Designing Effective Speech Interfaces

Investigation

During the first phase, investigation, you determine what work has already been done, and how that work can be used or modified. During the investigation, you review project goals and timeframes, and decide which tools and deliverables will need the most work. Table 11.1 summarizes the steps and sub-steps of the investigation phase. All the work involved in this first phase is documented in the interface design and usability engineering project plan.

Table 11.1 Phase One: Investigation

The first and only step involved in the investigation phase is identifying the current state and scope of the project whose interface you are designing.

Identify Current State and Scope

Usability engineering takes place within the context of software projects. Often you come into the project after the technical work has begun. There is often, therefore, some technical work that has already been done. For example, the software project team may already have some user profile descriptions. This means you may not need as much time during the analysis phase to gather user information. A review of existing profiles and their modification for interface design purposes may be all that's needed. The two sub-steps of this step are: evaluate the project documents, and develop an interface design and a usability project plan.

Evaluate Project Documents

What documents you should evaluate depends ...