[Assignment] Extreme User Interviews.

"By understanding the role and the mindset of the youngest family member, the IDEO team uncovered new product design opportunities for household cleaning."

I Andrew Desmond, want to understand the laptop rental scheme in the UCD James Joyce library.

My procedure will be: 

To identify individuals who are extremely familiar and unfamiliar with the laptop rental scheme in the library. I will then interview them about their experience with the product. I also plan to record the users interaction with the product.  

I found the following: 

I will first describe my interview with Richard who is extremely familiar with the product. Richard has been using the product for a year. He uses the product 5-days a week, and rents a laptop for an average of 3 hours a day. During study week, he rents a laptop for 12 hours a day. 

Richard using the Laptop Rental Scheme in the UCD James Joyce library. 

After my interview with Richard, I found the following:

• The 3 hour rent limit influenced how long Richard would rent out a laptop; it was also an inconvenience to his daily routine as he would like to rent the laptop from 09:00 - 13:00 and again from 14:00 - 18:00, but this is not possible with the 3 time limit. 
• When the laptop is returned or restarted, the laptop wipes everything that was saved to it. 
• Sometimes the system does not work.
• Their are not enough laptops at peak times. * Peak Times 13:00-15:00 Mon-Thur and Study Week.
• Software which is freely available for UCD students, was not installed on the laptop. This meant that Richard had to use his own laptop for certain modules due to software requirements. 
• Richard found the system easy to use, quick and that all the laptops were in 'excellent working condition'. 
• Out of 5, Richard gave the overall experience 3.5/5. 

Richard Using the Product

My Second interview was with Craig, who is extremely unfamiliar with the product. Craig has only  used the product once before and that was on the Thursday (17/09/2015). Craig used the laptop for 90 minutes.

After my interview with Craig, I found the following: 

Craig using the product

He didn't read the Terms and Conditions page before renting the laptop. 

The 3 hour time limit did influence how long he used the laptop, as he had forgotten what time the laptop was due back and was therefore afraid of getting fined for keeping the laptop over the allotted 3 hours. 

He thought that having to plug the laptop back in as a means of 'clocking back in' the laptop, was risky as the charger may fall out or not register properly. 

He's initial thoughts were that the system was, efficient, quick and that the laptops were in an excellent condition. 

Although he did suggest that their should be more information online on how the system works for first time users.  

Out of 5, Craig gave the overall experience 5/5. 

Craig using the product (for the first time)

Recommendations (as a result of both interviews):

• The time limit for the laptop rental should be extended to 4 hours. 
• Their should be a period of grace before all the information is deleted from the laptop. 
• The software which is freely available on UCD connect should be pre-installed on the laptops. 
• The Terms and Conditions should be set as the laptop's background. 
• When you Log-in, you should be able to have all your pervious files, that are stored in an internal UCD cloud. 
• Their should be a step by step video online for first time users. 
• A pop-up should appear when you have 30 minutes of rental time remaining.