Lifestyle Snapshots
Solving the Context Problem for Wireless Design

In her recent interview with uidesign.net, Laura Arlov, stated that one of her biggest design problems, when considering Wireless Internet design, was the lack of Context understanding. Optimizing a design is best done when the Context of the User's interaction with the software, device or machine is understood. Context is a description or understanding of the actual interaction event.

For example, in a banking application, the User may be a Clerk, the Context may be that the Clerk is working at the counter with a Customer on the other side of the counter who wishes to deposit money into their Savings Account. Various interactions with the bank's computer system need to occur in order to complete the transaction. However, they are all occurring within the same Context - a single Customer, at the counter, with money to deposit.

Laura Arlov was merely pointing out that with Wireless Internet Devices, it is so much more difficult to predict the Context for an interaction.

I have had some success with a technique I am calling, "Lifestyle Snapshots". A Lifestyle Snapshot is an addition to existing techniques for defining Personas (or User Roles) and Usage Scenarios. A Lifestyle Snapshot helps us to better understand the Context of a particular Usage Scenario. Lifestyle Snapshots are particularly useful when designing for Consumer Wireless Internet.

Recently, John M. Thompson of IBM, revealed that they had implemented a system for Swiss Air which automatically checks-in a passenger when they arrive at the airport. The system works by using their passenger's cellular phone and the local telephone carrier's transceiver or cellsite. When a phone is detected on the airport cellsite, the IBM system checks to see if the phone is owned by a person who is also registered as a passenger on Swiss Air for that day. If so, then the system proceeds to check-in the passenger, receiving any confirmations required over the cell phone.

This is a classic WAP application. The airline can deliver increased passenger service with faster check-in. The passenger doesn't have to stand in line and can probably afford to turn up a little bit later than normal (providing the system is reliable and is working properly).

It is impossible for me to talk about any wireless internet work I might be doing, so we will explore a design approach which includes Lifestyle Snapshots using this IBM / SwissAir example. Imagine for a moment that this system did not yet exist. An executive at Swiss Air has just asked you to improve customer service by reducing check-in time for loyal, regular customers using new technology. Where do you start?

Persona Definitions

You start by trying to understand who the passengers are. These people will be the Users. The client will doubtless have market research, demographic studies, perhaps actual passenger surveys. You start with these. However, as Laura Arlov pointed out, "demographics don't buy products, people buy products". So you must invent some real people who match the demographics. Alan Cooper has called these invented people, Personas [Cooper 99]. Cooper's observation was that you should not try to design a product for all of the target audience. You should design it for just one of them (or perhaps 3 or 4 specific people). This profound counter intuitive observation works because people are not unique. However much we pride our individuality, the truth is that there is always someone very similar not far away.

Lifestyle Snapshots

Lifestyle Snapshots work in a similar fashion to Cooper's Personas. The principle is that you should not try to design a Wireless Internet Application for every possible situation when it might be used but instead design it well for at least one situation when it WILL be used. By making the application precisely what is needed and as easy, intuitive and usable as it can be for just that one situation then you are designing a great product.

So for that "just one Persona", we are going to pick that "just one Lifestyle Snapshot". A Lifestyle Snapshot gives us a Context for a design. We are going to design the feature or set of features for the wireless application for that one Persona in one Context. If we get that right then the chances are that the design will provide good to excellent operation for most of the people, most of the time.

A Lifestyle Snapshot describes a "day in the life of" a Persona, or simply a period of time. A long enough period of time to give us a Context for usage of their wireless application.

Usage Scenarios and Use Cases

We use Lifestyle Snapshots to determine the Usage Scenarios for an application. From the Lifestyle Snapshot ask yourself, "At what points in this scene could the main characters have benefited from use of the technology?", "Where can the technology fit into their lifestyle in order to make it better, easier, faster, simpler, more informed?"

