Requirements Spec Version 2

Click here for the final version on the Requirements Spec

Question to Conor O'Reilly - Design Principles Lecturer

Hi Conor,

My name is Norah Ward and I'm working with my group at the moment on an Irish language game for kids. The idea is that it would be used in conjunction with the interactive whiteboard in Primary schools.

We're just wondering from your perspective who is who in terms of users: We're wondering if the children are the cats, and the teachers are the customers or what is the story?

How many users should we be including in the requirements gathering stage for this kind of thing?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
--
Norah Ward

You have two user communities two sets of cats with different user expectations

The teacher has administrative concerns

The children have content and activity concerns

At least three teachers and three children – the more the better but I suspect you are constrained by time.

Another approach is to look up research papers regarding this area as you can use their findings to support your approach

Conor

Version 2 of Group Charter

You can find version 2 of the group charter here.

See the revision history for changes.

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Reqs. Needs. Design. Protoype. Test.

Charter Agreement.

Spraoi Group Charter

I have read and agree to the above mentioned charter.

Shane Mc Loughlin

09/12 2011

Some research into interactive white board "affordances".

One problem with the e-beam setup was that a person's body gets in the way of the projection - very annoying. Obviously the school could better place the projector/board to avoid this. however the Promethean setup has an easily adjustable projector.

Another problem with e-beam is that a wayward arm can block the beam and pen movements will not be detected.

The e-beam software is poor. Promethean has better software. Both devices can be used as a standard projector screen, i.e. show online content, etc.

Some e-beam software in action.

Bun go Barr - Irish Language Software on E-Beam IWB

E-beam setup. Notice the device in the top left corner of the board - this is the e-beam detector and is connected to a laptop via USB cable. The board itself is just a standard whiteboard and generally would not be height-adjustable. Also note speakers.

Same e-beam setup again, this time showing projector. Its a bog-standard projector hooked up to a laptop with a VGA cable.

Laptop contains e-beam interface software and some very basic e-beam applications.

Enter RoboCop, a.k.a. 'Promethean', stage left. E-beam scuttles away hurriedly. Adjustable board height. Adjustable projector (included). Touchscreen board (via pen, not fingers) so no pen detector beam (that's a good thing). Lot's of propriety software but can also be used as a standard projector or laptop display/controller, just like e-beam (online games, etc.).

---

Game Plan( Idea)

Game Plan

(1.)    Determine average or max class sizes.

(2.)    Teacher introduces words to curriculum each class. ( Game is based on words 

           learned in the class.  

                  

(3.)    Three teams participate per day. (At different times.)

(4.)    Audio for incorrect spelling, word found and writing.

(5.)    Audio for all correct.

(6.)    Each participating team has two minutes to find, and write the word.

(7.)    Before revealing the word he/she gives the remaining teams a choice of four words 

           (in 4 different colours) these teams must choose the correct colour .

(8.)    The remaining participating team member spells the word while facing the 

           other teams.

(9.)    Teacher indicates if correct or incorrect. The other teams then spell from the 

           whiteboard.

(10.)   This is all introduced by the main character of the game. Other characters could 

           be introduced to hint if the word is animal vegetable numeric and so on.

You must have forgotten Stephen.

Today's Meeting Attendees

• Stephen Breslin (SB), Norah Ward (NW), Frank Whelan (FW)
• Shanie Mc Loughlin mentioned  at previous meeting that he could not make it. lol

Spraoi Phase 2 Meeting Minutes: Wednesday, 7th December 2011

Wednesday, 7th December 2011

Meeting Main Points

• Game flow-chart on the way
• Group charter on the way.
• Games will  have both a progressive storyline and a standalone version.
• Who is our user? Feedback from Conor O'Reilly (COR) on the way.
• Target audience? Probably 1st/2nd class.

Next Meeting Date

• TBD but in the next few days

Next Meeting Location

• TBD but provisionally: Java City, DIT Aungier St.

Today's Meeting Attendees

• Stephen Breslin (SB), Norah Ward (NW), Frank Whelan (FW)

Discussions

• Charter:
  Need a Group Charter but does not need to be a replica of Charter from Design Principles module. We will tailor it to our needs. SB to do, before next meeting
  
• Storyline:
  Spraoi storyline: should it be progressive or not? Should the game consist of a story which progresses though levels or chapter which could span days, months, full school year? should each chapter be a standalone task or game. A progressive storyline would be harder to implement thank standalone chapters/tasks. A standalone-based game may not be ass good though. Survey results indicated a 13 v's 7 weighting towards a progressive storyline. Both options is probably the best approach. FW suggested a standalone task/chapter which could be book-ended with a narrative outlining some context and background to help link preceding/following chapters. Aspects of the task could be relevant to both users - e.g. central character needs to perform storyline task to cross a bridge. This is a standalone task but given context, this unit task could be part of a larger line, e.g. he is on his way to the land of Far Far Away. Or Mordor, or whatever.
  
