"Well none of us knows how to use a computer and we're all a bit scared of them... Oh yes, we've all been doing this for a few years now and well, basically, we just have busy periods when we book all of the rooms for the next year. We spend every minute of the day making bookings. Then it goes quiet for a few months..."
Briefly explain why your user group would be experts, novices or some
blend of the two.
[16 marks, unseen problem]
This quotation reveals a complex blend of expertise. On the one hand the
users are computer 'illiterate' and may, indeed, be scared of using these
devices. On the other hand, they have been in their jobs for some time
and will be experts in their task domain. A third issue here is that even
though they are experts in their task domain they may be infrequent users
of any system because it will only be used for a few weeks of year.
Finally, one might anticipate a high level of skill to be built up with the
system during that relatively intense burst of activity.
The key conclusions from this might be that the users are infrequent,
novices but that there should be scope for expert behaviour to speed their
interaction as they become more skilled during the intense periods of
interaction with the system. Keyboard accelerators, such as those shown
in part (a), are an example of such a technique although these imply a
base-level of computer literacy.
12 out of the 20 marks should go for the rationale. As in (a) the design should be justified in terms of the transition between novice and expert. The form based indexing would provide a good example where long menus (e.g., room selection) can be avoided by directly typing into a field in a tool bar.
