Customer Centred Design - Essay Example

 Customer Centred Design A Description of the Tools and Methods Used in Tutorials Creating the Models We analysed the doctor’s surgery by first of all applying the flow model. Incidentally, three different kinds of models make up the entire flow model. And it is interesting that each of these models represents the point of each person working at the doctor’s surgery. Each individual that was interviewed had his or her point of view (POV). One significance of flow diagram is that it offers the opportunity of understanding the line of communication among the individuals working with the interviewee, and depicting the interrelated tasks that are being undertaken at the workplace and revealing the nature of the artefacts used to accomplish the tasks. Although, sometimes breakdowns of the processes are necessary so as to fully understand how each task flows into one another. It is interesting how sequence models reveal the step by step procedures of a task. Hence, multiple sequence models are made to reflect the work tasks of the three interviewees. This model is helpful in understanding the objectives the interviewees want to meet. This can be immediately obvious or hard to see depending on the situation. Therefore, it is clear that each diagram indicate the steps of tasks and how the individual want to achieve. Initially, this process may be invisible to people, but its routine can be detected with appropriate diagram. So, the procedure reveals breakdowns, on which we all work as a group to achieve the aim of our study. Artefact can described as anything that contains data or information to do with the workplace or current system in use. They are actually annotated drawings, screenshots or 2 photocopies that are utilized at a certain workplace. This may include emails, letters, duty orders, prescriptions, and so on. The artefact model considers the stricture of each artefact structured, and the possibility of its designs helping people and breakdowns. For easy interpretation of each model, some objects will have to be labelled, and these include but not restricted to any writing with different sizes or something too small to read, wasted space and irrelevant information. As a result of this, this model is expected to show tasks carried out at the workplace since this will help show the tasks the interviewees do at their respective posts. The cultural model reveals what kind of influence prevalent at the workplace. Although it may be difficult to perceive this in an organization, but the influencers could be represented in a diagram drawn as an ellipse. The size of each ellipse depends on how much of an influence the person or group exerts within the workplace. The bigger the influence, the bigger the ellipse will be and the smaller the influence, the smaller it will be. The ellipses for the influencers would overlap that of their subordinates they influenced. Thus, the position of the influencers and the power he or she holds could determine the level of influence. Working in small groups before, we have been able to typify the influencers and the nature of their influence at the workplace. In particular, the physical model supposedly represents the workplace. Although this should not be a floor plan, but we use this as a yardstick to understand how people use their workplaces. It should show how properly the workplace is being utilized and how people create layouts based on their work and the possibility of digression from that area, if necessary. In the tutorial we drew a physical plan based on our own experiences in a doctor’s surgery and from the interviews. We made attempts to include the necessary information that may be of utmost help in understanding how the interviewees use their workplace. 3 The Effectiveness of the Tools and Methods The importance of the flow model is to reveal the communications flows between individuals and groups. The model reveals the flows at the workplace by considering the point of view of individual interviewees. The tools made it possible to identify the things people depend on at their workplace, revealing the parts of the process that may be automated for smooth operations. The lines that link each part of the flow reflect good connections among tasks so as to show the many flows between many different parts of the model. This helps to prevent it from getting very cluttered and confusing. Any potential problems were clearly shown by a red mark over the communication making it easy to focus on things that needed to be improved upon (provide an example of a breakdown). Making one for each task confirms that the series of tasks would not get muddled up and it will be possible to trace the task the individuals are handling. The rich picture could be used another option to this. However, rich picture will reveal better visual images than the flow model, which solely relies on words. Obviously, sequence models show each work task done by each person. Some multiples of this were designed. They distinctly reveal the clear step by step sequence of what is occurring but it can sometimes be difficult to decide where something stops and another starts. For instance, when a doctor has diagnosed a patient, it is difficult to state if the decision would include getting medicine from the pharmacy or that will be a separate model. Writing down the trigger on each page helps to analyse what starts each task and it makes the process of following the model to the end to be easy. It however reveals which task is set out to perform well, but it will not reveal a lot about the environment or other people working on the task. 4 Unfortunately, the artefact models in this circumstance were found to be ineffective. This is due to the fact that we only had in our possession a prescription and a screenshot of GPASS to work with which appeared unhelpful. It was a complete waste of time to label the tasks since they were conspicuous enough for anyone to see. Although we discovered that artefact modelling appear to be effective, but it seems it was not necessary that it should be part of the overall task design. The level of influences among people at a particular workplace setting was revealed by cultural models. This can be a difficult job to do hard to do, though it all depends on one’s level of judgement. Drawing the ellipses to indicate the extent of influence within a work setting can also a lot difficult if one does not have idea of what to do. It is not surprising that people had different views on who or what should exert the most influence at the doctors’ surgery. When it has been completed though it does show a good idea of who or what is making the most impact and can often show something that cannot be seen immediately. Nice enough, the physical model was meant to reveal what the doctor’s surgery could look like, while especially looking at how the spaces are utilized and any design problems that may be available. The problem is that one can appear to draw it in any way one likes in so far one utilizes everything highlighted in the interviews and from personal experience into consideration. One may never know if what one has drawn is actually an effective layout until one sets the building up in that fashion. A Reflective Statement on the Section It was interesting for us to identify flow model as the most applicable model we have used so far. Using the outcomes of the interviews from each member of the group helps us to 5 enrich the information we feed into the model. Every bit of information from the interviews is used to produce a satisfactory model designs that would be useful at the doctor’s surgery. Having done rich pictures before, I thought this was a great concept and it showed good information about the task models I was dealing with. I believe I have discovered the most helpful tool that will help me outline the communication flows between people and artefacts situated in similar workplace. The most challenging of the models were sequence models, and I worked hard on the before I could get them right. There were so many of them to create simultaneously, which signified that it would consume a lot of time to complete them. However, group work seemed to alleviate some of the problems associated with this kind of tasks as members offered to help one another is designing the best functional models. The artefact models did not appear so useful in this category. But I discovered that with 2 different artefacts, it may be possible to get a better result. We could not secure other useful things such as screenshots of people’s doctor records or a registration form. I felt it only indicated obvious things, and most medical institutions are not ready to share such vital information with outsiders. It didn’t also appear to be of serious usefulness in the final analysis but I think in a real life situation it may be helpful as one could get one’s hands on more artefacts. Incidentally, the cultural model seemed difficult to interpret. It is an undeniable fact that people in groups sometime have different ideas about who or what had most of an influence on the workplace. The model did make sense but I didn’t feel it had much of a use as it only showed a perspective on who you thought had more control or respect. I felt that it lacked the complete details of how other models would be applicable in this respect. 6 I discovered that it was uninteresting drawing physical model. It appeared as if it was time-wasting exercise since it does not contribute meaningfully to the final analysis. There didn’t seem to be any sense of thought into creating it and when completed it didn’t exactly disclose anything as useful as the communication flows between people or any breakdowns causing problems in surgery operations. It did reveal what it aimed at showing, but these were things that I realized were not so significant. The physical environment is important in a workplace setting but when trying to create a new system; this should probably not be taken as a serious thing. Read More