[Gbda201tas] Milestone 1: Task descriptions

[Cayley MacArthur]

Hi Amanda,

There’s no need for a name for the product at this stage. Determining a name often happens much later in the process, when we start to think about marketing and branding. Remember that the task descriptions are describing the actions a person takes (i.e. “she takes a photo and shares it”) versus *how* they do it (i.e. “she opens Instagram to post a photo to her story”). The way the task description is written makes it feel a bit like there is a cheat code once we get to the second-last sentence: Sohail is having trouble and then – surprise! – there’s an app for that. Think about what the workflow for Sohail would be *normally* in this situation. That’s where we are going to understand what steps users are *already* taking, and find opportunities for the application. If we present a task and say “and then there was an app and it solved all the problems,” we never get to dig into what those problems actually are. Does that make sense? Let me know if I can clarify further.

And a very small thing – the plural of ‘syllabus’ is ‘syllabi’ 😊

Good luck!

Dr. Cayley MacArthur, PhD (she/they)
Assistant Professor
Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business
University of Waterloo

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From: Amanda Chan <a57chan at uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Friday, October 13, 2023 at 12:28 PM
To: gbda210tas at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca <gbda210tas at artsservices.uwaterloo.ca>
Cc: Cayley MacArthur <cayley.macarthur at uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Milestone 1: Task descriptions
Good afternoon!

My group and I are currently working on our user task descriptions were wondering if we could get some feedback on one of our drafts. Our platform is a second-hand site where students can buy and sell goods or services from other students. Also, should we already have a name for the website/app we create for the user task?

Sohail is an incoming first year student going to attend the University of Waterloo for Biology. After checking his fall term class syllabuses, he sees that he will have to buy 3 mandatory textbooks for the upcoming semester. He goes on campus to visit the W store to see the checks of the textbooks he needs to get, and he notices that they’re way out of his price range of $60 dollars each. Debating whether to pay full price, he asks around others in the store to see if there is another option he can do. Ross, a second-year student approaches him and recommends a second-hand platform catered for post-secondary students. He then tells Sohail to go on the platform to check for any textbooks he needs for a cheaper price under $60.

**Discussion part is not yet finished

Thank you,
Amanda Chan
21026195

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