Task Analysis
Before our group started to design our website, we interviewed our professor who is living in Ottawa. He has used several websites and apps to check Covid information while his son has taken the Covid test once. Thus, we considered him as a potential user and tried to find out what he wants to seek from our website. Our group asked questions from two aspects, Covid testing and Covid information source, to draw a user persona and analyze user demands.
Our professor knew well about the Covid symptoms and recommendations provided by Ottawa Public Health. Before going to testing, he wanted to know when he should go for a test, what he needs to bring to the test and how long he needs to wait in the testing centre. He also mentioned he preferred to go to the testing centre on foot or by car.
For the Covid cases update websites/apps, he believed it is important to make the website easy to check without repetitive and redundant information. He gave some examples of apps that failed to collect up-to-date data and did not warn the users in time. He was looking for websites/apps with a reliable data entry and an effective system to update and trace new Covid cases.
From this interview, our group learned several lessons. First, we need to reconsider our databases. Some of the data we had was incomplete which might mislead users and lead to inaccuracy. We have to look for substitutions or try to fix the partial data before we move on to the next step. Second, the design should be easy to use for people from different age groups and backgrounds. Our website is aiming to help Ottawa citizens thus we must design for the whole population. Besides, we should think from the users’ side and conclude what they are looking for from our websites. To further understand the users’ motivation, we made a task table to achieve the goal of serving.
