 2 km in slow speed, then the x-training will show him that he needs to eat a honey spoon and a banana. Alex is also using x-training to plan healthy balance diet. This application is very helpful for him because it can show results almost for any kind of sport. Alex loves swimming, so he "runs" this application in order to combine styles like backstroke , free, breaststroke and butterfly for best results. By entering his weight and height, he is able to know the results of his training, almost in every sport. Even with push ups or weights, he can see the results of his exercises and most importantly, he can find the best combination of exercises suitable for him.

Evaluation of an interactive product

1. Product being evaluated
Apple's I-pad.

2. Identify the context of use
A tablet computer created by Apple, which is mainly used as a platform for audio and visual media.

3. What is good
It is a complete multimedia platform for reproducing many media types, ranging from music to videos and documents.
It has a user-friendly interface and a good work of the touchpad's zoom-in/zoom-out functions. As far as autonomy goes, the i-pad has an excellent battery life which makes it very competitive in comparison with other mobile computing devices, such as netbooks.

4. What is bad
There is a lack in features mainly in the hardware design that limit the options of interaction for the users. For example there are no USB ports available, the only way for connecting and transferring media is by using the iPhone port. No widescreen option is available. Another major problem is that of the software. There are no multitasking options available, that is no background execution for third party applications. Also the market for third party applications is closed. The virtual keyboard is also not very handy for most users. As a reader, the i-pad does not offer the same quality and comfort in reading as other available readers. that is because the screen is self-luminant which can be tiring to the eye whereas others readers require the existance of natural light, thus simulating better the feeling of book-reading.