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5. USING SYSTEMATIC CREATIVITY

We developed our method iteratively. We used parts of it on various portions of products we were working on at the time. This gave us the opportunity to refine and augment the method as needed. We used the method in five products during the time we were developing and evolving it. As we describe our methodology, we will illustrate the use of that particular technique by describing its use in one particular product we worked on. First, we’ll describe the basic product. Then for each phase of our work we’ll describe how the Systematic Creativity method was used. Please note that the screens used throughout the chapter as examples are from a simulation we built for evaluation purposes. The screens are similar to those in the final design, but not identical.

5.1. THE BASIC PRODUCT

In this instance we were producing a second version of a product. Intel had already produced CNN@Work ™1 in conjunction with the people at CNN. Functionality included in the first product was limited to viewing CNN on your PC, recording portions of the broadcast, obtaining stock information, and tracking a portfolio of stocks. Very little human factors work had been done on the original product. When the time came to revise the product, human factors engineers were included in the team from the very beginning. The direction that was taken was actually worked out in cooperation with CNN. The ability to send additional text information along with the satellite video feed was now possible so users could view text stories as well as video stories.


1“Third-party brands and names are the property of their respective owners.”

5.2. PRODUCT DEFINITION

We begin by having marketing explain the proposed market direction. At this point in time, many questions and few answers exist. Each team then goes off to do the necessary investigation, with frequent meetings to synchronize what we are uncovering. After we collect sufficient user information, we meet with the other groups to collect the marketing goals and engineering constraints and incorporate them into our structured data. We start by looking at the user goals that we have collected along with the customer goals collected by marketing. We need to identify any that conflict. If we find such conflicts, we need to do further investigation to ensure that we understand what is needed and desired in our product. We also look at the priorities that we have collected from our users to identify the primary focus for our product. The framework gives all team members easy access to the data needed during this discussion. Engineering input is also vital at this point as we need estimations of how expensive supporting the different goals will be. Additionally, we need to be confident that we can reduce the obstacles and maintain the same level of facilitators users currently encounter in their tasks. There are several different scenarios here. It may be necessary for marketing or for the human factors team to do more research. We may decide that we don’t have a product we can produce within the time or cost limits that will support the necessary user goals. If this is true, we iterate through collecting marketing goals and user goals in some modified direction. If we feel that we can develop a product that will support what users want to do, we proceed to the design phase.

5.2.1. Product Definition for CNN@Work

In this example, the basic product had already been developed. The added functionality being considered was (1) viewing text stories, (2) automatic capture of news based on user defined “filters” or descriptions of news that was of interest, (3) saving captured news, (4) filing captured news for long term storage, and (5) alerting users when news had been captured. We decided (due to time pressures) to only concentrate on collecting user information pertaining to the new functionality under consideration.

We identified possible users as being those who needed daily news information to do their jobs. We wanted to find out how people found the news they used, how they saved the news they found, how and if they distributed the news they found, what formats of information they collected (text, photos, videos, audio), and in what time frame they needed this type of information. We went to the workplace of the potential users, except in two instances. In one instance we were not allowed in because of security restrictions. In another instance it was impossible to conduct an uninterrupted interview in this particular environment.

As always, we asked users to tell us about their jobs. After collecting the overview information, we started probing for the different responsibilities that might include using information from the general news.


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