Task Analysis - Norman Collier

Task 1: Connecting the NetBox

Upon receiving his brand new NetBox, Norman was visibly excited at the prospect of finally being able to connect to the world wide web.

• He opened the packaging and removed the hardware and cables, inspecting each briefly in turn. Norman commented that he was disappointed that there was no user guide for connecting the NetBox.
  
• Norman first of all attempted to place the NetBox on top of his DVD player, in his TV cabinet, but realised that the device was slightly too high to fit. He stood for a few moments, perhaps considering where he should put it, before placing it carefully on the floor and picking up the wireless broadband modem.
  
• He studied the modem intently before shaking his head and placing this back on the floor too.
  
• Norman returned to the small pile of cables and plugged one end of the SCART lead in to the back of the NetBox.
  
• Norman plugged the power lead into the socket at the back of the NetBox and then plugged it in at the wall.
  
• Norman attempted to plug the other end of the SCART lead in to the back of the television set but could not find the correct socket. He also commented that the cable would not reach from the NetBox's location on the floor.
  
• Norman stood for a moment, looking at first the SCART cable and then the modem. He picked up the telephone and called his son for advice.
  
• Norman's son arrived 30 minutes later. His son unplugged the telephone from the wall socket, connected the modem in its place and reconnected the phone cable to the modem.
  
• His son also struggled to find the SCART socket on the back of the TV and had to drag it away from the wall to access the port. He clearly found this very frustrating and strenuous.
  
• His son placed the NetBox on top of the TV so that the SCART lead would reach and connected it to the TV set.
  
• Norman turned the TV on and then the NetBox. The NetBox menu screen appeared and Norman turned to his son to thank him.
• Norman's son experimented with the control and found the settings for text size on the options menu. He changed this so that on-screen text was larger so that Norman could read the screen from his armchair.
  

The whole process took approximately 90 minutes. Norman commented that without his son's help he would not have known what to do to complete the task, although believed that a diagrammatic "quick start guide" would have enabled him to understand what the modem was for and made the whole connection process much clearer to him. Nevertheless, Norman admitted he would not have been able to pull the TV away from the wall to connect the SCART lead, as his son had, and would have had to call him anyway to do this as he does not have the strength.

Task 2: Using the Internet

Norman was asked to visit the BBC News website with his NetBox.

• He pressed "Menu" on his remote control and was presented with the NetBox main menu welcome screen.
• Norman consulted his remote and then the TV screen. He pressed the down arrow and observed the option highlighter move from "1 - Surf the web" to "2 - View your email". He pressed the up arrow and observed the highlighter move upwards again.
• He commented it was "just like" his DVD remote control and pressed "Select" with "Surf the web" highlighted.
• Norman was then presented with the "Surf the web" screen and took a few moments to read the screen before proceeding.
• Norman held the control close to him and referred to a small piece of paper on which he had written the BBC News web address.
• He pressed "2" and "a" appeared on the screen.
• He pressed "2" again and "ab" appeared on the screen. "Oh" he exclaimed and consulted the remote.
• He pressed the left arrow but realised the flashing bar and moved from the end of the input to a position before his last entry. The screen read "a|b".
• He pressed the right arrow, followed by the "#" key to delete his error.
• The screen read "a" so he pressed "#" again.
  
• Starting over, Norman pressed "2" twice and "b" appeared on the screen.
• He pressed "2" twice again. The screen read "bb".
• He pressed "2" three more times, while looking at his key pad, but upon reading "bb2" he realised he had pressed it four times by mistake.
  
• "Oh blow" he exclaimed and pressed the "#" button to delete his last character input.
• He carefully pressed "2" three times and looked up to see "bbc" appear on the screen.
• He studied the remote and looked for the "." button.
• He pressed "1" several times and cycled through a variety of punctuation and special characters (such as '_', '&' and '@'). He did this slowly until he eventually reached '.' on his second cycle.
• Norman commented that it was just the same as his mobile phone and that he didn't like sending texts on that either.
• With the screen reading "bbc.", Norman pressed "2" three more times, "6" three times, and "1" four times until a full stop was reached. The screen now read "bbc.co."
• Norman pressed "8" twice and then "5" twice. He looked up at the screen to see the "Enter web address (URL) text field now contained "bbc.co.uk".
• "Well that was an effort" he exclaimed. He pressed "Select" but nothing happened.
• He pressed the right arrow and the "Go" button became highlighted. He pressed "Select".
• A moment later the screen changed to the BBC main website page. The page was displayed with the default, consistent, NetBox page style - black text on a pastel background with red web links.
• He pressed the down arrow and the highlighter moved down the page to each link in turn.
• He pressed "Select" when the highlighter was over the "News" link.
• The screen changed to the main BBC News page.
  

