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Assignment x

Through reviewing the Olympic Messaging System's system design methodology, the authors will

provide advice on when particular methodologies would be used and how long they would take. The

methodologies they focus on are the following: early focus on users and tasks, empirical measurement,

and iterative design. There is a fourth principle introduced later on, which they call the “Integrated

Usability Design”.

The authors utilized a huge amount of ideas in their pursuit of the design principles. They printed

scenarios of the interfaces, performed early iterative tests of user guides, preformed early simulations

and early demonstrations, made sure to have a representative for the Olympians, took tours of the

Olympic Village sites and had interviews with Olympians themselves, made oversea tests of the

Family/Friends interface, used a hallway and storefront technique, performed a prototype tests. They

also used unusual techniques such as a “Try to destroy it” test and a win a bear contest. Of course, all

of these ideas had a purpose.

Following the principles may have required more work in the beginning, but they greatly reduced the

work later on. The use of printed scenarios was helpful in showing the first definition of system

functions, the user interface, and hard to imagine deep system organizations. The scenarios also

identified conflicts that a list of functions could not do, allowed people to criticize where their

comments had most impact and changes could be made before code was written. Basically, it helped

them make decisions that were still being debated.

The early user guides were helpful in identifying issues and problems in system organization. When the

developers were performing early simulations, they utilized a Voice Toolkit that allowed them to debug

the user interface, conduct informal user experiments for the interfaces for both major user groups, and

provide demonstrations to raise comments from people. These early simulations also helped to develop

help messages and revealed how much a user should know to use the system.

Hallway methodology was an easy way to get participants for informal experiments, it was enjoyable,

accelerated the rate of progress, and other group members got a better feel for where their work fit in.

The prototype test performed in Yorktown was useful in debugging the system and user interfaces. It

also helped them fine tune of what was implemented in the OMS so far. The contest was useful in

displaying the usability for everyone and caught bugs as well. On the “try to destroy it” test, they were

able to figure how reliable the system was. The final prototype test they performed was useful in

learning how to interface OMS with the Los Angeles telephone network. All in all, the OMS was very

exportable.

The principles are worth following, but there are some consequences. It was sometimes

psychologically difficult to break away from the terminal or leave the lab, and it was sometimes hard to

know what was the best use of time, such as choosing to program a simulator, or program the system.

One of the ways the developers were trying to follow through with the principle was by doing iterative

tests of user guides; the drawback of this was that they prevented well-intentioned but

counterproductive changes later on.

A drawback of prototypes is that it makes it harder for design managers to plan, control, and manage

system development because they always had to depart from fixed plans.

There are other conditions to following these principles as well. You have to have the right tools and a

team with a good mix of skills.

Their system was highly susceptible to sabotage because it held very sensitive info publicly. One thing

that confused me is that sometimes they refer to the principles as methodology, what is the purpose of

this switch, are principles and methodology the same?

The fact that this is a detailed study over one system means that all the ways they followed the

principles (teddy bear contest, etc.) are hard to apply and imagine in other scenarios, it would've been

nice to see more general talk about how to follow the principles, but that is not the nature if this paper

so we cannot hold that against it.