• Use existing characters?
  Suggested by survey respondents. Copyright issues. Also, a selling point could be our own new character.
  
• Target demographic
  Aim at 1st and 2nd class pupils or the entire primary school (i.e. from 1st to 6th class)? SB suggested perhaps game could have 20 chapters spread over all school years? Storyline progresses and becomes more complex when it is aimed at older pupils. FW & NW thought the scope would be too large. Our prototype will be aimed at 1st/2nd class pupils. But will we design (at least at a high level) for all years but implement our prototype/draft for 1st/2nd class pupils? NW pointed out our original idea was to be based on a curriculum and each year has a different curriculum so designing for all years would be beyond the scope of the project.
• Will need to address the  valid question of "why 1st/2nd class?"

• Positive: Easier to implement. We have time constraints. these pupils are an entrance point to the interactive white board game market. Use the experience and feedback to then develop similar games for older pupils.

• Negative: Smaller market. Overall Irish primary school market is already small. Schools might want a full package they can deploy to all classes.

• Interesting: More time to develop a better product. Older kids will be jealous of the younger kids having all the fun!

• Who is our user? Teacher or pupil?
  NW e-mailed Conor O'Reilly for some feedback on this. Response to be discussed at next meeting. NW to do.
• Device Affordances
  SB to call to primary school and investigate Promethean & e-beam boards in use. SB to do.

Decisions

• Games will need a login to enable class and team names/score be recorded. Could be used for a scoreboard/leader-board.
• This will be a team game (prob 2 students, based on teacher feedback)
• Progressive and standalone options for play.
• Rewards given to pupils. Maybe sound-based? Leader-board is also a reward in itself.

Assigned Actions

• Basic flow-chart of game. FW to do.
• Write Group Charter based on Principles template. SB to do.
• Look at requirements template. All to do.

Status of Outstanding Actions from Previous Minutes

• Design Read Group Charter - done
• Upload existing research to blog - done
• Analysis of user - we analysed the survey results. Some ambiguity on who our user is. Awaiting feedback on this from COR
• Process answers, highlight recurring themes - done
• Establish required functionality - not done

Agenda for Next Meeting

• TBD

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Folder Structure

Just looking back over the notes and Conor mentioned in the first lecture about the need for a good folder structure. This is how mine is arranged on my computer:

This might be of great help, as it was for me.It is an overview of User Analysis

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/policy/accessibility/dfa/a_documents/userfit/2_2methodology.pdf

A nominee for title of the App.

labhairt ná labhairt

Talk don't talk

Here is a good site with some good illustrative examples with audio.

http://www.digitaldialects.com/Irish/Vocabulary.htm

The Digital Dialects website features free to use online games for learning languages. Language resources include games for learning phrases, numbers, useful words, spelling, verb conjugation and alphabets. Games use Macromedia Flash Player.

Minutes of Meeting - Monday 5th Dec 2011

Here are some notes from tonight's meeting:

Wednesday morning - "close" poll and draw a line under entries. The poll will still be accessible, but we have to start analyzing the info.

Decided to have a meeting on Wednesday. Time and location TBA (but probably after 5.30 )



We looked at what we need to get done by next Tuesday. This was a recap of Norah's initial email in this thread, so...

* Analysis of users & indication of understanding.
* Description of data gathering methods
* Requirement list for functional spec
* Flow chart of how functional spec works.
* Analysis of creativity & problem solving techniques used.

* Blog
* Group charter
* Document to be uploaded
* 15 min presentation.



Agreed that everybody would read the Group Charter document tonight (contained in Norah's first mail.)

Individual team members should compile existing data (from research, informal interviews etc.) and upload to blog.

National Strategy to Improve Literacy

https://sites.google.com/a/pdst.ie/pdst/

October 2011:

Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life, the National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People, was launched by the Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairí Quinn, TD, on July 8th last. This strategy sets out a range of priorities and targets for the improvement of standards in literacy and numeracy over a 10 year period. PDST will offer school leaders and teachers a range of supports in implementing the National Strategy, details of which will be communicated to schools shortly.

http://www.into.ie/ROI/LiteracyandNumeracy/Downloads/LiteracyNumeracyStrategy_DES.pdf

FOREWORD

Literacy and numeracy are among the most important life skills that our schools teach. No child should leave school without having mastered these skills to the best of their abilities. Literacy and numeracy skills are crucial to a person’s ability to develop fully as an individual, to live a satisfying and rewarding life and to participate fully in our society. Ensuring that all young people acquire these skills is one of the greatest contributions that we can make to achieving social justice and equity in our country.

