By: Leon Sterling [1] (@swinfict), Rachel Burrows [2]
Associate Editor: Muneera Bano (@DrMuneeraBano)
We must give as much weight to the
arousal of the emotions and to the expression of moral and esthetic values as
we now give to science, to invention, to practical organization. One without
the other is impotent. - Lewis Mumford, Values for Survival,
1946
Now more than ever we are seeing a
blurring of the lines between social sciences and software engineering.
Software developed today incorporates and adapts to our values, attitudes,
emotions, behaviours, amongst others. We need to improve our techniques for
empirically reasoning about these concepts, and then ensure they are
effectively addressed in the design.
Let us consider emotions. People tend
to reject software that does not adequately support the way they wish to feel
while interacting with it. Do existing software engineering techniques
effectively translate emotional goals and requirements into design? We contend
that requirements relating to emotions differ from traditional functional and
non-functional requirements. Emotional goals, such as the goal of feeling
empowered while interacting with software, is a property of a person and not of
software.
Emotional goals are inherently ambiguous, subjective, difficult to elicit, difficult to represent, difficult to address in design, and difficult to evaluate. Existing artefacts that capture soft goals include use cases, personas, scenarios or cultural probes. However, these alone are still insufficient when designing for technology embedded within complex social situations.
Emotional goals are inherently ambiguous, subjective, difficult to elicit, difficult to represent, difficult to address in design, and difficult to evaluate. Existing artefacts that capture soft goals include use cases, personas, scenarios or cultural probes. However, these alone are still insufficient when designing for technology embedded within complex social situations.
For instance, our work in using
electronic health records for self-managing health has shown that patients
wanted to feel empowered, in control and resilient, while maintaining
meaningful connections with family and carers. Current solutions fail to
adequately address these emotional goals; citizens have been confronted with a
platform which they refuse to trust with their personal data.
Emotions and Design
Great designers articulate emotional
goals as higher-level objectives and try to align with the desires, needs and
emotions of users. They are conveyed in brand values, marketing material and
used to inform key design decisions. Hitting the right emotional tone is part
of empathising with the customer and user --- a key step in design thinking.
Referring to emotions happens despite
the lack of consensus in exactly what emotions are. Some believe in a hierarchy
of emotions, building from basic emotions such as fear, anger or joy. Others
believe that emotions are constructed concepts developed through life
experience. We advocate for being able to address emotions as software
requirements.
Motivational Modelling
Motivational modelling is a lightweight
technique that has emerged from our research for expressing emotional
requirements of technology engagement related to the goals to be achieved.
Motivational modelling has now been successfully used in several industry
projects including homelessness,
teaching,
healthcare and
teleaudiology.
Figure
1: Photo of a goal elicitation workshop
Figure
2: Core icons used in motivational models.
Image credit: James George Marshall
In
motivational modelling, three kinds of goals – do, be,
and feel goals – are elicited alongside stakeholders and
possible concerns. The image is from one of these goal elicitation
workshops. Do goals describe what the system to be designed
should do, be goals describe how the system should be,
and feel goals or emotional goals describe how using the
system should feel. The results of the requirements elicitation session(s) are
converted into a hierarchically structured motivational goal model, which contributes
a practical way of communicating visually and verbally the functional, quality
and emotional goals that need to be addressed in the design of new technology
for adoption. A tool for the conversion can be found at motivationalmodelling.com
Motivational
models can subsequently be used throughout the design process to steer
exploration, experimentation and evaluation strategies. The models created can
be used as shared artefacts amongst software teams and non-technical
stakeholders to ensure that the functional, quality and emotional goals of
users are identified, upheld and advocated for throughout the software
engineering process.
Key benefits of
motivational modelling are:
Modelling the
goals, desires and needs of stakeholders
Technical and
non-technical individuals can empathise with the end user and visualise their
differences and dependencies. The model represents emotional goals intuitively.
In our experience, that means the whole team buys into making the software
emotionally relevant rather than just leaving it a responsibility of the UX
team.
Sparking a
conversation that leads to creative solutions
New ideas are
triggered through improved communication, collaboration and joint
problem-solving. Possessing design artefacts alone are not enough. The
activities and deliberations that happen leading up to the finished artefact
are equally important to build understanding and meaning.
Emotional goals are inherently ambiguous. It is instinctual to resolve this ambiguity early to reduce uncertainty in the project. In the case of emotional goals, it is important to maintain the abstract nature of the goal for longer, in order to progress towards a solution.
Motivational
models are part of a longer-term agenda towards improving our ability to
address socially-oriented requirements in software, and more generally to
examine how we represent these concepts throughout the entire software
development process. More information online [link]
No comments:
Post a Comment