User Needs and Task Analysis

The main audiences will be citizens of Stony Creek and potential visitors for other parts of the country. Secondarily, the site will serve to remind volunteers of activities for which they have volunteered to help.

Citizens of Stony Creek

We will focus on two types of local citizen, apart from the volunteers. The first will be older people who have an appreciation for Stony Creek's past times and would have a natural pride in a local museum. They are potential volunteers, and possible donors of antique objects. The second will be younger people who are not particularly interested in the past, and may have minimal interest in small, rural communities like Stony Creek. These are possibly the most challenging audience, but a Web site has a better chance of directing their attention to the museum than any other medium.

Victoria McGruder is a representative of the first type of citizen. She is 67 years old and considers herself to be "retired", though she's not quite sure what that means, since she's still cooking and cleaning house for her husband, George. George, 72, has recently retired from day-to-day operation of the gas station at the corner of Stony Creek and Willis Road. Their house is next to the gas station on Stony Creek Road, which is near the museum and about as close to "downtown" Stony Creek as you can get. Victoria has only recently begun to use computers and the Internet, and does so primarily to keep in touch with her children and grandchildren by email. The computer was a gift four years ago from her second child, Laura, who lives with her husband and children in Phoenix. The modem speed is 28.8, and the screen is set at 256 colors with a resolution of 640 by 480 so the writing will be large enough for Victoria to see clearly. George does not use the computer. Victoria's task is to see if there's anything of interest for the grandchildren to see at the SCHM when they come for their next visit from Phoenix...and to prove to her daughter that she's not totally helpless in the Internet Age.

Jeff Podzinsky is a 20-year-old man who lives with his parents on Crane Road, about half a mile southwest of Stony Creek, while he commutes to Eastern Michigan University, 6 miles north. He has a part-time job at a car wash in Ypsilanti, and doesn't spend much time in Stony Creek. Most of his friends are fellow students at EMU, but he does hang out with high school friends during vacations. He accesses the Internet from the university labs at broadband speed, but also from home using the family's computer and modem. They have their screen resolution set at 1024 by 768, and their modem is a 56 K model. His task is to see what he can find on the Web about Stony Creek, so he can prove to a girl he met at EMU that his home town isn't totally off the map. He has never been to SCHM - or wanted to go there - but when he finds our Web site, we want to convince him that this would be a good place to take this girl so she'll stop making fun about his being from Stoney Creek.

Volunteers

Sandy Mitchum is a Social Studies teacher at Lincoln High School, and volunteers about 3 hours every month at the museum. She is a single mother about 35 years old, and lives with her 10 and 8 year old girls on Merritt Road, about a mile and a half north of Stony Creek. Her daughters help in the museum when she does. She has been using the computers at school for several years, but has recently been assigned a laptop through a state program to equip teachers. She brings the laptop home every night, and uses it to email her students and friends. The girls are learning to use it, too. Its 56 K modem and LCD screen set at 800 by 600 are attractive for Web surfing. Her task is to find when the next special exhibit will be set up, because she agreed to help with the job..

Out of Town Visitors

Jordan and Dee Freeman are residents of the north side of Ann Arbor and share an interest in the history of Washtenaw County, Michigan. Jordan, in his late 50s, is employed at a small computer company not far from their home, and Dee is a homemaker who does a lot of volunteer work. Their two boys are both grown and married. Both Jordan and Dee use their home computer frequently to get information from the Internet via their cable connection. Their screen resolution is set at 800 by 600. Their task is to find as much information as possible about the early families who settled Washtenaw County. We would like our site to provide that information for them, interest them in coming for a visit to the museum, and possibly even to get Dee to volunteer some time.

Mike and Jen Larrick and their three children live in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, but Mike's parents live in Saginaw, Michigan, where he grew up. Mike and Jen are in their early thirties, and their children are all under ten. They often drive to Michigan at vacation times to visit Mike's parents, and their usual route up US 23 takes them within a mile of Stony Creek - but they know nothing about it, since no signs on the highway announce it. However, Jen is interested in antiques, and the children get restless in the minivan, so they might be willing to stop at the SCHM if they knew of its existence. They connect to the Internet through America Online, using a 56K modem with their screen set at 640 by 480. Their task is to find interesting places along the way to Saginaw where they can stretch their legs and spend half an hour without (necessarily) gaining too much weight.