However, we know that some children are not developing these skills as they should. Information from national assessments of reading and mathematics, from inspections in schools and from international studies have shown that many students in Irish schools are not developing literacy and numeracy skills to the best of their abilities. We cannot afford to allow this to continue.

Ruairí Quinn, TD Minister for Education and Skills

What are personas? http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_personas/index.html Personas are archetypal users of an intranet or website that represent the needs of larger groups of users, in terms of their goals and personal characteristics. They act as ‘stand-ins’ for real users and help guide decisions about functionality and design. Personas identify the user motivations, expectations and goals responsible for driving online behaviour, and bring users to life by giving them names, personalities and often a photo. Although personas are fictitious, they are based on knowledge of real users. Some form of user research is conducted before they are written to ensure they represent end users rather than the opinion of the person writing the personas. Below is a sample persona for an intranet project. This persona describes Bob, a 52 year old mechanic that works for a road service company. From Bob’s persona you can start to get a feel for his goals when using the new intranet. He wants to avoid feeling stupid, would like to retain his status as a mentor to his younger colleagues, whilst seeing the potential of the intranet to make him more informed when interacting with customers. Benefits of creating personas Personas enable intranet and website teams to stand in their users’ shoes. They focus the design effort on supporting user goals, rather than being driven by the ideas of team members or senior executives. Introducing personas into your intranet or website project will bring a number of benefits: • users’ goals and needs become a common point of focus for the team • the team can concentrate on designing for a manageable set of personas knowing that they represent the needs of many users • they are relatively quick to develop and replace the need to canvass the whole user community and spend months gathering user requirements • they help avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use • design efforts can be prioritised based on the personas • disagreements over design decisions can be sorted out by referring back to the personas • designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the frequency of large and expensive usability tests. Personas are not stand-alone Although personas have many benefits, they alone will not ensure the success of your intranet or website. The goals of the business must also be considered, because if the website or intranet does not meet business needs, then the solution is not a viable one. For example, an intranet may aim to reduce organisational costs and increase staff efficiency, while an ecommerce website aims to make sales. Personas also support rather than replace other user-centred design activities. There is still a need to conduct task analysis to understand the detailed tasks your intranet or website is to accommodate. There is still value in usability testing the site, and many user-centred design activities are conducted to gather input into the personas, such as user interviewing and observation.

What are personas?

http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_personas/index.html

Personas are archetypal users of an intranet or website that represent the needs of larger groups of users, in terms of their goals and personal characteristics. They act as ‘stand-ins’ for real users and help guide decisions about functionality and design.

Personas identify the user motivations, expectations and goals responsible for driving online behaviour, and bring users to life by giving them names, personalities and often a photo.

Although personas are fictitious, they are based on knowledge of real users. Some form of user research is conducted before they are written to ensure they represent end users rather than the opinion of the person writing the personas.

Below is a sample persona for an intranet project. This persona describes Bob, a 52 year old mechanic that works for a road service company. From Bob’s persona you can start to get a feel for his goals when using the new intranet. He wants to avoid feeling stupid, would like to retain his status as a mentor to his younger colleagues, whilst seeing the potential of the intranet to make him more informed when interacting with customers.

Benefits of creating personas

Personas enable intranet and website teams to stand in their users’ shoes. They focus the design effort on supporting user goals, rather than being driven by the ideas of team members or senior executives.

Introducing personas into your intranet or website project will bring a number of benefits:

• users’ goals and needs become a common point of focus for the team
• the team can concentrate on designing for a manageable set of personas knowing that they represent the needs of many users
• they are relatively quick to develop and replace the need to canvass the whole user community and spend months gathering user requirements
• they help avoid the trap of building what users ask for rather than what they will actually use
• design efforts can be prioritised based on the personas
• disagreements over design decisions can be sorted out by referring back to the personas
• designs can be constantly evaluated against the personas, reducing the frequency of large and expensive usability tests.

Personas are not stand-alone

Although personas have many benefits, they alone will not ensure the success of your intranet or website. The goals of the business must also be considered, because if the website or intranet does not meet business needs, then the solution is not a viable one. For example, an intranet may aim to reduce organisational costs and increase staff efficiency, while an ecommerce website aims to make sales.

Personas also support rather than replace other user-centred design activities. There is still a need to conduct task analysis to understand the detailed tasks your intranet or website is to accommodate. There is still value in usability testing the site, and many user-centred design activities are conducted to gather input into the personas, such as user interviewing and observation.

