To practice this technique, we’ll utilize an a current project in the Psychology Department – updating our on-line advising resources. One idea that has been proposed is to make a web-based major planning tool, to replace the paper checklists we have used in the past. Since this idea is very much in the early planning stages, we can’t do a formal user test. However, this is a great time to use a focus group to learn more about what kind of system would be most useful, and to get some feedback on some initial prototypes.

To get some experience with this technique, I will play the moderator role, and the class will play the focus group. Here’s the set of questions that we’ll use to guide the focus group discussion:

• Major Planning Tool Questions

And here are the three prototypes that we’ll be looking at:

• Prototype 1
• Prototype 2
• Prototype 3
  • Step 1
  • Step 2
  • Step 3
  • Step 4