Scenario Planning

In this phase, we developed several user scenarios. We began by developing archetypical characters based on the three user groups and intended demographics. The scenarios were set in different physical locations in order to explore various applications and venues for the device. We also worked to ensure that the scenarios presented a wide variety of potential actions on the device, from casual browsing to new user registration, setting up a sale, buying items, logging in and canceling a sale. The scenarios would form the backbone of the presentation and ultimately describe the project most visibly, so they were carefully written and refined to reflect the wide variety of conditions described above.

The decision to provide online access to the sale listings was made during the scenario building phase as well. Users would be able to browse listings for items in any machine in their area, and receive phone text messages when items were sold or when space became available in a machine. Though there was some debate within the team whether allowing such wide access to sale information would pollute the location-specific community building goals of the design, it was decided that providing people more access and opportunities to see products for sale online would ultimately help the success of the device in its physical context, more than it could hinder it.

Next : Prototyping

(c)2006 Mouna Andraos, Christopher Cummings, Sean Salmon