With each Lifestyle Snapshot a number of candidate Usage Scenarios will emerge. Usage Scenarios describe precise, exact occasions where a device or application is being used. The development of Usage Scenarios is the first stage in a Usage Centered Design approach which leads to the development of Essential Use Cases [Constantine and Lockwood, 2000]. Essential Use Cases can be mapped and abstracted. There is an opportunity when doing this to make a design which delivers suitable interaction for several Usage Scenarios, hence several Lifestyle Snapshots and perhaps for several Personas.

In other words, we start with very specific descriptions of the User, the Context and the Usage, and later we use our analysis phase to examine the similarities in the requirements for different Users and deliver a good, well balanced design which is suitable for a broader audience.

Let us take an imaginary exploration of the Swiss Air requirements.

Persona Definition : Hans, Senior Partner of a Zurich Law Firm

Hans is 45 years of age. He is a lawyer in a major firm in Zurich providing legal services to the banking community and major industrial concerns in Switzerland and the predominantly German speaking business community. Hans studied law at college and has been with the same firm since receiving his practicing certificate around 20 years ago. He has a wife and two children all of whom are very costly. He lives in luxury by Swiss standards, in a large house, around 20km from the city, nestled in the low mountains, with a nice view. He drives an S Class Mercedes. Hans has all the trappings of success and in order to be successful he has to be competitive.

Hans has become dependent on his cell phone and his laptop computer. He uses his laptop for email, presentations, word processing and financial calculations with spreadsheet software.

He regularly flies around central Europe negotiating Mergers and Acquisitions for his clients. It's high value business and he needs to get around Europe quickly and easily in order to be in the right meetings at the right time.

Hans relies on Swiss Air to get him there. He is a frequent flyer who flies business class and gets upgraded into first class often. He expects first class service from the airline just as his clients expect first class service from him.

Now, let us consider a Lifestyle Snapshot for Hans.

Lifestyle Snapshot : Monday Morning business in Munich

Hans is flying to Munich to close a deal. His client is buying a small Bavarian ISP as part of their expansion of Internet Services in the German speaking world.

Hans is woken at 4.30am by his alarm clock. He gets up and checks that his phone has recharged. He fires up his laptop and checks for any last minute email. While the machine is working, he darts back and forth getting ready. It's a one day trip so he doesn't need to pack much.

By 5.30 he is dressed, has had his first coffee of the day, has his laptop packed in its leather briefcase and his phone in his pocket. He also has a Psion Organizer with his diary for the day and week ahead. His colleagues have been tempting him with gentle nudges to buy a Palm Pilot but so far he has stuck with the Psion.

All the technology was pre-loaded with the information he was going to need, the previous Friday afternoon by Hans' private secretary.

He gets into his car, the ever reliable Mercedes and sets off for the airport.

It becomes apparent that the weather has turned poor overnight and there has been a late spring snow fall. The roads are difficult but not impossible. His journey, nevertheless, is slower than it might be and he gets stuck behind some snowploughs on the Autobahn.

He parks in the one day parking at the airport and walks to the terminal, quickly. Although, not too late, he is close to the closing time for the flight. The airport is still quiet at this time. Luckily as a business class passenger he doesn't have to wait in line. There is only one passenger ahead of him. However, he finds that there are no window seats left and he will need to take an isle seat. He checks to see if his frequent flyer miles have been credited to his account. Seemingly not. Some mistake. A few more minutes are wasted as the check-in clerk checks his details and amends the error. Just a little bit of stress that he might have done without.

He proceeds to the business lounge which he knows well and enjoys another coffee. Breakfast will be served on the plane.

The flight leaves a few minutes later than expected with no real danger to Hans' schedule for the day. He eats breakfast, rereads his client notes on his laptop and sleeps a little. The flight arrives in Munich.