Face to Face info gathering: Norah

Thoughts on Spraoi – My mother (She used to be a Primary School teacher... however many moons ago)

·      What age group?

·      How will you decide what words they know and don’t know?

·      You have to assume that the child has a certain amount of vocabulary, you’re presumably trying to broaden it from there

·      Would you concentrate on nouns in one exercise, verbs in another?

·      Should be competing individually as classmates rather than in teams

Thoughts on Spraoi – Frank (Second Class teacher in a Gaelscoil)

Initial thoughts on the idea

·      Very good

·      Not enough Irish educational software compared to English and maths

·      Noises encourage them when they get stuff right

Info about whiteboards

·      SMARTboards

·      Promethean

·      Pretty much do the same thing

·      Crossword maker

·      Wordsearch

What are the greatest difficulties that kids have with learning Irish?

·      Lack of interest in English-speaking schools

·      Teachers out there who wouldn’t be comfortable with speaking it in English speaking school

·      Kids don’t like it when they can’t speak it

·      They pick up the oral and aural in Gaelscoil

·      Reading would be good for gaelscoileanna

·      Séadán Sí

Problems that you could see arising

·      Only two kids at the board at a time

·      If it’s linked in some way to a task that they’re doing like a closed procedure

·      The height – the top half of the board can’t be reached

·      Incorporate it into the lesson rather than make it a game

·      Anything to keep their attention

Notes and things to think about after 2nd meeting

Notes and Questions:

·      Should we maybe focus on just English-speaking schools, as the standard of language is often different?

·      Should we agree to market this as a beta product with a target audience of 1^st and 2^nd classes?

·      Should we agree to market it as a potential program to be sold to one of the whiteboard service providers as one of their stock apps or should we be making it available to the open market?

Research

·      Take a look at the curriculum. Analyze the relevant materials and conceive themes (eg: Food, Nature, Sport, Animals, Family, Travel, Traditional Festivals, etc.). Provisionally we’re looking at improving the aural and oral skills of the child’s linguistic abilities.

o   Speaking

§  Fostering interest

·      Participation

§  Fostering understanding

·      Phrases

·      Directions

·      Greetings

o   Listening

§  Fostering interest

§  Fostering understanding

·      Phrases

·      Directions

·      Greetings

·      Research language teaching methodologies

·      Research successful language game apps for children in other languages

·      Interviews with parents and teachers

·      Interviews with children

What is our MO?

·      Blog

·      Interviews with Children

·      Send out Google doc surveys and choose a closing date

·      Analyze the users and create Personas

·      Identify the functional requirements and make a list

o   PMI

o   CAF

·      Create a journey map

·      Make a group charter

·      Document with all our analysis and data

·      Presentation

Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon
29th Blog, Questions	30th Google Docs Survey	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
6th	7th Close Survey Analyse	8	9	10	11	12

13th Presentation!!

Things to keep note of as we go

·      Creativity, innovation and problem solving techniques used and Data gathering methods used

Potential Questions for the Google Docs Survey

We have decided to primarily ask teachers their opinions. The areas we needs to look at are the experience teaching Irish, the use of the interactive whiteboard and the game structure. While we would ideally like to do a focus group with children on their opinions regarding popular characters in cartoons/video games/books etc, we concluded that given the constraints of time it was too difficult to get parental permission in time. Below I have listed my own sample questions.

Language

1.    Are you comfortable with your own ability to speak Irish? (Multiple Choice with an Other/Notes Text Field)

2.    What are your preferred methods of encouraging interest and understanding in the children when it comes to the speaking Irish? (Text Field)

3.    What is the most difficult part of your Irish lesson? (Multiple Choice with an Other/Notes Text Field)

4.    What do children most enjoy (or complain least about) in your Irish lesson? (Multiple Choice with an Other/Notes Text Field)

5.    How do you structure your lesson plans? (Text Field)

Technology

1.    Do you have an interactive whiteboard in your classroom and if so which brand? (Multiple Choice)

2.    Do you use the software that came with the whiteboard? (Multiple Choice with an Other/Notes Text Field)

3.    Do you use any other software for teaching Irish? (Multiple Choice with an Other/Notes Text Field)

4.    What games that you use do the children enjoy most and could you venture a guess at why? (Text Field)

5.    What problems (if any) can you identify with the use of the interactive whiteboard? (Text Field)

6.    What problems (if any) can you identify with the use of currently available software? (Text Field)

Game Structure

1.    What is the max amount of children you would put working at the whiteboard at the one time? (Text Field)

2.    Would you prefer a game that used teams, individual competition, knockout or other (Multiple Choice with an Other/Notes Text Field)

- Would you prefer themed levels or consecutive difficulty levels? (Multiple Choice with an Other/Notes Text Field)