How do we begin thinking about creating interactive technology? What is PACT analysis?

PACT ANALYSIS

PACT: “(P)eople conducting (A)ctivities in a (C)ontext using (T)echnology.”

• (P)eople differ from one another along different dimensions:

Physical differences

•   Different abilities in the five senses
•   Differing motor control abilities
•   Different body shapes, sizes and colors.

Psychological differences

1.   Different cognitive biases:
2.   Spatial / temporal awareness
3.   Cultural differences
4.   Language differences

 

  Cognitive differences:

•   What people expect system to do next: mental model

Usage differences

• Differing experience levels: novices use the mouse; pros use keyboard shortcuts
• Discretionary’ users: use the technology only if really necessary.

• (A)ctivities have a purpose, and a number of features:

Temporal aspects:

1. How regular or infrequent is the activity undertaken?
2. Usage history: smooth, or peaks and troughs?
3. Continuous vs. interrupted: how to find your place again?
4. Response time

Cooperation:

1. Can be done by one or more people? (Coordination/cooperation)

Complexity

• Well-defined or vague? Sequential or exploratory design needed?

Safety

• Safety-critical? Lots of feedback, explicit timing, etc.
• How are mistakes, errors and omissions handled?

Nature of The content:

• Data requirements:
• Large/small? Steamy (video,speech)? Chunky (icons/text)?
• How to display data? Text? 2D visual? 3D visual? Motion? Sound?

• (C)ontexts

Three kinds of (C)ontexts

Physical environment

•   Where is the technology? Indoors/outside? Noise levels?
•   Crowded (private)? Internet access: slow in the country, fast in the city.

Social context

•   How many users? Distribution of expertise?
•   Sound output: not in an open-plan office, but OK in a cubicle.

Organizational context

•   Changes in technology impact the structure of companies,
•   cultures, law, nations, social institutions, etc.
•   One technology may create jobs in company X,
•   but destroy jobs in company Y.

• What makes up a (T)echnology?

Input

•   What kind of data is coming in? How much, how often?
•   Input devices appropriate to the data.
•   Exploitation of input devices to broaden information conduits
•   (eg. a moving videocamera can pick up depth information)

Output

•   Streamy (video,speech) vs. chunky (icons/text) output data
•   Chunky data has persistence (does not need to be remembered)
•   Streamy data is more engaging (attracts users) 

Communication

•   What other technologies and people should it communicate with?
•   How? How often? How much bandwidth?

Content (internals)

•   What data is contained within? What data is shared?
•   How many software components, how are they connected?
•   What algorithms are employed?
•   How visible is the data/algorithms to the user? Should it be?