Assignment 3 - User Experience in Lecture Theatres

The objective of this assignment was to analyze and understand students' learning experience in lecture theatres. The final goal was to break down user experience into fundamental aspects that could be redesigned to improve overall usability. As discussed in class, the methods used to acquire information were laddering and ethnography.

Ethnographic studies were done by interviewing users (in this case, current students), and extracting information about the real, physical experience of attending a lecture. Responses varied, but the consensus was that a few key issues were detrimental to the lecture learning experience. For example, there are rarely - if ever - enough outlets to allow students to plug in their laptops to aid learning in lectures. Furthermore, the physical environment bored the students; from the colour of the walls, to the repetitive use of slides, and even to the lack of interaction in lectures, students were not as motivated as they could be. Hence, their learning experience suffered.

Laddering analysis, on the other hand, allowed a concentrated look at the fundamental issues that lead to good or poor experiences in lecture theatres. These interviews were similar to ethnographic interviews, except that questions were continued until the root needs or wants were revealed. For example, when one student mentioned that sometimes he cannot see well in lecture halls, he was asked why that issue is important until it was revealed that "being happy in his career life" is important to him. Other laddering question revealed that students "want to be happy" and even "want their children to have a good life." The laddering analysis definitely helped us when thinking of redesigning lecture halls.

In conclusion, in depth user analysis was done to truly understand the underlying issues surrounding learning experience in lecture theatres. The key changes recommended are (among many) to allow more variable temperature control, design theatres to be circular so as not to have the back rows feel distant and uninvolved, make class sizes smaller to encourage interaction, to have more outlets to allow students to use lap tops more freely, and to change lighting to create a more visually pleasing learning environment.