As he proceeds off the airliner, Hans realizes that he is short of Euro currency and will need to change some money. He has pre-booked a rental car and will afterward make his way to the underground garage to collect his car. The car rental company is affiliated with the airline and he wants to ensure that his airmiles are credited to his frequent flyer account. He discovers when he reaches the desk that the company is making a special offer today. He can drive a Mercedes for a small upgrade fee and earn double airmiles on his account. Slightly more time is wasted while he takes advantage of this offer. Accumulating maximum airmiles is important for family vacations...

We could continue to explore the rest of Hans' day. For example, the weather at Munich could worsen and the airport might be closed in the late afternoon. Hans would then need to book into a hotel and would need to acquire some toiletries and essential clothes for the following day.

We might choose to call the whole day a single Lifestyle Snapshot or we may choose to break the day into three distinct sections. The first would be the journey from home to the prospective acquisition in Bavaria. The second would be the session at the prospect site including all the negotiations. The third would be the return journey with its subsequent overnight stay due to bad weather.

There are lots of opportunities for Usage Scenarios from this Lifestyle Snapshot. Let's look at just a small number.

Usage Scenario : Auto Check-in for Flight

On arrival at the airport, the Swiss Air system is alerted that a mobile phone belonging to Hans is now transceiving with a local cell site. The system pushes a welcome message (probably via SMS) asking if he would like to check-in by WAP Internet Service.

At this point Hans has probably not yet left his car or he may be already walking with his luggage towards the check-in area.

Hans accesses the Swiss Air site through a bookmark and is given an easy to find navigation link to the "check-in" service. The system already knows why he is logging-in. This is a key point for improved usability - we have a Context for the Interaction. He is asked to confirm his flight number and is prompted for his seat preference. Perhaps the system already knows that he prefers window seats rather than isles.

Usage Scenario : Boarding notification

Hans has already checked-in. He is now waiting in the business lounge but the phone system does not necessarily know this. He could be shopping in the airport, drinking in the bar. It sends him alerts (probably by SMS) that the flight will begin boarding in 10 minutes, then later that boarding has commenced.

Usage Scenario : Rental Car "Push" Advertising

As the system already knows that Hans has checked-in and will be flying to Munich, it should also know that he has a rental car booked and with which company. There is an opportunity to advise Hans that there is a special offer available today and perhaps allow him to confirm that he wants the upgrade and it should be billed to his credit card. Assuming that the system knows his credit card details.

Lifestyle Snapshots provide a Context for an Interaction. They help us to understand a Persona and they give us a tangible situation into which we can apply a design. They act as a "halfway house" between Personas and Usage Scenarios.

Lifestyle Snapshots have proven particularly useful when designing for wireless devices because they allow us to understand the Context of Use for a product which is ultimately aimed at a broad mass market and can conceivably be used in almost any location at any time. Lifestyle Snapshots help us to guess the most likely locations and the most likely times for a particular feature or set of features to be used.

A Lifestyle Snapshot gives us clues as to which features will be needed at or around the same time, which features are needed to work together and should be tightly integrated.

For example, in our airline example, we can see that check-in and frequent flyer miles inquiries need to happen together. Rental Car and related information would be useful. There are advertising opportunities too based on what we know about the Persona's life. It might also have been useful to offer weather and driving conditions.

The better we can understand the User and how that User lives, the more likely we are to design an information age appliance which provides what he needs when he needs it. Personas and Lifestyle Snapshots help us to do that. They are tools which help to produce great, compelling design.

References:

[Constantine and Lockwood, 2000] Essential Use Case Style and Structure, Constantine and Lockwood, www.foruse.com, 2000

[Cooper 99] The Inmates are Running the Asylum, Alan Cooper, Sams, 1999

Notes: What is described above is an imaginary requirements analysis for an Airline Check-in system using WAP Technology. This is being used as design exercise to demonstrate best practice when approaching such a design challenge, and in no way reflects the actual IBM implementation of the Swiss Air system.

If anyone reading this has used the real system, we would love to hear from you. Send feedback to david@uidesign.net