Case study Instructions:  Read the following case study carefully, and then answer all the questions  Case Study: BestAcom BestAcom is a small independent real estate agency located in Canberra, ACT, specialising primarily in residential listings. At BestAcom, they pride themselves on their service, extensive knowledge of the area they serve with over 12 years of real estate expertise. Through this experience, their agents

Case study

Instructions: 

• Read the following case study carefully, and then answer all the questions 

Case Study: BestAcom

BestAcom is a small independent real estate agency located in Canberra, ACT, specialising primarily in residential listings. At BestAcom, they pride themselves on their service, extensive knowledge of the area they serve with over 12 years of real estate expertise. Through this experience, their agents have discovered how to smooth the process of buying, selling and renting and guide their customers for the best outcome. Considering the recent advancements, BestAcom intends to use Virtual Reality (VR) as a technology to support prospective customers to inspecting a property remotely before seeing it in person so that agents and potential customers can save valuable time and money.

The agents will use the technology to capture properties in VR using a smartphone, a 360 camera or any relevant technology. The virtual tour then can be uploaded to the VR dashboard with the agency’s branding.

The prospective customers can view their virtual tours on any smart devices (e.g. desktop, tablet or mobile) connected to the internet, and enjoy an immersive experience using a VR headset.

You have been hired as a User Experience consultant to design and evaluate this system that supports agents, and potential customers carry out ALL their intended activities (including but not limited to search, compare, buy, sell, rent, provide feedback), and activities using Virtual Reality.

 

Please note: 

 

• You should refer to the above case of the BestAcom in your answer for each question. 

• List your assumption/s where required in each question.  

 

 

HCI Approach [24 marks]

 

1. Identify usability goals and user experience goals for the above case study and discuss the difference. In your answer, explain with an example whether this design is fun and safe and why? [6 marks]

 

1. Explain in detail how the Internet of Things (IoT) can be used in this case to achieve the best user experience. Provide two separate examples to justify your answer. [6 marks]

 

1. Apply a design thinking framework to envision how this system can be designed and developed for optimum usability and user experience. Explain the developed framework step by step based on the above case. [6 marks]

 

1. Discuss in detail how the following expert review techniques and their principles can be used for the evaluation of BestAcom system. (Hint: relate your answers to the BestAcom case study) [6 marks]

1. Heuristic evaluation
2. Discount heuristics (discount usability engineering)
3. Cognitive walkthrough

 

HCI Design Processes [36 marks]

 

1. Develop a PACT (People, Activities, Context and Technology) framework based on the case above and explain how the PACT analysis can assist to design a better interactive system in this case. [8 marks]

 

1. Considering the HCI design processes (understanding and envisionment), develop the followings in detail: (Hint1: relate your answers to the BestAcom case study for each of the following points; Hint 2: to draw any of the followings you can use any tools such as MS Word, PowerPoint, etc and copy-paste the drawing in this document) [20 marks]

1. Complete three personas and scenarios
2. A detailed object and action analysis for three major activities
3. Wireframes and storyboards for three major activities
4. User journey maps for three major activities

 

1. Discuss how the HCI design processes (understanding, envisionment, design and evaluation) and their principle and techniques can assist you to better design the BestAcom system. In your answer, provide two examples for each of the processes. [8 marks]

 

Evaluation [15 marks]

 

1. Describe three separate usability and three separate user experience criteria that can be used to evaluate the BestAcom system and explain below questions for each criterion: [10 marks]

1. What is the relevance of the criteria for the evaluation?
2. How can the criteria be measured?

 

1. Explain how you would know if the developed criteria (in question 8 above) are any good for the evaluation of the BestAcom? And why? [5 marks]

 

Foundation of Designing Interactive Systems [15 marks]

 

1. Consider implications of human memory for UX and human-computer interaction with implications for the BestAcom system. Explain with two examples what is meant by the term Short-Term and Long-Term Memory implication and how you would consider this in your design. [15 marks]

 

End of questions.