Data Analysis

Behavior patterns

From our formative research, we pulled out several commonly appearing behavior patterns to inform the development of our personas and the overall structure of our calculator design.

  • Teachers do not have enough time to get familiar with the calculators (mentioned by 6 teachers).
  • Teachers are not comfortable using the calculators (mentioned by 9 teachers).
  • Teachers want the calculators to be more of a learning tool (mentioned by 8 teachers).
  • Kids have trouble with long instruction sequences (mentioned by 5 teachers).
  • Students require a lot of repetition of explanations and exercises before they learn the concepts (mentioned by 2 teachers).
  • Teachers feel current calculators are too complex; they require long instruction sequences that the kids must learn and that detract from learning (mentioned by 24 teachers).
  • Many functions on the calculators are not necessary for Algebra 1 (determined from analyses of textbooks).
  • Teachers don’t have enough time to delve into advanced calculator use like programming (mentioned by 1 teacher).
  • Students preferred to work individually, but they would like to check answers with peers (mentioned by 2 students).
  • Students use the calculator to check answers (mentioned by 2 students).
  • Students found word problems most difficult. More "mechanical" topics, such as factoring and solving equations, are initially difficult (mentioned by 2 students).
  • Students do not learn functionality that are not necessary to them. They learn how to use the calculator from their teachers (mentioned by 2 students).
  • Students do not like the look of their calculators (mentioned by 2 students).
  • The concept of slope and y-intercepts is difficult (mentioned by 2 students).
  • Students have different goals. One student is enrolled in extra math classes to excel in the regular school curriculum. Another student would simply like to finish homework as soon as possible.

Personas

We distilled the behavior patterns and formative research into 6 personas: three teachers and three students. These personas served to organize the behavior patterns we observed into the types of teachers and students that exhibited them.

Using our personas, we identified a primary teacher persona, Loretta, who wants to incorporate more activities into her lessons but lacks time due to the recent focus on standardized tests. This insight set our strategy to design our calculator to provide faster learning activities that Loretta can incorporate into her lessons without taking time away from "teaching to the test".

We also identified a negative persona, Ryan, who is a technology enthusiast and makes every effort to incorporate technology into his lessons. We determined that Ryan's needs are already met by existing TI products, thus there was no sense in designing for him. This led to our focus on removing technically advanced functionality, such as programming, from the calculator in favor of simplifying the interface.

From our student personas, we learned that our student users are focused on getting right answers and are easily distracted from math. As a result, our design emphasizes immediate feedback when a student gets problems right or wrong and relies on the teacher to support the student's learning by guiding them through the application of the calculator to the assigned problems.

Select a portrait below to view the persona's description page.