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6. HOW DOES SYSTEMATIC CREATIVITY BRIDGE THE GAP(S)?

In this product we concentrated on using our methodology for product definition and design. Did Systematic Creativity help in defining a product and why? Our process facilitated communication between marketing, engineering, and human factors as the information was gathered in one place and laid out in a prioritized fashion and showed where the different goals came from. This allowed us to make the necessary tradeoffs in a knowledgeable fashion. We were able to identify the goals that we must support in addition to those that it would be nice to support. As the data was in text form, we were all focused at the same level. All we could discuss was the priority of the functionality to users’ goals and to the marketing goals.

Systematic Creativity was very useful in deciding on the look of the interface. Changing the main window from the television metaphor to a story window/channel changing design could not have happened without having the integrated product goals systematically laid out. This helped the team agree that conveying the functionality of viewing and capturing text stories was essential to the success of the new product. Taking the extra time to produce the autofilter capability and to produce the sample filters was also an essential part of the product, again convincingly argued from looking at the facilitators in the Systematic Creativity framework, along with the results of design testing. The decision about where stories were to be filed was also guided by the Systematic Creativity data. Knowing that users wanted flexibility in their filing systems and that many wanted to integrate the captured stories with data from many sources helped us decide to prioritize development of an export facility over development ofa more elaborate filing system within the application itself.

We made some use of Systematic Creativity during product implementation and usability testing, but our major contribution to this product was during product definition and design. Systematic Creativity was useful as a framework that allowed decision making at each phase of the definition and development process to be made based on the same information.

7. OTHER WAYS TO USE SYSTEMATIC CREATIVITY

7.1. GETTING OFF TO A LATE START

What if the human factors team is not involved at the very beginning of the product definition process? Can the Systematic Creativity method still be used? The answer is yes, and we see this as a particular strength of the process. While not being involved in the up-front work is less than ideal, we feel that this process gives us a way to deal more effectively than most with the situation.

Suppose we are involved at the design phase, but not early enough to do any interviewing and requirements work with a user population. We still have the customer goals from marketing to use. In this situation, we produce, along with marketing and the development team, what we believe to be valid user goals. Then our early low fidelity prototypes reflect these goals. As we bring in users to assess the prototypes, we collect two types of information: what functionality they think the prototypes reflect and how this functionality fits with their work goals. We collect information about the validity of our goal assumptions along with information about the proposed design. This may result in more iterations than normal if we discover that our goal assumptions are incorrect.

Suppose that we aren’t consulted until the implementation is being done. Producing a usability test plan essentially constitutes putting together assumptions about user goals and goal priorities. It is essential that the development team be consulted and agree upon the test plan. Are these the goals that they think this product supports? Again, as testing is done, questions need to be asked about the appropriateness of the goals, as well as measuring the problems users have in completing certain tasks. The problem with finding this information out at this time is that it is often too late in the production cycle to do add more functionality. We have a sound basis for recommending a starting place for a revision or even slipping the release schedule for the current product if the problem is serious enough. If work starts during implementation, we would probably expand the framework beyond goals which would be the basis for our testing scenarios. If we find particular problems in a given task, then we might dosome probing with usability test participants to determine how they currently do these tasks.

7.2. NEW AND REVISED PRODUCTS

We find this method to be most useful for new products — products where the goals and objectives that must be supported aren’t clearly known. This was in fact the reason that we developed the method — we found other methods insufficient to support this type of product development. However, we still find Systematic Creativity to be useful for making revisions to existing products. In these cases, only the direction considered for the revision needs to be probed for in the interview process. Existing goals and supporting tasks currently in the interface can be documented from the interface itself. This might also be an ideal time to examine facilitators and obstacles that exist in the current product and see if there are some candidates here to consider in the revision process. Candidates for the new revision can be evaluated by going through the Systematic Creativity process, but only the new directions need to be evaluated. However, such issues as redesign of metaphors and the visibility of functionality should be considered globally. Including goals supported in the existing product into the Systematic Creativity framework is helpful in evaluating overall definition and design.

7.3. BUILDING MODELS

We have used the framework at a higher level, addressing only goals and objectives, to produce models of user populations. We believe these models can be used to evaluate new proposals for products, assuming we keep the models up to date. It would also be advantageous to include a way to construct different views of the data in any tool we design, to allow us to look across different sections of the populations. As we probe in depth in areas suggested by the models, we need a way of incorporating the old and new data, into a new product definition framework. We have yet to update a model but this ability suggests that we need a way to view the data from different perspectives in time and also a way to document changes that may have occurred during that time period (cheaper technology, new technology, wider adoption of technology by certain industries, etc.).


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