The whole process took approximately 30 minutes. Norman commented that he found the arrow navigation quite simple and easy to use but did not like the character input controls on the remote control at all. He said it would take a lot of getting used to and surely there must be an easier way of doing it.

Task 3: Send an email

Norman was next asked to send an email to his son, who had provided his email address and was awaiting a communication.

• He pressed "Menu" on his remote control and was presented with the NetBox main menu welcome screen.
• Norman pressed the down arrow and then "Select" with the option "2 - View your email" highlighted.
  
• Norman was presented with the "View your email" screen and was prompted to enter his email address.
• Now familiar with the character input controls, Norman entered his email address. He commented that he entered text quicker this time but it was "still a pain".
• He pressed the down arrow and entered his password.
  
• He pressed down and selected "Sign in". A message appeared saying he had entered an incorrect password. He looked up to see his password was concealed with asterisks (********).
• He entered his password again (his original entry was removed from the text field automatically). He selected "Sign in" again and this time was granted access.
  
• On the next screen he pressed the down arrow to select "2 - Write new email". He pressed "Select".
• Norman entered his son's email address in to the "To" text field. Again, he made a few errors but corrected them.
• He pressed the down arrow twice, giving focus to the main message compose panel.
• Using the key pad he typed "Did you get this". He pressed the down arrow once to highlight "Send" and pressed "Select".
• Five minutes later a message appeared saying "You have 1 new email. Do you wish to read it?". Norman pressed "Select" on the Yes option, which was automatically highlighted (the other option being No).
• Norman was presented with the "Read your email" screen and his new email was automatically displayed. His son had replied "Yes. Well done, Dad! Love Ken."

The whole process took approximately 20 minutes. Norman commented that he was getting a bit more used to the input device but still found it problematic. He commented that he was pleased to have sent and received his first email but did not think he would be able to send longer messages using just the keypad device.

Task 4: Chat and socialise

Norman was asked to access 'Chat', participate in a brief conversation and exit to the main menu.

• He pressed "Menu" on his remote control and was presented with the NetBox main menu welcome screen.
• Norman pressed the down arrow twice and then "Select" with the option "3 - Chat and socialise" highlighted.
• Norman was presented with the "Chat and socialise" screen and was prompted to enter his chat name.
• He entered "Norman" on his remote control and pressed the down arrow to highlight the password text field.
• He entered the same password he had entered for his email address.
• He pressed the down arrow once more, to highlight "Sign in", and pressed "Select".
• The main chat screen appeared and Norman waited for a few moments remarking "So what do I do now?"
• He noticed that the bottom text field was selected and entered "Hello" on his keypad. He pressed the right arrow and pressed "Select" over the on-screen "Send" button. His message appeared in the top window: "Norman says: Hello".
• Norman waited but there was no response.
• He pressed the down arrow once, and then left twice. He pressed "Select" on the "Users" option.
• A message appeared on the screen stating "The following users are currently online:" followed by a list that contained just one entry: "Derek".
• As the only name in the list, "Derek" was already highlighted and so Norman pressed "Select".
• The screen returned to the compose page again and Norman typed "Hello" followed by "Send", as before.
• A while afterwards a message appeared in the top window stating: "Derek says: Hello Norman".
• Norman entered "Hello Derek. Are you using netbox too?"
• A message appeared stating: "Yes. At least, I am trying too".
• Norman entered "I am too. I do not like this this zapper. I want to chat properly."
• After a few short moments the screen read "Likewise."
• Norman entered "Ok. Cheerio."
• Norman navigated to "Exit to Main Menu" and pressed "Select".

The whole process took approximately 35 minutes. Norman commented that it was interesting to talk to somebody else through the TV but would have preferred to be able to "chat properly", again citing the input device as being "far too fiddly". He said he would want to chat on the NetBox again but not using the remote control. He said he did not really understand how to use it and how he would chat with other people, such as his children and grandchildren. "It would be easier just to call them!" he exclaimed.